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.

The role

We are looking for a Technical Director, Safety Case to own the architecture, strategy and integrity of Wayve’s safety cases for our first products. This 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 the product.

You will 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 behavior, AI performance, engineering controls, validation and operational deployment into a coherent safety argument. You will provide independent challenge and advice, while enabling Engineering and Product teams to own and deliver the safety evidence required for their systems.

What You’ll Be Doing

Safety Case Strategy & Architecture

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

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

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

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

Product & Engineering Integration

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

• Identify gaps, assumptions, and weaknesses in the safety argument early and drive resolution with accountable teams.

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

• Support technical and program leaders in making proportionate, evidence-based safety decisions.

Independent Safety Assurance

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

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

• Highlight material gaps, uncertainties, dependencies, residual risks, and safety red lines.

• Provide clear recommendations to safety governance forums and senior leadership.

Safety Leadership

• Build a common understanding of safety case principles across Wayve.

• Coach engineering and product leaders on structured safety argumentation, evidence quality, and traceability.

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

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

About You

Essential Experience

• Deep experience developing or owning safety cases for complex safety-critical systems, ideally in autonomous vehicles, ADAS, robotics, aerospace, defense, or another software-intensive domain.

• Strong systems engineering background spanning requirements, architecture, verification, validation, and safety assurance.

• Proven ability to translate complex technical evidence into structured safety claims and arguments.

• Strong understanding of autonomous driving and AI/ML safety, including model performance, data, uncertainty, and limitations of conventional verification approaches.

• Experience partnering with AI/ML, engineering, systems, and product teams on safety-critical products.

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

• Excellent technical communication and stakeholder management skills.

Desirable

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

• Experience with GSN or equivalent structured assurance methods.

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

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

• Familiarity with operational and post-deployment safety monitoring.

What we’re looking for

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

• You are pragmatic and able to distinguish between what is essential to the safety argument and what is merely desirable.

• You are intellectually rigorous, curious and comfortable challenging assumptions, including established industry practice where it does not adequately address AI-enabled autonomous driving.

• You can work independently of Engineering and Product without becoming detached from them: your role is to provide credible challenge, direction and oversight while helping teams succeed.

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

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

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

Success in this role

• A clear and credible safety case architecture exists for Wayve’s first robotaxi and OEM ADAS products.

• Engineering and Product teams understand the safety claims they support and the evidence they are responsible for delivering.

• Safety gaps and weak assumptions are identified early enough to influence product decisions rather than being discovered at the end of a program.

• Wayve develops a safety argument for AI-enabled autonomous driving that is technically rigorous, scalable and capable of standing up to scrutiny from customers, regulators and independent assessors.

• Senior safety and product governance has an independent, evidence-based view of whether the safety case is sufficiently strong to support release and deployment decisions.

This role is a full-time role based in Sunnyvale, CA (hybrid) and the reasonably estimated salary for this role ranges from $290,000 to 426,300, 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.