Senior Manager, Driverless Operating Model at Waabi in San Francisco, CA

Job description

Waabi, founded by AI visionary Raquel Urtasun, is the leader in Physical AI. With a world-class team, we're unlocking the next era of autonomous transportation with technology that's powering commercial autonomous trucks and robotaxis. Waabi is backed by and partners with world leaders in AI, automotive, logistics, and deep tech. With offices in Toronto, San Francisco, Dallas, and Pittsburgh, Waabi is growing quickly and looking for diverse, innovative and collaborative candidates who want to impact the world in a positive way. To learn more visit: www.waabi.ai Waabi’s Commercial Product team defines and delivers the end-to-end commercial product that makes autonomous trucking deployable, scalable, and valuable to customers. We sit between autonomy, operations, sales, and customers, turning driverless capability into a real-world product that can be launched, sold, operated, and scaled. We are hiring a commercially minded, operationally pragmatic Senior Manager to define how driverless trucking works as a scalable commercial service. You will own the design and evolution of Waabi’s driverless operating model across the full Life of a Load, with a particular focus on our Driver-as-a-Service model, where customers own and operate their trucks while Waabi provides the autonomous Driver and supporting services. This is a role for someone who enjoys broad ownership, navigating complex operational challenges, and getting into the details of how things actually work. You’ll help answer some of the most important questions in commercializing driverless trucking: How should the service work? What should Waabi own versus the customer? What happens when things don’t go according to plan? And how do we build a model that delivers a reliable customer experience while scaling economically? A central part of the role is Mission Control, Waabi’s 24/7 control room that oversees driverless activity on the road. Mission Control monitors operating conditions, including weather, traffic, and road conditions, and provides remote assistance to Waabi Driver trucks in the field. While Operations owns the day-to-day execution of Mission Control, you will own the commercial product requirements and capabilities that enable it to support safe, reliable, and scalable driverless operations. You will help shape its long-term operating architecture, including the capabilities, capacity, and systems needed as the fleet grows. You will also define the requirements for off-nominal response: how the system, people, and supporting services work together when a load deviates from its planned execution. This includes everything from remote assistance and roadside service to vehicle recovery and first-responder interactions. Your work will help establish the foundation for how driverless trucking operates commercially, not just for our first deployments, but for thousands of trucks operating across a national network. What You’ll Own You’ll own the commercial operating model and help drive the decisions that turn autonomous driving capability into a reliable, scalable transportation service. Life of a Load: Define the end-to-end operating model, from a customer’s load order through delivery. Establish the workflows, handoffs, responsibilities, and supporting services required across Waabi, customers, and ecosystem partners. Determine what Waabi should provide, what customers should own, and how those responsibilities evolve as the service scales. Mission Control: 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 determine which capabilities are needed for initial deployments and how they should evolve to support a growing fleet. Off-Nominal Operations: Define how the service responds when a load deviates from its plan, including vehicle breakdowns, road closures, unexpected opera