Forensics Engineer

The role

As an Autonomous Driving Forensics Engineer in our Detectives team, part of the Model Integration and Release group, you will investigate issues that arise across the full Wayve AV stack. Working closely with teams across the business, you will identify root causes efficiently, test solutions thoroughly, and provide actionable insight that improves overall AV performance.

Your role sits at the heart of performance improvement, identifying systemic issues within the full end-to-end stack of our AV vehicles. To do so you will work cross-functionally, interacting with all areas of the business, from hardware and software engineers to roboticists, platform developers, model development and operational teams.

We're looking for someone curious, pragmatic, and system-minded: a broad thinker who is comfortable operating with limited information, thrives outside their comfort zone, and lets facts and data drive their conclusions. Just as important is the ability to communicate clearly and build strong working relationships across teams, bringing people with you as you work towards an answer.

Key responsibilities:

• Issue investigation & root cause analysis: Triage on-road data and conduct deep dives into recurring issues, identifying patterns across the fleet to pinpoint root causes across the robot, model, or software.
• Data analysis & communication: Analyse data and communicate insights clearly, using dashboards and/or visualisations to make complex issues easy for others to understand and act on.
• Cross-functional collaboration: Work closely with engineering, model development, operations, and safety teams, including taking rides in the vehicles, to understand issues and partner with system owners through to a resolution.
• Process & automation: Develop automated workflows and investigation playbooks that improve turnaround time and enable faster testing cycles.
• Simulation & testing: Leverage simulation and other offline tools to reproduce and debug issues, minimising the need for fleet resources.
• Breadth of work: Provide investigative and systems engineering support across a broad and evolving range of problems, from new vehicle platforms to emerging programmes and release testing, as the technology and fleet grow.
• Incident response: Investigate on-road incidents to establish what happened and why, feeding lessons back to the relevant teams and strengthening our wider safety culture.

About you

In order to set you up for success as an Autonomous Driving Forensics Engineer at Wayve, we're looking for the following skills and experience.

Essential

• 3+ years working with complex systems for robotics, autonomous vehicles, or comparable engineered systems.
• Excellent critical thinking and problem-solving skills to identify and resolve complex issues within robotics and AI systems.
• A systems-thinking mindset, comfortable investigating across the full stack, spanning hardware, software, and models.
• Prior experience designing real-world experiments to prove or disprove hypotheses.
• Great communication skills, able to explain complex technical problems to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experienced with writing Python, particularly for data analysis; confident in writing scripts for a wide variety of analytic use cases, leveraging AI tools to work more efficiently.
• A track record of influencing team and company direction through your findings.
• A safety-conscious mindset, alert to when an issue carries safety implications and comfortable raising it.

Desirable

• Practical experience applying and evaluating machine learning models.
• Experience working with safety-critical systems.
• Experience in the automotive, robotics, or AI industries.
• A track record of promoting statistical rigour and experimental best practices in your prior roles.
• Experience working in a fast-moving tech company or startup.

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.

What we offer you

• The chance to be part of a truly mission driven organisation and an opportunity to shape the future of autonomous driving. Unlike our competitors, Wayve is still relatively small and nimble, giving you the chance to make a huge impact
• Competitive compensation and benefits
• A dynamic and fast-paced work environment in which you will grow every day - learning on the job, from the brightest minds in our space, and with support for more formal learning opportunities too
• A culture that is ego-free, respectful and welcoming (of you and your dog) - we even eat lunch together every day
• Benefits such as an onsite chef, workplace nursery scheme, private health insurance, cycle scheme, therapy, yoga, two onsite bars, large social budgets
• 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 also operate core working hours so you can be where you need to be for family and loved ones too. Teams determine the routines that work best for them

This role is a full-time role based in Sunnyvale, CA (hybrid) and the reasonably estimated salary for this role ranges from $209,700 to $238,250, plus a competitive equity package. Actual compensation is based on the candidate's skills, qualifications, and experience. 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.