Roboticist, Robot Foundation Model
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 THE ROLE
We are looking for a Roboticist to join the Multi-Embodiment Generalist Agent (MEGA) team within Wayve Labs as a founding member.
MEGA is building foundation models for general-purpose robots beyond self-driving vehicles. Our focus is on creating intelligent agents that can perceive, reason, move and manipulate the physical world across diverse embodiments, including mobile manipulators, dual-arm platforms and humanoids.
This is a high-impact role with genuine 0→1 ownership. You will have the opportunity to work across the entire robot stack: you will select, build, integrate, and maintain robot hardware; develop the software needed to deploy and test robot policies; and work closely with research teams to shape data collection, model evaluation, and the learning loop. The goal is work on compelling and publishable research, but also to turn it into systems that demonstrate increasingly general, robust and useful behavior in the physical world.
You will collaborate closely with researchers, ML engineers, roboticists and hardware teams to move ambitious ideas rapidly from research hypotheses to large-scale experiments and impressive real-world capabilities.
This is a rare opportunity to help build a general robotics effort from the ground up—combining frontier foundation-model research with the immediacy and complexity of intelligence embodied in real machines.
WHAT YOU’LL DO
- Build, maintain, and operate robot hardware for research and deployment experiments.
- Implement and maintain C++ and Python robot software, including control, planning, and ROS/ROS2-based systems.
- Develop infrastructure for policy deployment, data collection, and the robot learning data flywheel.
- Run experiments on robots and define data collection pilots that accelerate model development.
- Debug and troubleshoot robotic software, hardware, and policy failures in lab environments.
- Build comprehensive deployment and regression tests to improve reliability and repeatability.
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR
- Experience in robot manipulation; working with robot hardware.
- Experience with C++ and Python in robotics or ML environments.
- Strong robotics and machine learning fundamentals, with the ability to translate research into robust systems.
- Publications in top-tier conferences such as ICRA, CoRL, or IROS are highly valued.
- PhD preferred; MS acceptable with strong relevant experience.
WHAT MAKES THIS ROLE EXCITING
- Join a new, well-resourced effort at the intersection of foundation models and robotics.
- Work on generalist robot models and help build the full flywheel around data, architecture, deployment, and evaluation.
- Work with real robots at serious scale.
- Own meaningful 0→1 technical scope in a fast-moving research environment.
- Help define how foundation model research becomes reliable embodied intelligence.
This role is a full-time role based in Sunnyvale, CA (hybrid) and the reasonably estimated salary for this role ranges from $184,200 to 240,000, 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.
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.