Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Search & Index

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 Engineering Teams

The Search & Indexing team, part of Compute and Data Platform (AI Platform), makes Wayve's multimodal driving data discoverable. We build the indexing infrastructure behind vector and metadata-based retrieval, powering data curation, training set construction and ML research. You'd be the first hire in the team, in our Sunnyvale office.

Your day-to-day

You'll design, build and operate the search and indexing platform for hundreds of thousands of hours of video and sensor data, with the system scaling beyond 10B vectors. You'll work with the Technical Lead on architecture, own complex components from design through production, and help decide what to build versus buy. Expect to move fast: use off-the-shelf tools and ship an MVP in months, not quarters. You'll work with ML, Data, Evaluation and Platform teams, and support other engineers through code reviews and mentoring.

What you'll be working on:

• Production search and indexing systems at billion-vector scale
• Ingestion and indexing pipelines across video, sensor data, embeddings and metadata
• Backend services and APIs for vector similarity, semantic retrieval and metadata-filtered search
• Evaluating and integrating embedding models, vector databases, ANN libraries and external vendors
• Evaluation frameworks measuring retrieval quality, recall, relevance, filtering accuracy, latency, freshness, scalability and cost
• Integrating search into training-set construction, data curation and research workflows

You should apply if:

• You have 7+ years in backend, infrastructure or ML systems, building production systems
• You have hands-on experience with vector databases or ANN technologies such as FAISS, LanceDB or similar
• You understand multimodal embeddings and have evaluated search quality across relevance, recall, filtering accuracy and performance
• You code strongly in Python or another systems language
• You have built search services, APIs, and large-scale ingestion and indexing pipelines
• You have delivered 01 systems in ambiguous problem spaces
• You are comfortable working across infra, ML and data curation

Nice to have:

• Large-scale ML pipelines or distributed data infrastructure
• Multimodal data, including video, images, sensor data and metadata
• Active learning, semantic retrieval or training-data selection workflows
• Autonomy, robotics or large-scale data infrastructure
• Evaluating technical vendors and working with external providers

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.

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)
• Deep-dive technical interviews [programming, system design & domain-specific interviews; 3 hours total]
• Final interview: mission & values alignment [45 mins].

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

What's in it for you (Location dependant):

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.