Wayve has announced the appointments of Rob Flenniken, Uri Wolfovitz and Dennis Jackson to its engineering division, bringing expertise in autonomous vehicles, embedded systems, AI platforms and scalable software solutions that will support Wayve’s development of “cutting-edge technologies for assisted and automated driving”.
Rob Flenniken has been appointed vice president of vehicle software and will be responsible for the production and support of a stable and scalable vehicle software platform. This work will enable rapid AI model development and robust integration with automotive hardware and software environments, Wayve said. Flenniken has a rich and diverse technical background, with over two decades of experience spanning biomedical engineering, mobile devices, consumer electronics and autonomous vehicles. Most recently, he spent three years at Cruise, where he contributed to the scaling of its Chevy Bolt robotaxi fleet and the development of second- and third-generation autonomous vehicle platforms.
Uri Wolfovitz joins as production software and optimization director and will lead the development and deployment of Wayve’s middle ground reference platforms. For over 17 years, Wolfovitz has driven advancements in AI, computer vision and autonomy. Most recently, he served as VP of performance optimization and optical path at Mobileye. He also co-founded DeepBlock, an AI assistant for real estate developers, and was previously COO and VP of R&D at Sight Diagnostics.
As engineering director, Dennis Jackson will lead the company’s development fleet software team. He brings 25 years of experience across the medical devices, drones and autonomous vehicles industries. Prior to joining Wayve, Dennis spearheaded Cruise’s development and testing of embedded software for multiple generations of autonomous vehicles. At Wayve, he will be responsible for overseeing the development and testing of on-vehicle embedded systems, as well as user interface software for prototyping and data collection fleets. He will also work to improve and maintain the reliability of Wayve’s prototypes.
Wayve VP of engineering Silvius Rus said, “We’re thrilled to welcome Rob, Uri and Dennis to Wayve. Collectively, they hold immense expertise across the engineering and automotive industry, which will be invaluable as we continue to develop and scale our products globally. These appointments reinforce Wayve’s reputation as a destination for world-class talent eager to take on some of the most complex engineering challenges. I’m excited to see what these three will achieve here.”
In related news, Wayve and Uber Technologies have announced a plan to develop and launch public-road trials of Level 4 (L4) fully autonomous vehicles in London – the largest market where Uber has announced an intention to pilot autonomous vehicles. Read the full story here