Distinguished Software Architect

Before the detail, here's the challenge you'd help us solve. We build the embodied intelligence that moves real vehicles safely, and the ecosystem a billion machines will run on in the future. Very few people in AI can say this. Every role here, whatever the team, plugs into that. Here’s what this particular role covers. 🛠️ About The Role Wayve is building the next generation of embodied AI for autonomous driving. As we move from developing our core technology to deploying it across multiple vehicle platforms, OEM programmes and Robotaxi applications, the complexity of our software systems is growing significantly. We’re looking for a Distinguished Software Architect to help define how our software architecture evolves through this next phase of scale. This is a highly cross-functional individual contributor role operating at the intersection of AI, robotics and large-scale software systems. You’ll work across our onboard software, AI, simulation, training and inference, product engineering and Robotaxi teams, helping ensure that the systems we build today can scale across the products, hardware platforms and physical environments we need tomorrow. You’ll work alongside some of Wayve’s most senior technical and engineering leaders on architectural decisions that cut across the entire technology stack, from AI models and compute through to the software running on physical vehicles.   🧠 Your day-to-day You’ll operate across engineering organisations rather than within a single team, developing a deep understanding of how our AI, software and physical systems fit together and where architectural decisions in one area impact another. You’ll work closely with senior engineers and engineering leaders to identify architectural challenges, shape technical direction and lead major changes that span multiple teams. You’ll act as a trusted technical partner on some of our hardest engineering decisions, helping teams navigate trade-offs between immediate delivery needs and the long-term health and scalability of the overall system. A significant part of the role will be leading through technical credibility and influence, creating alignment across teams and helping raise the bar for software design and engineering practices across Wayve.   🧩 What you’ll be working on - Defining architectural direction across Wayve’s software ecosystem as we scale our AI Driver across an increasing number of vehicle platforms and products. - Creating clear software boundaries, interfaces and abstractions across AI, compute and vehicle systems, allowing teams to develop quickly without introducing unnecessary fragmentation. - Leading large architectural changes that span multiple engineering organisations. - Improving how software is developed, integrated, tested and deployed across different hardware and vehicle platforms. - Working across onboard software, computer vision, AI, simulation, training and inference, product engineering and Robotaxi systems. - Helping shape the development platforms and engineering systems that underpin how Wayve builds and deploys physical AI at scale. - Partnering with teams working with OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers to ensure our architecture can support different production environments, hardware configurations and integrations. - Acting as a technical decision-maker and tiebreaker on complex architectural decisions. - Helping establish a strong engineering and design culture for building large-scale, safety-critical AI and robotics systems.   🙌 You should apply if - You’ve operated as a Principal, Distinguished or equivalent senior individual contributor and have shaped the architecture of large, complex software systems. - You have a track record of leading significant technical or architectural change across multiple teams or engineering organisations. - You’re an exceptional systems thinker who can understand a broad technical landscape while still going deep where necessar