Senior Counsel, Regulatory

🧠 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.