Principal Data Engineer - Data Quality & Datasets Pipelines

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 Datasets Team

Wayve’s Datasets team own the driving data that our AI Driver learns from, covering ingestion, annotation (automatic and manual), retrieval and data quality. Our data is growing from hundreds of petabytes towards exabyte scale, and not all of it is equally valuable for training. This team decides what we keep and where, and builds the systems that make those decisions work in practice.

🧠 Your day-to-day

• Implement and iterate filtering, retention and offload policies across hot, cold, archive and delete storage

• Build the data movement and pipelines that our pre-ingestion selection model depends on

• Decide where and how selection models run, balancing compute cost against data value

• Build early, low-compute decision points that avoid expensive standardisation and enrichment of low-value data

• Work with the storage and data infra teams, and monitor data quality to make sure our datasets reflect what model training needs

🧩 What you’ll be working on:

• Turning our dataset strategy into working systems: moving, filtering, retaining and offloading driving data at hundreds of petabytes

• The engineering behind our pre-ingestion selection mode(s)l: how data moves, where the model runs and how offload policies work

• Delivering large, measurable storage-cost savings through early, low-compute decisions

• Making sure our datasets contain the most useful behavioural and environmental coverage for training. This is as much a data quality challenge as a software engineering one

• Working as a pair with our dataset strategy lead (who design and builds the models) and closely with the data infra team, shipping practical solutions quickly

👤 You should apply if:

• You’re a senior data or software engineer who has run data ingestion or data quality pipelines at petabyte scale

• You’re strong in Python and Spark, with cloud data engineering experience

• You have good judgement on data filtering and quality, and know how to check you haven’t discarded valuable data

• You ship practical solutions quickly and are comfortable iterating on live systems

• You’re a software engineer at heart, building the systems around models rather than the models themselves

• You enjoy working closely with data infra and storage teams

• You bring experience in AV, robotics, fleet data or high-volume IoT, or with retention, offload and data lifecycle policies (a bonus rather than a requirement)

🌱 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:

• Initial call / recruiter screen (30 mins)

• Intro with the hiring manager (Find out more about the role, your exp etc; 1 hour)

• Competency Interviews (System design and technical leadership; 2 hours)

• Deep Dive (Domain Interview; 1 hour)

• Final interview: mission & values alignment (1 hour)

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
✅ 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 partner discounts 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.