Senior Manager, Driverless Operating Model

Waabi • Dallas, TX

7d

About The Position

Waabi’s Commercial Product team defines and delivers the end-to-end commercial product that makes autonomous trucking deployable, scalable, and valuable to customers. The Senior Manager will define and evolve 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 trucks while Waabi provides the autonomous Driver and supporting services. The role owns the commercial operating model and drives decisions that turn autonomous driving capability into a reliable, scalable transportation service.

A central area of responsibility is defining the commercial product requirements and capabilities for Mission Control, Waabi’s 24/7 control room. Operations owns its day-to-day execution; this role shapes its long-term operating architecture, including capabilities, capacity, systems, and roadmap as the fleet grows. The position also defines requirements for off-nominal response, including how systems, people, and services respond when a load deviates from its planned execution, with work spanning remote assistance, roadside service, vehicle recovery, and first-responder interactions.

The role establishes the commercial foundation for driverless trucking, from initial deployments through a potential national network of thousands of trucks. It requires broad ownership, commercial judgment, and practical problem-solving across complex operational challenges. The successful candidate will balance customer experience, reliability, operational complexity, and cost, and help develop repeatable capabilities that scale without requiring a proportional increase in human support.

Requirements

• At least 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 the ability to balance 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 workflows or operational exceptions.
• 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.

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 what Waabi provides and what customers own, and how responsibilities should evolve as the service scales.
• Define the commercial requirements and 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 how the service responds to off-nominal events such as vehicle breakdowns, road closures, unexpected operating conditions, and other disruptions.
• Establish service requirements, responsibility boundaries, escalation models, and executable response protocols with Operations, Systems, and Safety.
• Define third-party roadside service and recovery needs, including roadside assistance, towing, recovery, and first-responder coordination.
• Determine service coverage, response expectations, partner responsibilities, and tradeoffs among service quality, cost, and scalability.
• Define the customer experience throughout the Life of a Load, including service visibility, communication, support, and issue resolution requirements.
• Partner with Account Management to define commercially compelling and operationally achievable service commitments.
• Turn early deployment solutions into repeatable, scalable capabilities across customers, corridors, and fleet sizes.
• Balance customer experience, reliability, operational complexity, and cost, and help improve service economics as deployments expand.
• Align the Life of a Load operating model across Operations, Safety, Autonomy, Engineering, and Account Management, defining responsibilities, service requirements, costs, and outstanding decisions.
• Support driverless launch readiness by defining commercial requirements for off-nominal response, roadside services, recovery, and customer support, and working with Operations and Safety on necessary capabilities and protocols.
• Build a Mission Control product roadmap identifying launch and scale capabilities, priorities for Engineering, and opportunities to improve operational efficiency as the fleet grows.
• Establish visibility into support costs, operational dependencies, and capabilities needed to improve unit economics.

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 the office.
• Regularly scheduled team-building activities and social events, both on-site, off-site, and virtually.
• Equity incentive awards and an annual performance bonus.

What This Job Offers

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