Principal AI Engineer, Autonomy

Ever imagined saying, “I helped launch the future of transportation”?

We’re rewriting the rules of urban mobility. At Vay, customers tap a button and a car arrives - with no one inside - powered by our world-first Remote Driving technology on real public streets.

We’re live in Las Vegas and scaling fast, powered by a strategic investment of up to $410 million from Grab. Our mission is simple: replace private car ownership with a faster, cleaner, door-to-door mobility model. If you want to build something real, visible, and genuinely transformative, you’ll feel right at home here.

What’s happening at Vay: 

• First to roll out vehicles in both Europe and the USA on public roads without a human being inside & one of only two companies in the States operating a commercial driverless service.
• We've partnered with Kodiak to bring remote-driving technology to autonomous trucks in the Bay Area, showcasing our ability to integrate our system into heavy-duty commercial vehicles and expand the applications of our tech across the US.
• We’ve completed 10’s of thousands of trips so far and are busy multiplying our Las Vegas fleet just to meet demand!
• ...And soon we’ll be expanding across the US & Europe 🚀

Why this role is exciting 

As a Principal AI Engineer, you will work on cutting edge Physical AI and tackle one of the hardest real-world problems - creating intelligent systems that navigate complex, unpredictable environments safely and reliably.

You will get to work on and scale models with massive datasets, and push innovations in multimodal AI that directly translate to safer roads, reduced accidents, and transformative mobility for everyone.

The profound real-world impact, combined with rapid advancements and the thrill of solving "the ultimate challenge for AI in the physical world," makes this role incredibly rewarding and exciting.

What you’ll be driving

You will be building Vay’s foundation model (end-to-end) for autonomous driving with the target to deploy it in our commercial fleet in Vegas with hundreds of vehicles in order to improve autonomy performance and unit economics.

In order to do that, you will:

• Research and develop state of the art foundation models for real-world autonomous driving.
• Design and build end-to-end AI pipelines and data flywheels that continuously improve model performance
• Apply machine learning to 3D traffic scene understanding and multimodal sensor data
• Define and implement robust evaluation methods for real world driving conditions
• Optimizing models for efficient and scalable deployment on production hardware
• Collaborate closely with autonomy, data, and systems teams to bring models into production

This might be a great fit, if:

You are a Principal level engineer who enjoys owning complex AI systems end to end, from research through to production deployment, who wants to see their work operating in the real world.

• You have considerable previous experience building and deploying end-to-end ML models in autonomous driving, robotics, or a closely related domain
• You hold a MSc/PhD in Computer Science,  Computer Vision, Robotics or a closely related field
• Hands-on experience in applying Machine Learning to 3D traffic scene understanding
• Proficiency in Machine Learning frameworks like PyTorch or Tensorflow
• Strong experience programming with Python (C++ is nice to have)
• You enjoy bridging research quality work with production readiness and performance constraints

Why choose Vay 

💪 A global team of smart, motivated people from 30+ countries who love tackling hard problems and turning bold ideas into reality

🌍 Huge scope for impact in a fast paced environment

💰 ESOP stock options: A stake in Vay’s future - not just a salary

🌴 Unlimited Paid Vacation Days

🎫 Subsidised Deutschland ticket (Berlin)

🏋️‍♂️ Subsidised Urban Sports Club or FitX Membership 

🚗 All Vay team members receive 30% off their Vay rides

🛍️ Exclusive external discounts

💼 €350 Home office budget 

✈️ Relocation financial assistance when relocating to Berlin 

📚 Fully funded German Lessons 

🎊 Regular team events throughout the year

For more information on Vay’s physical demands, working environments and safety requirements, you can review this link. We’ll also cover anything specific to this role during the first interview.

We’d love to stay connected for future opportunities, so feel free to include your LinkedIn profile when you apply.

We welcome applications from all backgrounds and experiences. If you’re excited about shaping something truly groundbreaking, we’d be happy to hear from you 🚗💨