Principal Validation Tech Lead / Manager, L4 Driverless Autonomy

Wayve is building the leading AI platform for autonomous driving by pioneering an end-to-end learning approach. Their AI Driver learns directly from real-world experience, enabling vehicles to navigate complex urban environments with intelligence and precision without relying on hand-coded rules or pre-mapped environments. The company's mapless and hardware-agnostic platform integrates with global OEM partners and supports continuous software evolution across automation levels L2+ through L4.

Wayve operates across major hubs in London, Sunnyvale, Yokohama, Herzliya, Vancouver and Leonberg with a hybrid working model balancing in-person collaboration and remote focus time. The company is still actively shaping how it works, creating meaningful ownership opportunities for people who thrive in fast-moving, ambiguous environments where they help define processes and standards.

This Principal Validation Tech Lead role sits within the Simulation, Evaluation, and Validation team, overseeing the strategies and systems that build trust in the Wayve AI Driver across product releases and customer deployments.

What you'll do

• Lead validation strategy for advanced driver-assistance and autonomous-driving functions, spanning multiple test modalities and translating product and safety requirements into measurable coverage and acceptance criteria.

• Work hands-on with Python-based evaluation tools, metrics, simulation results, and large datasets to analyse validation outcomes.

• Design comprehensive test suites that combine simulated scenarios and physical vehicle testing, with behaviour metrics connecting system requirements to real driving performance.

• Build scalable, automated validation workflows supporting multiple products and customer deployments, including approaches for learned and adaptive behaviours in end-to-end AI systems.

• Coordinate dependencies across data, simulation, evaluation, and engineering teams to enable validation at scale.

• Communicate validation evidence clearly to Product, Safety, Release, and Autonomy Engineering stakeholders, providing technical leadership that raises quality standards in fast-moving programmes.

What you'll bring

• Significant experience validating complex systems in automotive, autonomous-driving, robotics, aerospace, or similarly safety-critical domains.

• A track record of leading validation concepts from initial ambiguity through implementation, execution, and reporting.

• Proficiency with Python for implementing metrics and working within evaluation codebases; SQL experience is valuable.

• Understanding of both simulated and physical testing environments, with the ability to make evidence-based decisions from imperfect data.

• Clear communication skills, strong documentation practices, and demonstrated ability to align technical stakeholders across multiple disciplines.

Nice to have

• Experience with machine learning, computer vision, motion planning, data science, SOTIF, safety validation, or agentic AI workflows.

What they offer

• Salaries benchmarked annually against the market, plus meaningful equity sharing in Wayve's long-term success.

• Relocation support and visa sponsorship where applicable, hybrid working with core hours and hands-on access to vehicle workshops and labs.

• Learning and development support for training, conferences, and professional growth, along with comprehensive location-dependent benefits including health coverage, family leave, retirement or pension support, and wellbeing resources.