Principal 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 our Product Architecture and Safety Teams Our Product Architecture and Safety teams connect Wayve’s core AI Driver with the vehicle platforms that bring autonomous driving technology to customers. Working across Engineering, Product, Safety, Validation and customer programs, we define how our software integrates with OEM and Tier 1 systems, supporting safe, reliable deployment while maintaining a consistent core product architecture. 🧠 Your day-to-day As a Principal Software Architect, you’ll lead the technical architecture for integrating Wayve’s autonomous driving technology with automotive OEM vehicle platforms. You’ll work at the boundary between our core AI Driver and external vehicle systems, translating product ambitions and customer needs into clear interfaces, requirements and technical decisions. Your work will span high-level architecture and implementation details, from sensors and middleware to ECU constraints, timing, diagnostics, safety assumptions, data logging and validation. You’ll bring structure to ambiguous problems, guide architecture work across teams and own key decisions across customer programs. Along the way, you’ll build alignment with engineering, product, safety, validation, program and commercial leaders. 🧩 What you’ll be working on - Defining integration architecture: Shape how Wayve software interfaces with OEM and Tier 1 vehicle systems, balancing customer program needs with the evolution and reusability of our core architecture. - Making ownership explicit: Turn customer and partner discussions into clear interface contracts, ownership boundaries, assumptions, dependencies and open technical decisions, including what is Wayve-owned, partner-owned, jointly defined or out of scope. - Translating needs into requirements: Partner with Product and Engineering to develop actionable technical specifications. Establish a consistent approach to decomposing customer requirements into system and software requirements, including allocation, traceability and change control. - Owning architecture decisions: Lead architecture reviews, maintain decision records and make the final technical call within your scope when consensus cannot be reached. - Planning for successful delivery: Assess feasibility, integration complexity, technical gaps and risks. Identify dependencies and required partner deliverables to support customer program planning. - Building verifiable solutions: Work with Safety and Validation teams to define safety assumptions, integration test requirements and clear evidence that customer requirements have been met. - Representing Wayve with partners: Lead technical discussions with OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, supported by clear interface specifications, integration guides, architecture diagrams and decision records. - Leading across teams: Coordinate architects and engineering teams, negotiate competing priorities, resolve or escalate conflicts early, and mentor architects and senior engineers to build a shared architecture culture. 🙌 You should apply if - You bring substantial experience in ADAS, autonomous driving, embedded software or vehicle systems, particularly at the software–vehicle interface. Typically, you’ll have 12+ years of relevant experience, including architecture ownership for a complete product or multiple programs. - You can define clear product boundaries, ownership models and interface contracts between internal software and external vehicle systems. - You understand vehicle electronics and embedded software constraints, including ECU integration, real-time execution, timing, diagnostics and production vehicle software environments. - You’re familiar with automotive communication protocols and electrical/electronic architectures, such as CAN, FlexRay, Automotive Ethernet, SOME/IP or AUTOSAR. - You’ve worked with automotive OEMs or Tier 1 suppliers and can navigate their requirements, standards and integration constraints. - You’ve established and run requirements processes across multiple teams or programs, translating ambiguous needs into clear, traceable and verifiable system and software specifications. - You can move confidently between system-level architecture and implementation details, making sound technical decisions under uncertainty and maintaining consistency as programs evolve. - You’ve led architecture work across teams and influenced senior stakeholders without direct authority, building support and handling competing priorities constructively. - You communicate complex technical ideas clearly through specifications, diagrams and reviews, and enjoy mentoring others.   🌱 Not ticking every box? That’s totally okay! If you’re passionate about autonomy and keen to learn, we encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet every requirement.   More about Wayve: 🚀 Wayve is building the leading AI platform for autonomous driving. We are pioneering an end to end AI approach that enables vehicles to learn directly from real world experience, developing the ability to adapt, generalise and improve at scale. Instead of relying on hand coded rules or pre mapped environments, our AI Driver learns to drive by understanding the world around it. The result is technology that navigates complex urban environments with intelligence, precision and natural flow, unlocking meaningful advances in both safety and efficiency. We believe autonomy represents a once in a generation transformation in how people and goods move, comparable to the shift from horses to cars, and from human driven vehicles to intelligent machines. Our ambition is to make autonomy universal. Wayve’s mapless and hardware agnostic AI platform integrates with global OEM partners, enabling continuous software evolution and unlocking advanced levels of automation from L2 plus through to L4 as our core AI model scales. In a race increasingly defined by intelligence and real world learning, Wayve is taking a distinct approach, building a generalisable driving intelligence that can power any vehicle, anywhere. By combining embodied AI with scalable deployment, we are creating technology that can be shaped to each OEM brand and driver experience, accelerating the transition to a safer, more intelligent future of mobility.   How we work 💻- Locations & Flexible Working: Our main hubs are in London, Sunnyvale, Yokohama, Herzliya, Vancouver and Leonberg. We operate a hybrid working model that combines in-person collaboration in our dedicated office spaces with focused time working remotely. This gives our teams the connection and energy of working together, alongside the flexibility to do their best work in a way that fits their lives.   🔍 The Interview Process: Our process is clear and respectful of your time: - Initial call / recruiter screen - Hiring Manager Interview - Deep-dive technical interviews - Final interview: mission & values alignment We’ll always explain the format and work around your availability. What’s in it for you (Location dependant): 💰 Salaries benchmarked against the market annually 📈 Meaningful equity, sharing in the ownership and long term success of Wayve ✈️ Relocation support and visa sponsorship where applicable ✅ Hybrid working, core hours and the chance to work hands on in vehicle workshops and labs 📚 Learning and development budgets with support for training, conferences and growth 🩺 Comprehensive benefits including health insurance, dental, enhanced maternity and paternity leave, retirement or pension where applicable, access to therapists, wellbeing partnerships, team socials and more A quick, honest note before you apply. Wayve is not a mature, fully-structured place with the playbook already written. Much of how we work is still being written, and if you join, you’ll help write it. That suits people who want real ownership more than people who need a settled structure from day one. If that sounds like the kind of problem you want to spend your time on, we’d really like to hear from you. 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. For more information visit Careers at Wayve. https://wayve.ai/careers/ To learn more about what drives us, visit Values at Wayve https://wayve.ai/careers/ 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.