Technical Director - Safety Case

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.

Technical Director, Safety Case

🛡️ About our Safety Team

As Technical Director, Safety Case, you’ll own the architecture, strategy and integrity of Wayve’s safety cases for our first products. The role sits independently from Engineering and Product and reports into Safety Management & Assurance, providing senior expert safety oversight while working closely with the teams responsible for designing, developing, validating and releasing our products.

You’ll act as the architect of the safety case—defining the top-level claims, argumentation structure, evidence strategy and assurance approach that connect product intent, system behaviour, AI performance, engineering controls, validation and operational deployment into a coherent safety argument.

🧠 Your day-to-day

You’ll provide independent challenge and advice while enabling Engineering and Product teams to own and deliver the safety evidence required for their systems. You’ll move between top-level safety strategy and detailed technical evidence, identifying gaps and weak assumptions early enough to influence product decisions.

You’ll work across Product, Systems Engineering, AI/ML, Validation, Vehicle Engineering, Software, Hardware and Operational Safety to ensure requirements, architectures, validation plans and release criteria remain aligned with the safety case. You’ll also provide senior leadership and safety governance forums with an independent, evidence-based view of whether the safety argument is sufficiently strong to support release and deployment decisions.

🧩 What you’ll be working on:

• Owning the safety case strategy and architecture for Wayve’s robotaxi and OEM ADAS products.

• Defining top-level safety claims, argumentation, evidence structures and traceability from safety requirements through validation and deployment decisions.

• Developing safety arguments appropriate for AI-enabled autonomous driving, incorporating functional safety, SOTIF, AI safety, cybersecurity, validation, operational safety and post-deployment monitoring.

• Evolving reusable safety case approaches as Wayve’s products, vehicle platforms and evidence base mature.

• Partnering with Product, Systems Engineering, AI/ML, Validation, Vehicle Engineering, Software, Hardware and Operational Safety to define safety requirements and evidence expectations.

• Identifying gaps, assumptions and weaknesses in the safety argument early and driving their resolution with accountable teams.

• Ensuring product requirements, architecture, validation plans and release criteria remain aligned with the safety case.

• Supporting technical and programme leaders in making proportionate, evidence-based safety decisions.

• Providing independent technical challenge of safety cases and supporting evidence.

• Assessing whether safety arguments are coherent, complete, evidence-backed and sufficient to support release or deployment.

• Highlighting material gaps, uncertainties, dependencies, residual risks and safety red lines, and providing clear recommendations to safety governance forums and senior leadership.

• Building a common understanding of safety case principles across Wayve and coaching Engineering and Product leaders on structured safety argumentation, evidence quality and traceability.

• Representing the safety case perspective in internal governance, customer and technical discussions.

• Contributing to Wayve’s broader safety strategy and assurance capability.

Success in this role means establishing a clear and credible safety case architecture for Wayve’s first robotaxi and OEM ADAS products. Engineering and Product teams will understand the safety claims they support and the evidence they own, while gaps and weak assumptions will be identified early enough to influence product decisions. Wayve’s safety argument for AI-enabled autonomous driving will be technically rigorous, scalable and capable of standing up to scrutiny from customers, regulators and independent assessors.

🙌 You should apply if:

• You have deep experience developing or owning safety cases for complex safety-critical systems, ideally within autonomous vehicles, ADAS, robotics, aerospace, defence or another software-intensive domain.

• You have a strong systems engineering background spanning requirements, architecture, verification, validation and safety assurance.

• You have demonstrated the ability to translate complex technical evidence into structured safety claims and arguments.

• You have a strong understanding of autonomous driving and AI/ML safety, including model performance, data, uncertainty and the limitations of conventional verification approaches.

• You have experience partnering with AI/ML, Engineering, Systems and Product teams on safety-critical products.

• You have strong knowledge of relevant standards, including ISO 26262, ISO 21448, ISO/PAS 8800 and ISO 3450x.

• You have excellent technical communication and stakeholder-management skills.

• You’re an architect and systems thinker who can move comfortably between top-level safety strategy and detailed technical evidence.

• You’re pragmatic and able to distinguish between what is essential to a safety argument and what is merely desirable.

• You’re intellectually rigorous, curious and comfortable challenging assumptions, including established industry practices where they do not adequately address AI-enabled autonomous driving.

• You can operate independently of Engineering and Product without becoming detached from them, providing credible challenge, direction and oversight while helping teams succeed.

• You’re comfortable operating with uncertainty and can make clear recommendations based on the strength of the available evidence.

• You’re open to challenge and willing to change your position when better evidence emerges.

• You can clearly articulate where a safety red line exists, why it matters and what evidence or mitigation would be required to move it.

• Safety case experience with L2+/L3 ADAS or L4 ADS products is a plus.

• Experience with GSN or equivalent structured assurance methods is a plus.

• Safety evidence experience for end-to-end or foundation-model-based autonomous driving is a plus.

• Experience working with OEMs, regulators, assessors or independent safety reviewers is a plus.

• Familiarity with operational and post-deployment safety monitoring 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:

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:

1. Initial call / recruiter screen (30 mins)

2. Competency interviews (Hiring Manager Interview) (45 mins)

3. Deep-dive interviews (Presentation and Technical Interviews) (2.5 hrs)

4. Final interview (60 mins)

We’ll always explain the format and work around your availability.

What’s in it for you:

💰 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

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. To learn more about what drives us, visit Values at Wayve

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.