Staff Software Engineer, Storage Platform

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 AI Platform Teams

Our AI Platform teams build the infrastructure that powers Wayve’s embodied AI. We store and serve hundreds of petabytes of driving data, growing towards exabyte scale, to support model training, simulation and data pipelines across regions and clouds.

As our first dedicated Staff Software Engineer for Storage Platform, you’ll set the technical direction for how we manage, protect and serve this data. Working closely with Infrastructure, Security, Privacy, Data Engineering and ML teams, you’ll help make training more efficient while reducing one of Wayve’s largest infrastructure costs.

🧠 Your day-to-day

• Lead a hands-on, multi-quarter storage programme, from defining the problems and architecture to delivering platforms that teams adopt.

• Build production services, controllers and infrastructure using Python, Go or a similar language, alongside Kubernetes and Terraform.

• Partner with ML and data teams to understand access patterns, remove storage bottlenecks and reduce the time GPUs spend waiting for data.

• Work with Security and Privacy to strengthen access controls, auditing and safe deletion of vehicle-collected data.

• Write design documents and RFCs, align teams around shared standards, and mentor engineers as the platform and team grow.

🧩 What you’ll be working on

• Data ownership and governance: Give datasets clear owners, purposes and retention classes, with tagging and team-level cost attribution.

• Safe lifecycle management: Build retention, deletion and re-tiering capabilities for Azure Blob, backed by dry runs, audit trails and recovery paths.

• Read performance and caching: Improve throughput and latency by tackling small-object reads, throttling, unnecessary data access and cross-region hops.

• Secure data movement: Design Kubernetes-native NVMe caching and secure replication across regions and clouds.

• Measurable platform outcomes: Establish standards, dashboards and SLOs for availability, performance, cache effectiveness, storage tiers and cost.

🙌 You should apply if

• You’ve operated at Staff Engineer scope, leading complex infrastructure programmes across multiple teams from problem definition through adoption.

• You’ve owned petabyte-scale object storage end to end—including data layout, lifecycle management, performance and cost—with measurable outcomes against a cost target.

• You’ve built scalable systems for data ownership, tagging, cataloguing, retention or deletion.

• You bring strong security and access-management experience, including IAM/RBAC, encryption, secure replication and auditing.

• You’re a hands-on software engineer with strong Python, Go or comparable skills, plus production Kubernetes, Terraform and CI experience. You build durable platforms and services, not just one-off scripts.

• You can influence technical decisions without formal authority, mentor others and are excited to start in a founding, hands-on role with the opportunity to grow a team.

• You can work on a hybrid basis from our London office.

Experience with AWS or GCP is welcome—you don’t need to have worked exclusively with Azure.

🌱 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 (30 mins) - A conversation with our Talent Partner about your experience, interest in the role and practical details.

• Competency Interviews (60 mins) - A programming interview to assess your hands-on software engineering skills.

• Deep-dive technical interviews - A system design interview and a domain-specific interview with the Hiring Manager, exploring your storage experience, technical leadership and approach to the role.

• Final interview (30 mins) - 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. To learn more about what drives us, visit Values at Wayve

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.