Autonomous Vehicle Safety & Government Affairs Technical Program Manager

Volkswagen AG • Austin, TX

5d

About The Position

As MOIA America, we develop and realize fully autonomous mobility and transportation services. Our mission is to make mobility-and transportation-as-a-service safe, accessible and most attractive for society. For that, we cover the entire ground from strategy and business development, software development and end-2-end integration, fleet operations to next-generation self-driving systems. Being the driver in Volkswagen Group initiative for mobility solutions, we’re an integral part of Volkswagen Group's future success.

Brief Role Description
The Program Manager for Safety Programs is responsible for establishing, maintaining, and executing the integrated Safety Office program roadmap across multiple safety disciplines, including the Safety Management System (SMS), Safety Assurance Case (SAC), incident response, quality management, VSSA, regulatory deliverables, audits, assessments, and related safety initiatives. This role serves as the central integration point across Safety Office functions, ensuring activities performed within SMS, safety assurance, incident management, quality management, regulatory compliance, and strategic safety initiatives remain aligned to organizational objectives, regulatory commitments, and program delivery milestones. The role owns program-level planning, governance, stakeholder management, dependency management, risk and issue tracking, executive reporting, and cross-functional coordination to ensure safety activities remain prioritized, visible, and delivered on schedule. While technical safety leaders remain accountable for their respective safety capabilities and technical decisions, the Program Manager provides the overarching portfolio coordination, prioritization support, execution oversight, and governance structure necessary to ensure successful delivery of the broader safety portfolio.

Requirements

• 7-9 years of experience in program management or technical program management.
• 5+ years of experience in safety, engineering, compliance, quality, regulatory, or related technical environments.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience
• Negotiation and influence; adept at conflict resolution.
• Advanced Microsoft Office skills, including Excel and PowerPoint; ability to build executive-ready program materials and dashboards.
• Strong oral and written communication skills, including the ability to communicate important, complex, and non-routine issues to senior stakeholders.
• Ability to independently solve ambiguous problems and structure complex work into executable plans.
• Experience communicating with senior management and VP-level decision-makers.
• Strong facilitation skills for governance forums, leadership reviews, action tracking, and decision management.
• Demonstrated experience coordinating complex, multi-workstream technical programs with executive visibility and cross-functional dependencies.
• Thorough understanding of program management techniques, methods, governance practices, and delivery controls.
• Knowledge of Safety Management Systems and safety program implementation practices.
• Ability to coordinate across safety disciplines, including SMS, Safety Assurance Case, incident response, QMS, regulatory deliverables, and strategic safety initiatives.
• Excellent knowledge of change management principles and stakeholder adoption planning.
• Ability to provide documentation and present high-level program overviews using tools such as Power BI and PowerPoint.
• Ability to plan and monitor program execution, coordinate across multiple teams, and manage complex interdependencies.
• Experience leading virtual stakeholder teams across multiple functions and levels.
• Experience in product, program, and/or project management leading cross-functional teams in delivery of major new products or services.
• Strong data analysis skills; ability to synthesize program, risk, issue, and delivery data to support business decisions.
• Experience conducting assessments and audits, identifying risks and gaps, and driving actionable remediation aligned with compliance frameworks and safety strategies.
• Strong communication and cross-functional collaboration skills, with experience influencing stakeholders across the organization.

Nice To Haves

• PMP Certification.
• Master's Degree.
• Safety, quality, engineering, systems assurance, or regulatory certification.
• Strong understanding of Agile practices and development practices such as Scrum or SAFe.
• Experience with safety assurance, autonomous vehicle safety, regulated technology programs, quality management systems, or systems engineering environments.
• Experience with executive dashboards, RAID logs, decision logs, evidence tracking, and management review preparation.

Responsibilities

• Establish and maintain an integrated Safety Office roadmap spanning SMS, Safety Assurance Case development, incident response and corrective action programs, QMS activities, regulatory deliverables, audits, assessments, VSSA updates, and strategic safety initiatives.
• Coordinate planning and execution across Safety Office workstream owners to ensure activities remain aligned, dependencies are managed, and conflicting priorities are proactively surfaced for decision.
• Maintain consolidated visibility of program status, key risks, resource constraints, milestones, actions, and executive reporting across all safety workstreams.
• Serve as the central integration point for safety portfolio execution across the SMS Lead, SAC Lead, Incident Response / Incident & Process Owner, QMS role, Principal Safety role, and related contributors.
• Improve organizational effectiveness by allowing technical specialists and safety leaders to focus on technical decision-making, safety assessments, regulatory engagement, and subject matter leadership while program execution and tracking are managed centrally.
• Own program governance artifacts, including integrated schedules, RAID logs, risk and issue registers, decision logs, action tracking systems, milestone plans, executive dashboards, and portfolio reporting mechanisms.
• Facilitate governance forums, leadership reviews, management review preparation, action tracking reviews, and decision management processes supporting Safety Office execution.
• Support regulatory planning and execution in partnership with Government Affairs by coordinating technical, safety, and regulatory workstreams, including VSSA updates, standards participation, and regulator-facing deliverables.
• Coordinate Safety Assurance Case evidence planning, evidence collection dependencies, readiness reviews, and milestone tracking supporting internal and external safety commitments.
• Support coordination of incident response governance, investigations, corrective actions, lessons learned programs, and associated closure tracking.
• Coordinate internal audits, QMS assessments, corrective action programs, process improvement initiatives, and standards compliance activities.
• Drive cross-functional coordination between Safety, Engineering, Operations, Product, Quality, Legal, Government Affairs, and external stakeholders.
• Manage complex safety programs and regulatory commitments across multiple concurrent workstreams and stakeholders.
• Anticipate bottlenecks in roadmaps, stakeholder plans, and business goals; escalate risks and tradeoffs for timely decision-making.
• Make tradeoffs and balance business needs, safety commitments, regulatory expectations, technical constraints, and delivery priorities.
• Provide escalation management on program issues and support resolution of dependency conflicts across workstreams.
• Remain flexible to changing priorities, open to new ideas, and focused on the customer and stakeholder experience.
• Lead planning activities required to refine program vision, implementation approach, milestones, and execution controls.
• Analyze data, stakeholder feedback, and program performance to optimize safety program delivery and reporting.
• Prepare clear written materials, executive summaries, and decision-ready communications for leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.

Benefits

• MOIA America is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We welcome and encourage applicants from all backgrounds, and do not discriminate based on race, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, color, gender identity/expression, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristics protected by applicable laws.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Associate degree