Director, Application Engineering, US

Wayve • Detroit, MI

4d • $490,000 - $600,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Wayve is entering an exciting stage of its journey as we take our AI Driver from breakthrough technology into production vehicles at global scale. As Director of Application Software, US, you will lead the engineering organisation responsible for bringing Wayve’s core AI and autonomous driving technology into customer vehicles. Sitting at the intersection of our AI and autonomy teams, vehicle engineering, and automotive partners, your team will help turn advances in our core technology into safe, reliable, production-ready driving capabilities. This is a highly collaborative technical leadership role with the opportunity to shape how Wayve approaches application engineering as we grow. You will build and develop our US organisation, establish strong partnerships with our core engineering teams and customers, and create approaches that allow us to deploy our technology efficiently across different vehicles, platforms, and markets. We are looking for someone who combines an understanding of autonomous driving and machine learning with strong vehicle systems knowledge. You will not need to be the specialist in every part of the technology stack. You will be supported by experienced technical leaders across application software, integration, AI, and infrastructure. What matters is having the technical judgement to connect these areas, ask the right questions, make thoughtful trade-offs, and create an environment where great engineering teams can succeed.

Requirements

• Significant engineering and leadership experience within autonomous driving, ADAS, automotive AI, or related vehicle technologies.
• Strong understanding of autonomous driving and machine learning, including how ML-enabled driving capabilities are developed, integrated, validated, and deployed in vehicles.
• Experience taking a new driving feature, behaviour, or capability from development towards production, with meaningful technical ownership across the autonomy/ML and vehicle integration lifecycle.
• Experience delivering complex software or AI-enabled systems within production automotive programmes, with a good understanding of vehicle systems, embedded platforms, and integration constraints.
• Experience building and leading multidisciplinary engineering teams, including developing senior engineers, technical leaders, and/or engineering managers.
• Strong technical judgement and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively across engineering disciplines and build trusted relationships with OEM customers and technical partners.

Nice To Haves

• Experience developing or deploying end-to-end learned driving systems, including model training, adaptation, tuning, or deployment.
• Familiarity with automotive embedded environments such as C++, Linux, QNX, or Adaptive AUTOSAR.
• Familiarity with automotive development, safety, and security frameworks such as ISO 26262, ISO/SAE 21434, UN R155/156, or A-SPICE.
• Experience working across multiple vehicle platforms or OEM programmes and creating reusable technical approaches that can scale across customers.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow our US Application Software organisation, creating an inclusive, collaborative environment where engineers and technical leaders can do their best work.
• Own how Wayve’s core AI and autonomous driving technology is applied to customer vehicle programmes, from technical definition through integration, validation, release, and production.
• Guide the development and delivery of new ADAS and autonomous driving capabilities across machine learning, autonomy, vehicle systems, and application software.
• Create a strong technical bridge between Wayve’s core engineering teams and our OEM customers, ensuring customer and vehicle requirements are understood and reflected in engineering priorities.
• Provide technical and architectural leadership across autonomous driving, ML-enabled systems, embedded software, vehicle integration, and deployment.
• Partner closely with AI, autonomy, product, safety, validation, release, and systems engineering teams to solve complex technical challenges and deliver high-quality customer outcomes.
• Turn learning from individual customer programmes into reusable components, engineering practices, and integration approaches that can accelerate future deployments.
• Build trusted relationships with senior engineering stakeholders at our automotive partners and represent Wayve in technical discussions, architecture reviews, and programme planning.
• Develop senior engineers and engineering managers, creating clear ownership while empowering technical leaders throughout the organisation.
• Bring insights from customer deployments back into Wayve’s core technology and product teams, helping shape the evolution of our architecture and global deployment strategy.

Benefits

• 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

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed