Senior Manager, Driverless Operating Model

Waabi • San Francisco, CA

9d • $175,000 - $240,000

About The Position

Waabi is hiring a commercially minded, operationally pragmatic Senior Manager to define how driverless trucking works as a scalable commercial service. The role owns the design and evolution of Waabi’s driverless operating model across the full Life of a Load, with particular focus on the Driver-as-a-Service model, in which customers own and operate their trucks while Waabi provides the autonomous Driver and supporting services.

The role defines the commercial product requirements and capabilities for Mission Control, Waabi’s 24/7 control room that monitors driverless activity and provides remote assistance. Operations manages Mission Control’s day-to-day execution; this position shapes its long-term operating architecture, capacity, systems, and capabilities as the fleet grows. It also establishes requirements for off-nominal response, coordinating the systems, people, and services involved when a load deviates from its planned execution.

The Senior Manager will help establish how driverless trucking operates commercially, defining customer and Waabi responsibilities, service requirements, workflows, partner support, and customer communications. The operating model must support safe, reliable service and expand across customers, corridors, and fleet sizes while managing cost and avoiding proportional growth in human support.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in commercial product management, business operations, commercialization, or related roles.
• Meaningful experience in technology-enabled physical-world businesses such as transportation, logistics, fleet services, robotics, industrial operations, or field services.
• Demonstrated experience designing, launching, or scaling complex operational services involving technology, physical assets, people, customers, and external partners.
• Strong commercial judgment and practical problem-solving skills, including balancing customer needs, operational feasibility, cost, and scalability.
• Ability to take ambiguous, cross-functional problems, establish direction, make decisions, and drive solutions through implementation.
• Ability to work effectively across Product, Engineering, Operations, and commercial teams and influence decisions without direct authority.
• Comfort working at strategic and tactical levels, from defining a long-term operating model to resolving individual customer workflow or operational exception details.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to simplify complex problems, articulate tradeoffs, and drive alignment.
• Experience building or materially redesigning an operation, rather than only running one, and interest in the economic viability of solutions.

Nice To Haves

• Experience taking a new technology-enabled product or service from concept or pilot through commercial launch and scale, ideally at an early-stage or rapidly growing company.
• Experience designing and scaling customer-facing services, including service-level commitments, support models, operational responsibilities, and exception management.
• Experience in transportation, logistics, fleet operations, or other businesses involving complex physical operations and distributed assets.
• Experience developing and managing third-party service ecosystems, including partner selection, contracting, service requirements, and performance management.
• Experience working with Product and Engineering teams to translate operational needs into technical capabilities and influence product roadmaps.
• Familiarity with autonomous systems, remote assistance, fleet response, safety-critical operations, or other human-in-the-loop operational environments.

Responsibilities

• Define the end-to-end Life of a Load operating model, from customer load order through delivery, including workflows, handoffs, responsibilities, and supporting services across Waabi, customers, and ecosystem partners.
• Determine which services and responsibilities Waabi provides and which customers own, and how these responsibilities should evolve as the service scales.
• Define commercial requirements and the roadmap for Mission Control, including operational domain monitoring, remote assistance, exception handling, and customer communications.
• Work with software product, operations, and technical teams to prioritize Mission Control capabilities for initial deployments and fleet growth.
• Define service requirements, responsibility boundaries, and escalation models for off-nominal operations, including breakdowns, road closures, unexpected operating conditions, and other disruptions.
• Work with Operations, Systems, and Safety to develop executable response protocols.
• Define third-party roadside service and recovery capabilities, including roadside assistance, towing, recovery, and first-responder coordination; determine coverage, response expectations, partner responsibilities, and cost and scalability tradeoffs.
• Define the customer service experience throughout the Life of a Load, including service visibility, communications, support, and issue resolution.
• Partner with Account Management to define commercially compelling and operationally achievable service commitments.
• Turn early deployment solutions into repeatable, scalable capabilities and balance customer experience, reliability, operational complexity, and cost.
• Align the operating model across Operations, Safety, Autonomy, Engineering, and Account Management, clarifying responsibilities, service requirements, costs, and outstanding decisions.
• Establish visibility into support costs, operational dependencies, and capabilities needed to improve unit economics as deployments expand.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and equity awards.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage for full-time employees.
• Unlimited vacation.
• Flexible hours and work-from-home support.
• Daily drinks, snacks, and catered meals when in office.
• Regularly scheduled team-building activities and social events on-site, off-site, and virtually.
• Annual performance bonus.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed