{"id":2984899,"url":"https://alion.io/job/wayve-senior-staff-systems-engineer-ai-validation","title":"Senior / Staff Systems Engineer, AI Validation","company":{"id":55,"name":"Wayve","domain":"wayve.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/wayve","size_band":"501-1000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":null},"role":"Field & Service","role_family":"Field & Service","seniority":"staff","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Sunnyvale, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":209700,"max":311400,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":311400},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Agentic Workflows","optional":false},{"name":"Embodied AI","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-05T04:54:17Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-05","last_verified_at":"2026-10-29T20:54:30Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":24,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":24},"description":"Before the detail, here's the challenge you'd help us solve.\nWe 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.\nHere’s what this particular role covers.\nAbout our Engineering Teams\nWayve’s engineering teams are building the AI, robotics, simulation, data, and systems foundations needed to deploy a generalisable AI Driver safely and at scale.\nAbout AI Validation\nAI Validation is a small, fast-growing team responsible for proving that the Wayve AI Driver behaves safely and effectively. The team owns end-to-end, simulation-led validation across driving competencies such as intersections, crossings, and lane changes.\nYour day-to-day\nOwn validation for one or more driving-behaviour competencies from strategy through execution.\n\nDevelop metrics and automated tests that connect product requirements to measurable driving performance.\n\nRun simulation-based evaluations, analyse results, and investigate failure modes.\n\nDefine coverage requirements, test suites, and acceptance criteria with Product, Safety, and AV Engineering.\n\nReport clear findings to Release and Autonomy Engineering stakeholders.\n\nWork across data, simulation, and evaluation teams to remove dependencies and scale automated validation.\n\nWhat you’ll be working on\nGeneral-purpose metrics for on-road and simulated driving behaviour.\n\nAutomated test frameworks for end-to-end learned driving systems.\n\nScenario coverage for complex behaviour areas, including unprotected intersections, crosswalks, and lane changes.\n\nValidation strategies that work across multiple autonomy products.\n\nEvidence that directly influences release decisions and helps bring the Wayve AI Driver to customers globally.\n\nYou should apply if\nYou have hands-on experience with behaviour validation in autonomous driving, robotics, or a related product domain.\n\nYou have worked beyond basic lane-keeping or conventional ADAS and understand L2+, L3, or L4 validation challenges.\n\nYou can write Python professionally and have implemented metrics, tests, or evaluation tooling yourself.\n\nYou are a systems thinker who enjoys turning ambiguous requirements into practical, automated tests.\n\nYou can adapt to evolving simulation paradigms and communicate findings clearly.\n\nExperience with SQL, large datasets, AI tooling, or agentic workflows is helpful.\n\nNot 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.\nMore about Wayve\nWayve 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.\nOur 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+ through to L4 as our core AI model scales.\nHow we work - Locations & Flexible Working\nThis role is based in Sunnyvale, California. We operate a hybrid working model that combines in-person collaboration with focused time working remotely.\nThe Interview Process\nInitial call / recruiter screen (25 min)\n\nCompetency interviews (HM Screen; 45 min)\n\nDeep-dive interviews covering systems and domain expertise (3-4 hours)\n\nFinal interview focused on mission and values alignment (60 min)\n\nWe’ll always explain the format and work around your availability.\nWhat’s in it for you (location dependent)\nSalaries benchmarked against the market annually\n\nMeaningful equity\n\nRelocation support and visa sponsorship where applicable\n\nHybrid working and access to vehicle workshops and labs\n\nLearning and development support\n\nComprehensive location-dependent health, family, retirement, and wellbeing benefits\n\nA quick, honest note before you apply.\nWayve 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.\nIf that sounds like the kind of problem you want to spend your time on, we’d really like to hear from you.\nAt 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.\nFor more information visit Careers at Wayve. To learn more about what drives us, visit Values at Wayve\nDISCLAIMER: 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.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5561,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Flexible schedule","Hybrid work"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":true,"industries":["Machine Learning","Autonomous Driving"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-21T08:14:46Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":81,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.902,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":24,"expected_fill_days":52,"reasons":["conf:2","velocity","win:mid","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-29T05:49:05Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":311400,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/wayve-senior-staff-systems-engineer-ai-validation","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/wayve-senior-staff-systems-engineer-ai-validation.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-29T22:06:11Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":32629,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-30T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":55},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=55"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fwayve-senior-staff-systems-engineer-ai-validation"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fwayve-senior-staff-systems-engineer-ai-validation"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fwayve-senior-staff-systems-engineer-ai-validation"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/wayve-senior-staff-systems-engineer-ai-validation\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fwayve-senior-staff-systems-engineer-ai-validation"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":2984899}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"wayve.ai","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":2984899},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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