Principle Engineer, 3D Reconstruction

In this role you will define the architecture and roadmap for Wayve’s offline 3D reconstruction system, leading MVPs and guiding a transition to a robust internal platform. You will align cross-functional teams to deliver high-quality 3D world geometry from sensor data and establish standards for quality, uncertainty, and dataset suitability. You’ll mentor engineers and communicate tradeoffs and progress to leaders. This position offers heavy influence on the core reconstruction capability and its integration into internal validation and model development.

• Salary benchmarked against market
• Equity ownership
• Hybrid working
• Learning and development budgets
• Health insurance and wellbeing benefits
• Relocation support and visa sponsorship

• Define the technical architecture and roadmap for offline 3D reconstruction
• Lead development of MVPs to unblock internal use cases and transition to internal platform
• Establish core interfaces, output representations, and tools for internal customers
• Collaborate with calibration, sensor fusion, perception, data, infrastructure, and validation teams
• Set technical standards for reconstruction quality, failure analysis, uncertainty, and dataset suitability
• Mentor and provide technical leadership to engineers on the 3D reconstruction effort
• Communicate tradeoffs, limitations, and progress to engineering leaders and stakeholders
• Lead development of offline 3D reconstructions from heterogeneous sensor data for validation and model development
• Turn raw sensor data into reliable, quality-assessed 3D ground-truth outputs
• Serve as principal-level technical leader defining direction, prototypes, and cross-functional alignment

• Deep technical expertise in SLAM, 3D reconstruction, mapping, state estimation, or related robotics/perception fields
• Hands-on experience with lidar-based reconstruction, point-cloud registration, pose estimation, and real-world robotics sensor data
• Experience building offline reconstruction, mapping, or perception systems handling large sensor data volumes
• Strong software engineering skills in C++, Python, or similar environments
• Experience transitioning research/prototype algorithms to production systems
• Ability to define strategy, roadmaps, and milestones in ambiguous spaces
• Strong cross-functional technical leadership in multi-team settings
• Clear communication of algorithmic tradeoffs, limitations, confidence, and failure modes
• Systems-level understanding of sensor calibration, timing, synchronization, and quality issues
• Experience leading small expert technical teams from concept to production

• Cross-functional collaboration
• Strategic thinking in ambiguous problems
• Clear technical communication
• SLAM
• 3D reconstruction
• Mapping