People Partner - Engineering

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

As a People Partner supporting Engineering, you’ll play a key role in delivering a high-quality employee experience in a fast-paced, technical environment. Partnering closely with the Senior People Partner for Engineering, you’ll support defined projects across areas like performance, engagement, L&D, and day-to-day advisory work, acting as a trusted first point of contact for employees and managers. You’ll take ownership of routine processes, contribute to developing People resources, and support Employee Relations cases by preparing documentation, drafting communications, and guiding policy-aligned decisions. You’ll also collaborate on broader People team and company-wide initiatives, helping to drive consistency, inclusion, and continuous improvement across the organisation. This role is ideal for someone with solid generalist People experience in a dynamic, scale-up setting, confident working with technically-minded stakeholders and ready to deepen their impact.

Key responsibilities:

• Employee Relations: Independently manage ER cases, including documentation, note-taking during meetings, and following up on action points, escalating as needed. Support investigations, grievance handling, and performance management processes. Maintain the employee relations tracker to report on insights and areas of concern to inform recommendations for improvements. Maintain employee records with up to date case information.

• Local Coaching and Advisory: Provide first-level support in advising Managers and Employees, escalating when required.

• First Point of Contact: Serve as the first point of contact for employees and managers seeking support on People-related queries such as policies, benefits, and system navigation. Triage queries and escalate more complex issues to the relevant People Partner or people operations.

• Project Support: Collaborate with People Partners on People initiatives and project work, such as employee engagement, retention strategies, and performance management.

• Data and Reporting: Assist in data collection, analysis, and generating reports from People systems for analysis, compliance audits, or management requests.

• People Documentation: Support in drafting and updating manager and employee resources for handbooks and intranet platforms.

• Policy development: Ensure People policies and procedures are up-to-date, legally compliant, and easy to access for employees and managers.

• Offboarding: Support offboarding processes, including exit interviews and follow-up on necessary documentation.

• Engagement: Preparing engagement reports and insights, surfacing relevant themes and partnering with the Senior People Partner and business leaders on actions.

• Talent Team support: Liaise with Talent Acquisition and build relationships with local stakeholders to support hiring efforts where needed.

About you

In order to set you up for success as a People Partner at Wayve, we’re looking for the following skills and experience.

Essential

• Demonstrated experience in a People Partnering or Advisory role within a fast-paced, scaling organisation, with a strong foundation across core People practices and the employee lifecycle.

• Experience partnering with Engineering or similarly technical teams, with the ability to adapt People practices and communication to suit technically minded stakeholders.

• Strong employee relations capability and working knowledge of UK employment law, including independently managing performance, grievance, investigation and absence cases from start to finish.

• Demonstrated ability to coach and influence managers, challenge constructively, clarify ownership and support effective decision-making in complex or sensitive situations.

• Experience delivering initiatives across several areas, such as engagement, performance management, organisational change, learning and development, reward, wellbeing or policy development.

• Strong independent judgement and problem-solving skills, with the ability to navigate ambiguity, balance competing priorities and drive work through to completion.

• Confidence using People data, employee feedback and HR systems to identify trends, surface risks and develop practical recommendations.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to build credibility and tailor advice for employees, managers and senior stakeholders.

Desirable

• Experience in a fast growth environment (preferably a start-up).

• Experience supporting people across multiple geographies.

• Proficiency in AI tooling to support workflows.

• UK Employment law knowledge and best practice.

This is a full-time role based in our office in King’s Cross. 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.

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.