--- title: 'Technical Lead Manager, Synthetic Data at Wayve' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/technical-lead-manager-synthetic-data-wayve-london-sf9kmbwyhn88' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-09' --- # Technical Lead Manager, Synthetic Data at Wayve - **Company:** Wayve - **Location:** London, United Kingdom - **Posted:** 2026-09-08 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09 - **Apply:** https://wayve.firststage.co/jobs?gh_jid=8773442002 ## Job description ## About us Founded in 2017, Wayve is the leading developer of Embodied AI technology.  Our advanced AI software and foundation models enable vehicles to perceive, understand, and navigate any complex environment, enhancing the usability and safety of automated driving systems. Our vision is to create autonomy that propels the world forward.  Our intelligent, mapless, and hardware-agnostic AI products are designed for automakers, accelerating the transition from assisted to automated driving. In our fast-paced environment big problems ignite us—we embrace uncertainty, leaning into complex challenges to unlock groundbreaking solutions. We aim high and stay humble in our pursuit of excellence, constantly learning and evolving as we pave the way for a smarter, safer future. At Wayve, your contributions matter.  We value diversity, embrace new perspectives, and foster an inclusive work environment; we back each other to deliver impact. Make Wayve the experience that defines your career! ## The role Simulation is advancing our end-to-end autonomous driving research. The team’s mission is to accelerate our journey to AV2.0 by incubating capabilities that become company-level advantages. GAIA, our generative world models, and the synthetic data they produce, are one of those. What this team is solving: This role leads Synthetic Data within Simulation. The team exists to dramatically reduce our dependency on expensive and time-consuming on-road data collection by turning generative world models (models like [GAIA-3](https://wayve.ai/thinking/gaia-3/)) into a production engine for training-grade experience. When we can restage real driving onto a camera rig that does not exist yet, rewrite ego motion to create scenarios we have never encountered, and land that data in the same training stack we use for real driving, we can train, evaluate and deploy on vehicles and in geographies we have barely collected from. These are some areas the workstream is focused on: - Post-training GAIA-class world models for synthetic-data capabilities: rig transfer (new camera and vehicle embodiments), pose transfer (rewritten ego trajectories), and related conditioning on geometry, calibration and actions. - Running generation at scale with clear lineage from the model and settings that produced them. - Landing synthetic data in driving-model training and proving its impact on suite and on-road metrics. - Expanding coverage to new vehicle platforms and safety-critical scenarios, including OEM bring-up and features - Modify existing data in a controllable and scalable way to create new scenarios or create new ones from scratch. Where you’ll have impact: As Tech Lead Manager, you’ll lead a high-performing team of machine learning engineers and help us answer questions like: - Can we train and validate a driving model for a vehicle platform before the fleet exists? - Can synthetically generated data replace scarce real-world data for training and evaluation — and how would we know? - How quickly can we deploy autonomous driving in a geography where we’ve never collected AV data? ## Key responsibilities Technical contributions & leadership As a technical leader you will: - Architect the future — set the technical direction for how we post-train and condition world models for synthetic-data capabilities (rig transfer, pose transfer, controllability), holding a high bar for what counts as training-grade generation. - Own the loop end to end — make sure generation, evaluation and training stay one system: from checkpoint and config, through large-scale GPU inference, to artefacts that land in driving-model training with reproducible lineage. - Get hands-on when it matters — lead from the front on key components, codebases and experiments. - Push throughput and yield — drive inference optimisation (distillation, few-step sampling, KV caching, step count), valid-generation rate, and self-serve workflows so model developers can request synthetic sets without a specialist in the loop. - Disrupt thoughtfully — challenge assumptions about where synthetic data pays off, ask sharp questions, and champion bold ideas that move us beyond incremental gains. ## Team management & cross-functional execution As a people and execution leader you will: - Make things happen — lead a high-performing, cross-functional team of ML engineers and applied scientists working across generative modelling, generation infrastructure and training. Drive quarterly planning and execution in a high-ambiguity environment where the target moves. - Align and connect — collaborate with world-model researchers, platform and infra engineers, driving-model owners and evaluation so synthetic data is integrated into the broader stack, not delivered over a wall. Manage upwards and laterally to align your team’s goals with company priorities and OEM programme timelines. - Architect teams — grow and structure a resilient team by hiring top talent, designing effective operating models, and fostering a sense of belonging regardless of