Data Scientist, Robotaxi Performance & Capability
Wayve · Sunnyvale, California
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 Engineering Teams
How do we know when an AI Driver is ready for a fully driverless Robotaxi service? Our Product Architecture & Safety team brings together data, systems thinking and engineering expertise to help answer that question.
Working closely with Model Development, Behavioural Validation, Safety and Robotaxi Engineering, you’ll turn real-world driving, validation and operational data into evidence of what the Wayve AI Driver can do today—and what needs to improve next. Your work will help shape development priorities and measure progress towards a safe, reliable and scalable driverless service.
🧠 Your day-to-day
You’ll take ownership of hands-on analysis, from exploring complex datasets in Python and SQL to sharing findings that guide product and engineering decisions.
- Investigate driving behaviours and operational events to understand where, why and how often the system falls short of driverless service expectations.
- Build practical metrics, performance baselines and dashboards to track progress across model, software and product releases.
- Apply statistical methods to assess rare events, quantify uncertainty and distinguish meaningful improvements from noise.
- Work with teams across Wayve to turn findings into development priorities, targeted validation and better data collection.
- Contribute to product readiness reviews with clear evidence of progress, remaining limitations and the confidence behind your conclusions.
🧩 What you’ll be working on:
- Understanding driverless readiness: Assess real-world driving and validation data to identify performance gaps, quantify their operational impact and track whether they are closing.
- Separating performance gaps from missing capabilities: Identify where better model performance can help and where additional system or product capabilities are needed.
- Measuring the complete Robotaxi experience: Define metrics for remote assistance, passenger pickup and drop-off, passenger interactions, vehicle readiness and recovery from operational disruptions.
- Evaluating service reliability: Measure intervention demand, mission completion, recovery time and vehicle availability to understand what it takes to deliver a dependable driverless service.
- Exploring challenging scenarios: Investigate safety-critical interventions, unnecessary stops, stuck scenarios and manoeuvre execution across different roads and operating conditions.
🙌 You should apply if:
- You have at least three years of relevant experience in data science, automotive data analysis or a related field, with deeper experience for senior-level opportunities.
- You’re hands-on with Python, SQL, statistical analysis and tools for exploring and visualising large datasets.
- You can turn an ambiguous real-world problem into measurable questions, useful KPIs and a practical analytical approach.
- You’ve analysed complex systems, uncovered performance limitations and translated your findings into product or engineering improvements.
- You understand statistical confidence, rare-event analysis, performance distributions and trends.
- You’re comfortable working independently with incomplete data, making reasonable assumptions and refining your approach as new evidence emerges.
- You communicate clearly with engineering, product and leadership stakeholders, explaining both your findings and their limitations.
Experience in autonomous driving, ADAS, robotics, mobility services or another complex physical system would be valuable. Familiarity with vehicle dynamics, driving behaviour, safety-critical events or operational reliability would also help. A relevant master’s degree or PhD in Physics, Statistics or Mathematics, particularly focused on traffic systems, autonomous driving deployment or urban mobility, is a plus.
🌱 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:
This role is available on a hybrid basis in Sunnyvale or remotely within the USA.
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)
- Competency interview (hiring manager interview 60 min)
- Deep-dive technical interviews (programming, statistical interview - 2 hours total)
- Final interview (30 min)
We’ll always explain the format and work around your availability.
What’s in it for you (Location dependent):
💰 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
✅ Flexible working arrangements appropriate to your role and location, with opportunities to collaborate in person
📚 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.