Director of Application Software

At Wayve we're committed to creating a diverse, fair and respectful culture that is inclusive of everyone based on their unique skills and perspectives, and regardless of sex, race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, citizenship, marital, domestic or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, pregnancy or related condition  (including breastfeeding) or any other basis as protected by applicable law.  

About us   

Founded in 2017, Wayve is the leading developer of Embodied AI technology.  Our advanced AI software and foundation models enable vehicles to perceive, understand, and navigate any complex environment, enhancing the usability and safety of automated driving systems.

Our vision is to create autonomy that propels the world forward.  Our intelligent, mapless, and hardware-agnostic AI products are designed for automakers, accelerating the transition from assisted to automated driving.  

At Wayve, big problems ignite us—we embrace uncertainty, leaning into complex challenges to unlock groundbreaking solutions. We aim high and stay humble in our pursuit of excellence, constantly learning and evolving as we pave the way for a smarter, safer future.

At Wayve, your contributions matter.  We value diversity, embrace new perspectives, and foster an inclusive work environment; we back each other to deliver impact.  

Make Wayve the experience that defines your career!  

The role 

Our core product is a distilled end-to-end neural network stack that delivers intelligent driving capabilities — from advanced driver assistance (ADAS) and automated parking to full autonomous navigation. Our software-only solution is hardware-agnostic, designed to run efficiently across a range of automotive platforms such as NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and others. We’re committed to building a product that integrates seamlessly into customer environments and scales globally. 

We are seeking a visionary and technically strong Director of Application Software to lead the architecture, development, and delivery of the application-layer software libraries that enable our product to integrate into diverse customer platforms and vehicle architectures. This leader will drive the definition and implementation of robust and portable software integration frameworks compatible with Linux-based hypervisors, QNX, Adaptive AUTOSAR, and other industry-relevant automotive OS and middleware stacks.

This role requires close collaboration with platform engineering, system integration, product, and customer engineering teams to ensure consistent and reliable product behaviour across heterogeneous deployment environments.

Key responsibilities

• Own the application-layer software architecture and lead the development of reusable libraries and interfaces that enable seamless integration of our embodied AI stack into OEM environments.
• Define and maintain robust abstraction layers and platform adaptation strategies for a variety of target systems (e.g., NVIDIA Drive, Qualcomm Ride, Renesas, etc.).
• Lead cross-functional efforts to ensure compatibility with Linux (with hypervisors), QNX, and Adaptive AUTOSAR operating environments.
• Collaborate with system architecture and product teams to define integration requirements aligned with safety, performance, and scalability objectives.
• Ensure software interfaces comply with industry standards and customer-specific integration patterns.
• Hire, lead, and mentor a high-performance application software team focused on cross-platform delivery and deployment tooling.
• Drive quality and robustness by incorporating modern software engineering practices (e.g., CI/CD, containerization, secure boot support, OTA readiness).
• Work directly with OEM and Tier 1 partners during evaluation, integration, and validation of the product in customer environments.
• Serve as the technical point of contact for internal and external stakeholders on all matters related to application software architecture and integration.

About you 

In order to set you up for success as Director of Application Software at Wayve, we’re looking for the following skills and experience.

Essential

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, with at least 5 years in a leadership role in automotive or embedded systems domains.
• Deep expertise in C++, Python, and system-level programming for Linux, QNX, and Adaptive AUTOSAR environments.
• Proven experience integrating AI workloads into automotive software stacks, ideally across multiple hardware platforms (e.g., NVIDIA Orin, Qualcomm Ride, etc.).
• Strong understanding of virtualization, hypervisors, bootloaders, and automotive middleware.
• Familiarity with ISO 26262, ASIL decomposition strategies, and functional safety considerations for application-layer software.
• Experience building and leading distributed, high-performance engineering teams.

Desirable

• Experience integrating AI-driven or end-to-end neural network software into embedded real-time environments.
• Exposure to OTA strategies, cybersecurity standards (e.g., ISO/SAE 21434), and data logging interfaces.
• Hands-on knowledge of BSPs, RTOS tuning, and cross-compilation toolchains.
• Familiarity with automotive-grade CI/CD pipelines and deployment frameworks.

This is a full-time, office-based role located in either Sunnyvale or London or Leonberg, depending on the candidate's place of residence. At Wayve we want the best of all worlds so we operate a hybrid working policy that combines time together in our offices and workshops to fuel innovation, culture, relationships and learning, and time spent working from home.   We operate core working hours so you can determine the schedule that works best for you and your team. 

We understand that everyone has a unique set of skills and experiences and that not everyone will meet all of the requirements listed above. If you’re passionate about self-driving cars and think you have what it takes to make a positive impact on the world, we encourage you to apply.

For more information visit Careers at Wayve. 

To learn more about what drives us, visit Values at Wayve 

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DISCLAIMER: We will not ask about marriage or pregnancy, care responsibilities or disabilities in any of our job adverts or interviews. However, we do look to capture information about care responsibilities, and disabilities among other diversity information as part of an optional DEI Monitoring form to help us identify areas of improvement in our hiring process and ensure that the process is inclusive and non-discriminatory.