Senior Counsel, Regulatory

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 Legal Team

Our Legal team helps Wayve navigate the regulatory and commercial challenges of bringing embodied AI into real-world deployment. As our Regulatory Counsel in Japan, you’ll provide dedicated local legal support as we prepare for robotaxi deployment in Tokyo and progress our licence applications.

You’ll work closely with our Policy and local operational teams. This is an opportunity to make a direct impact on how Wayve engages with Japanese regulators, manages operational legal risk and supports its partnerships in Japan.

** Your day-to-day**

• Provide practical, commercially minded regulatory advice to our Japan team, translating complex legal requirements into clear recommendations.

• Lead local engagement with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and other regulators, representing Wayve’s position on regulatory and compliance matters.

• Own the legal aspects of incident reporting, assist with police reports, and translate and interpret Japanese-language documents and outputs.

• Partner with our Policy team on local relationship-building and provide on-the-ground legal support in Japan’s time zone.

• Advise on Japanese corporate and commercial matters as needed, alongside your regulatory responsibilities.

** What you’ll be working on**

• Supporting the regulatory pathway for Wayve’s robotaxi deployment in Tokyo, including our licence applications in Japan.

• Developing clear, practical approaches to incident reporting and police engagement that support responsible deployment and protect Wayve’s legal position.

• Helping the local team understand and navigate Japanese regulatory requirements and ways of working.

• Providing Japanese legal and regulatory support for the Nissan–Wayve and Wayve–Uber relationships, including local liaison where needed.

** You should apply if**

• You’re a Japan-qualified lawyer with around five years of relevant experience and a strong regulatory background in a regulated sector. We assess relevant experience flexibly; specialist autonomous vehicle experience is not essential.

• You’re fluent in Japanese and English for legal and business communication, comfortable with Japanese business etiquette, and able to interpret Japanese legal and operational documents accurately.

• You can represent Wayve confidently in police, regulatory and partner discussions, and communicate complex legal issues clearly to colleagues across the business.

• You bring sound commercial judgement and offer practical, business-oriented advice rather than simply explaining the law.

• You have strong legal analysis, drafting, communication and stakeholder management skills.

• You’re proactive, comfortable working independently and able to prioritise multiple workstreams in a fast-moving environment.

• You enjoy partnering with cross-functional teams at the intersection of technology, regulation and commercial innovation.

It would also be helpful if you have:

• In-house legal experience or a law firm secondment into a business.

• Corporate and commercial legal experience.

• Experience in automotive / OEMs, mobility or another regulated sector, such as finance, technology or online safety.

• Familiarity with autonomous vehicle, AI or product safety regulatory frameworks.

• Experience engaging directly with regulators, policymakers or industry bodies.

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.

More about Wayve:

Wayve is building the leading AI platform for autonomous driving. We are pioneering an end to end AI approach that enables vehicles to learn directly from real world experience, developing the ability to adapt, generalise and improve at scale. Instead of relying on hand coded rules or pre mapped environments, our AI Driver learns to drive by understanding the world around it. The result is technology that navigates complex urban environments with intelligence, precision and natural flow, unlocking meaningful advances in both safety and efficiency. We believe autonomy represents a once in a generation transformation in how people and goods move, comparable to the shift from horses to cars, and from human driven vehicles to intelligent machines.

Our ambition is to make autonomy universal. Wayve’s mapless and hardware agnostic AI platform integrates with global OEM partners, enabling continuous software evolution and unlocking advanced levels of automation from L2 plus through to L4 as our core AI model scales. In a race increasingly defined by intelligence and real world learning, Wayve is taking a distinct approach, building a generalisable driving intelligence that can power any vehicle, anywhere. By combining embodied AI with scalable deployment, we are creating technology that can be shaped to each OEM brand and driver experience, accelerating the transition to a safer, more intelligent future of mobility.

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)

• Competency Interviews [Hiring manager and functional interviews; 2 interviews, 2 hours total]

• Deep-dive interviews [Cross-functional interview and case-study presentation; 2 interviews, 2 hours mins total]

• Final interview: mission & values alignment [1 hour].

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

Wayve is committed to providing a fair and respectful recruitment process for all candidates, free from harassment and discrimination. The Company has zero tolerance for sexual harassment against job applicants or similar individuals.

• All communications relating to recruitment activities are conducted through the Company's recruitment system or using an email address with the Company's domain. Employees do not use their personal email addresses or social media accounts for recruitment-related communications.

• Employees do not engage in private communications unrelated to recruitment activities, invite applicants to private meals, request or seek a personal or romantic relationship, or otherwise initiate private contact with applicants.

• Sexual remarks or conduct, physical contact, questions concerning sexual matters, and any other conduct constituting harassment are prohibited.

If you have any concerns, you can contact our consultation desk at peoplepartners@wayve.ai. All consultations are treated with strict confidentiality, your privacy will be protected, and no one will be subject to any disadvantageous treatment for raising a concern or cooperating with an inquiry.

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.

At Wayve we're committed to creating a diverse, fair and respectful culture that is inclusive of everyone based on their unique skills and perspectives, and regardless of sex, race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, citizenship, marital, domestic or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, pregnancy or related condition (including breastfeeding) or any other basis as protected by applicable law.

For more information visit Careers at Wayve. To learn more about what drives us, visit Values at Wayve

DISCLAIMER: We will not ask about marriage or pregnancy, care responsibilities or disabilities in any of our job adverts or interviews. However, we do look to capture information about care responsibilities, and disabilities among other diversity information as part of an optional DEI Monitoring form to help us identify areas of improvement in our hiring process and ensure that the process is inclusive and non-discriminatory.