location. Cultivate a strong, inclusive culture rooted in scientific rigour, collaboration and curiosity. - Level up — coach and mentor team members, tailoring growth plans to individual strengths and aspirations. Lead by example through technical engagement and clear feedback. - Champion change — navigate your team through evolving research priorities and fast-moving execution, maintaining stability and trust through uncertainty. ## About you In order to set you up for success as a Tech Lead Manager at Wayve, we’re looking for the following skills and experience. Essential - 5+ years of experience in ML engineering or applied research roles, with a track record of training and shipping neural networks — not only operating data platforms. - 4+ years of people management experience, including direct reports and cross-functional project ownership. - Deep knowledge of generative modelling (diffusion, flow matching, autoregressive, or VAEs) applied to video or other high-dimensional temporal data. - Hands-on experience with video, generative or world models — for example video generation, novel-view synthesis, neural rendering, or controllable generation. - Working knowledge of cameras and 3D geometry (multi-camera rigs, intrinsics/extrinsics, warps and reprojection) and why they break generation or downstream training. - Evidence of closing the loop: taking generated or simulated data into a trained downstream model and measuring impact through mix ratios, ablations and failure analysis. - Experience operating generation or training at real scale — multi-GPU jobs, workflow orchestration, large video artefacts — and making that path reliable. - Strong Python and PyTorch engineering fundamentals, and experience building research-grade production tools. - Excellent communication skills and a passion for coaching and mentoring others. - You balance technical depth with people leadership. You know when to lead from the front and when to empower your team. - You embrace ambiguity and help your team make sense of it, keeping clarity and momentum through uncertainty. ## Nice to have - Experience in AVs, robotics, simulation, or other embodied AI domains, and with multi-sensor driving data (video, telemetry; LiDAR a plus). - Distillation, few-step sampling, KV caching, or other inference-speed work on large generative models. - Reward models, offline RL, or closed-loop evaluation of driving policies. - Productionising research: Flyte/Ray/Spark-style jobs, dataset lineage, training mix configuration; cloud GPU fleets (Azure/AWS/GCP) and distributed training. - Strong publication record or contributions to open-source ML tooling. - Previous experience in startup-like or high-ambiguity environments. This role might not be for you if: - You’re at your best when solving complex technical problems hands-on, rather than leading through others via mentoring and team support. - You are mainly managing teams and no longer hands-on in technical projects, and have no desire to get in the weeds or in the code again. - Your generative modelling experience stops at the checkpoint — you haven’t taken generated data through to a downstream model’s metrics, and don’t want to. - You aren’t comfortable working on high-ambiguity, research-adjacent projects with moving targets. - You haven’t yet managed a team with direct reports through full-cycle planning, delivery, and feedback loops. This is a full-time role based in our office in London.  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. Wayve is committed to creating an inclusive interview experience. If you require any accommodations or adjustments to participate fully in our interview process, please let us know. We understand that everyone has a unique set of skills and experiences and that not everyone will meet all of the requirements listed above. If you’re passionate about self-driving cars and think you have what it takes to make a positive impact on the world, we encourage you to apply. 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/) For US candidates only, please visit [E-Verify Notice](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N46n3iN0AG8EPEO-hCanyyv7hzz8KgT_/view?usp=sharing) and [Participation and Right to Work](https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/employment/RightToWork.pdf) 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. ## About Wayve ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Wayve is building a general-purpose, embodied AI driving intelligence that learns from data and scales across vehicles, geographies, and applications. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series C) - **Headquarters**: London, United Kingdom - **Founded**: 2017 - **Founders**: Alex Kendall (Co-founder & CEO) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Autonomous Vehicle Technology / Embodied AI - **Target customers**: B2B — Automakers (OEMs), logistics partners, and mobility networks (e.g., Uber) - **Mission or purpose statement**: To reimagine autonomous mobility with embodied intelligence, aiming to make mobility safer, smarter, and more accessible for everyone. ## Products & Services - **[Wayve AI Driver]**: A mapless, vehicle-agnostic, end-to-end AI software platform that runs entirely on onboard vehicle compute and native sensors. It delivers all levels of autonomy, from hands-off and eyes-off driving to robotaxis. The system is designed to be sensor and hardware-agnostic, scalable to new roads and cities without HD maps, and learns to drive using data. