Senior Staff Technical Program Manager, New Product Programs

Waymo•Mountain View, CA

22h•$272,000 - $336,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Waymo’s Commercialization & Strategic PMO Technical Program Managers are accountable for delivering commercial business lines, platform expansion, and strategic new initiatives. They provide cross-functional planning, clarity, and proactive risk management, and structure work, drive decisions, and align teams when new products lack an established playbook. The role partners closely with Product, Engineering, Hardware, Safety, Legal, and Operations to take initiatives from early concept to real-world launch. The Senior Staff Technical Program Manager will architect and lead holistic, cross-organizational technical programs for New Product Programs initiatives. The position owns the end-to-end program structure, work breakdown, and master schedule across pillars, delegating sub-projects to domain TPMs while remaining accountable for the overall program and interdependencies. It serves as a strategic technical partner to Product and Engineering leadership across TaaS, Fleet & Operations, Onboard Autonomy, Hardware, and Systems/Safety Engineering, and establishes scalable operating frameworks, cross-organizational structures, and readiness playbooks. The position follows a hybrid work schedule and reports to the Director of Technical Program Management, Commercialization & Strategic PMO. Occasional travel between Bay Area offices, test facilities or depots, OEM partner sites, and expansion markets is expected, about one week per quarter (~10%).

Requirements

10+ years of experience leading transformational, multi-organization technical programs from 0-to-1 conception through public launch and scaled operations across hardware, embedded/onboard software, cloud/mobile platforms, and physical operations.
Technical judgment equivalent to a senior/staff practicing engineer (L5+ SWE), including the ability to influence strategic technical direction, evaluate complex system architectures across onboard and offboard stacks, and broker high-stakes velocity-versus-quality decisions.
A track record of structuring ambiguous, company-level initiatives into clear work breakdowns, milestones, and accountability frameworks while managing interdependent workstreams and guiding other TPMs.
Deep experience in resource management, capacity forecasting, and financial/unit-economics modeling across large distributed engineering organizations (100+ engineers) without direct line authority.
Experience navigating safety-critical, regulated, or hardware-software integrated consumer products where product readiness, verification and validation (V&V), and field operations must converge on strict release cadences.
Exceptional executive presence and communication skills, with the ability to influence VP/C-level leadership, align multidisciplinary leads across Engineering, Product, Legal, Safety, Operations, and OEM Partnerships, and drive organizational change.

Nice To Haves

Experience in autonomous vehicles, automotive OEM platform programs, robotics, aerospace, or complex consumer hardware-software ecosystems with long hardware freeze lead times.
A track record of taking a net-new business line or incubation program inside a scaled technology company from early prototype/fishfood to external customer pilot and commercial agreement.
Familiarity with automotive regulatory and homologation frameworks (DMV, CPUC, NHTSA, FMVSS, multi-stage manufacturing), consumer auto insurance/underwriting, or physical fleet/depot operations.
Experience mentoring, coordinating, and scaling a cohort of Technical Program Managers across multiple functional pillars, such as Onboard, Cloud/Mobile, Fleet, and Release/Safety.

Responsibilities

Architect and lead holistic, cross-organizational technical programs for New Product Programs initiatives.
Own and drive end-to-end program structure, work breakdown, and master schedule across pillars; delegate sub-projects across domain TPMs while retaining accountability for the overall program and its interdependencies.
Serve as a strategic technical partner to Product and Engineering leadership across TaaS, Fleet & Operations, Onboard Autonomy, Hardware, and Systems/Safety Engineering.
Establish scalable operating frameworks, cross-organizational structures, and readiness playbooks to simplify interfaces across organizational boundaries.
Travel occasionally between Bay Area offices, test facilities or depots, OEM partner sites, and expansion markets, about one week per quarter (~10%).