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Wayve is seeking an exceptional technical leader to establish and manage a new Japan-based Application Engineering team focused on localizing and advancing autonomous driving technology for the Japanese market. This is a founding manager role with significant autonomy and impact.
In this position, you will lead a small, high-performing team of engineers working across robotics, machine learning, and systems integration. Your primary responsibilities include:
- Driving development of autonomy features tailored to Japan's unique road infrastructure, cultural driving behaviors, and regulatory landscape
- Ensuring Wayve's autonomous vehicle stack performs safely and effectively in this distinctive environment
- Operating with substantial independence from London HQ, setting vision, executing rapidly, and making robust decisions while maintaining alignment with global engineering efforts
- Reviewing and guiding technical work across software engineering, ML, controls, and systems integration
- Interfacing directly with OEM customers and representing engineering in external-facing conversations
- Building and growing a geographically distributed, high-performing team in a startup-like environment
Wayve builds an end-to-end AI platform for autonomous driving that enables vehicles to learn directly from real-world experience. The company pioneered a mapless, hardware-agnostic approach that adapts and generalizes at scale, integrating with global OEM partners to enable continuous software evolution from L2+ through L4 automation.
The role requires breadth and depth: strong experience across autonomous vehicle systems, robotics, and autonomy is essential, with deep expertise in machine learning as a major plus. You will thrive in conditions of ambiguity, defining goals and carving out roadmaps with minimal supervision. Excellent cross-cultural communication skills are critical given the time zone difference and need to convey technical context and strategic vision across cultures.
Wayve operates hybrid working with main hubs in London, Sunnyvale, Yokohama, Herzliya, Vancouver, and Leonberg. The company offers relocation support and visa sponsorship, meaningful equity, learning and development budgets, comprehensive benefits including health insurance, dental, enhanced parental leave, retirement/pension, and access to wellbeing resources.
REQUIREMENTS:
Essential:
- Strong background in robotics and autonomy with experience building and deploying systems in real-world environments
- Demonstrated ability to lead and grow high-performing engineering teams, ideally in geographically distributed or independent settings
- Comfort with ambiguity; ability to define goals, carve out roadmaps, and deliver high-impact work with minimal supervision
- Broad technical fluency capable of reviewing and guiding work across software engineering, ML, controls, and systems integration
- Excellent communication skills to convey technical context and strategic vision across cultures and time zones
- Strong product sense and stakeholder management skills; comfort interfacing directly with OEM customers and representing engineering externally
Desirable:
- Prior experience in autonomous vehicles or robotic systems operating at scale
- Familiarity with Japan's road environment, driving behavior, or AV regulatory landscape
- Strong foundation in machine learning and its application to real-time decision-making or perception systems
- Japanese language proficiency (not required, but useful for day-to-day coordination)