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total funding of **$2.8B** across 4 rounds (as of May 2026). Estimated annual revenue of **$1.6B** (LinkedIn estimate, likely based on total funding and growth trajectory, not public filings). - **Notable Investors/Partners**: SoftBank Group (lead, Series C), NVIDIA, Microsoft, Uber. Partners include Ocado Group, Asda, DPD, and world-class automakers. - **Growth Signals**: - Raised a $1.05B Series C in May 2024. - Uber invested to put future Wayve-powered vehicles on the Uber network globally. - First and only AV company to test a single global AI Driver model across **500+ cities** in Europe, North America, and Japan. - Headcount grew **84.0% YoY** to approximately 718 employees. - Operates in 23 countries. - Opened a second office in Mountain View, California. - Introduced breakthrough AI models GAIA-1 and LINGO-1 for generative AI in driving. ## Competitive Advantages - **End-to-end AI approach**: Unlike many competitors using rule-based or modular approaches, Wayve uses a single, deep learning-based model that learns to drive from data. - **Mapless technology**: Does not require expensive, high-definition (HD) maps, allowing rapid scaling to new cities and roads. - **Vehicle-agnostic**: Software can be integrated into any vehicle type (cars, delivery vans, etc.) with any sensor suite, making it a platform for multiple OEMs. - **Data-driven safety**: The AI learns from data and is designed to handle unexpected and unseen situations, with a focus on "deep world understanding." - **Strong strategic partnerships**: Backed by tech giants (NVIDIA, Microsoft) and a mobility leader (Uber), providing both capital and go-to-market channels. ## Strategic Focus - **Deploying Embodied AI at scale**: Moving from R&D to commercial products for automakers and logistics partners. - **Global expansion**: Testing and deploying the AI Driver across diverse geographies (Europe, North America, Japan) to build a robust, generalizable driving intelligence. - **Productizing for OEMs**: Developing the first Embodied AI product for production vehicles, led by President Erez Dagan (ex-Mobileye). - **Last-mile delivery**: Commercial partnerships with Ocado Group, Asda, and DPD to trial AV technology on urban delivery routes. ## Why Work Here - **Mission-driven**: Work on one of the hardest technological problems of our time — building safe, scalable autonomous mobility. - **Innovative environment**: Pioneering end-to-end deep learning and embodied AI, with opportunities to work on groundbreaking research and products (GAIA-1, LINGO-1). - **Culture**: Values include "Aim high. Stay humble," "Back each other to deliver impact," and "Humanity is core." Emphasis on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB). - **Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)**: Active communities including Black Excellence Network, Women Who Code, Neurodivergents at Wayve, and Wayve Veterans Network. - **Benefits**: Competitive compensation (cash + equity), private healthcare, mental health resources (Spill), learning & development budgets, paid time off, and social clubs. - **Work environment**: Hybrid/office setup with HQ in London and offices in Mountain View, CA, and Israel. - **Growth opportunities**: Rapidly scaling company (84% headcount growth YoY) with 113 active job postings, offering significant career development. ## Sources 1. [wayve.ai](https://wayve.ai/) 2. [wayve.ai/careers](https://wayve.ai/careers/) 3. [wayve.ai/company](https://wayve.ai/company/) 4. [wayve.ai/company/leadership-team](https://wayve.ai/company/leadership-team/) 5. [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/wayve-technologies) ## Other roles at Wayve - [Senior Software Engineer, Data & Orchestration](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-data-orchestration-wayve-london-xzcw9t13pxsm) — London, United Kingdom - [Software Engineer - Runtime Platform, Robot Software](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-runtime-platform-robot-software-wayve-sunnyvale-mf65mrmdsfxc) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Senior Software Engineer - OS, Robot Software](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-os-robot-software-wayve-sunnyvale-k4jjc7de8a7b) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Model Release Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/model-release-engineer-wayve-london-m0amtfx1bh2c) — London, United Kingdom - [Engineering Manager, SRE – AV Fleet, Japan](https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-manager-sre-av-fleet-japan-wayve-japan-0k1wf1y4xv1a) — Japan - [Lead Technical Program Manager, Quality & Compliance](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-technical-program-manager-quality-compliance-wayve-london-tpz844vsbfm5) — London, United Kingdom - [Lead Technical Program Manager, AI Platform](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-technical-program-manager-ai-platform-wayve-london-jn1a2agqrv3m) — London, United Kingdom - [Director, Technical Program Management — Driver Out](https://feeny.ai/job/director-technical-program-management-driver-out-wayve-sunnyvale-r0h7tkhv6ytr) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Staff Robotics Engineer, Localisation](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-robotics-engineer-localisation-wayve-london-kd1vtvyczvs9) — London, United Kingdom - [Forensics Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/forensics-engineer-wayve-sunnyvale-cjkgda9zejfb) — Sunnyvale, CA