Senior Program Manager, Trucking

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, business development, and customers, turning driverless capability into a real-world product that can be launched, sold, operated, and scaled.

As Waabi rapidly scales from commercial pilots to large-scale driverless deployments, this role serves as the critical integration layer between truck supply, customer commitments, expansion efforts, site activations, and autonomy capabilities. You will manage the execution of the commercial plan, proactively tracking dependencies and mitigating risks to drive clear commercial progress.

We are hiring a Senior Program Manager to own and align the single integrated commercialization plan, ensuring every element converges seamlessly.

While functional program leads manage their respective areas, you will integrate their milestones into the overarching commercial plan. Success relies on sound judgment: identifying critical dependencies, distinguishing real timeline slips, and resolving decision bottlenecks. A year from now, when leadership asks whether we are on track for a launch, a truck delivery or a customer commitment, the answer should be one page, current, and believed by every team on it.

Responsibilities

• You will own the integrated commercialization roadmap for trucking and the weekly operating cadence around it. This includes:
• Build and own the integrated roadmap that ties customer commitments, OEM truck supply, autonomy and ODD readiness, lane and site activation, Mission Control, operations readiness and Account Management launches to dates, with the dependencies between them made explicit. You own the plan end to end.
• Maintain the honest picture: the critical path, the slips, the risks and the decisions needed, surfaced early enough to act on and framed for the people who have to decide.
• Lead the execution of key company milestones involving multiple departments at Waabi.
• Run the operating cadence, including a weekly cross-functional Truck Program meeting.
• Help establish repeatable frameworks, procedures, and decision loops that allow fast and efficient scale.
• Produce executive-ready updates and program artifacts.
• Communicate clearly with technical, operational, commercial and executive audiences that value first-principles thinking.
• What Success Looks Like
• Success in this role means the commercial plan converges on purpose rather than by heroics. Specifically, you will have:
• Within 90 days, one integrated roadmap that Autonomy, Operations, Sales and Account Management believe, with the Truck Program meeting running off it.
• A first driverless launch with no dependency discovered in the final month that was knowable in the first.
• Leadership learning about a slip from you, with options, before they learn about it from a customer.
• Decisions with a date, an owner and a record, so the same question is not re-decided in three meetings.

Requirements

• 7+ years in program or product leadership in a complex technical and operational environment (autonomous vehicles, automotive, aerospace, robotics, aviation, defense, logistics or other physical-world deployment).
• Track record of integrating programs across teams you did not control, in a business with hardware, software, safety and operations in the loop.
• Enough technical fluency to understand why an autonomy or hardware milestone slipped and whether the recovery plan is credible, without needing to be the engineer.
• Separates facts, assumptions and risks in how you write and speak; comfortable telling senior people something they do not want to hear, early, with options.
• Builds the minimum structure that works and removes or upgrades it when it stops working.
• Executive-grade verbal and written communication; most of this role's influence happens in documents and in how a problem is framed.
• Set direction for a program others execute, with no direct reports, and being accountable for the outcome anyway.
• Strongly Preferred
• Ownership mentality: takes initiative and gets into the trenches with key stakeholders.
• Varies the degree of detail to the audience and the moment.
• Experience running a weekly holistic program review.
• Experience taking a physical product from pilot to commercial deployment, where readiness gates and launch dates were real.
• Experience working alongside a safety or systems-engineering function on go/no-go decisions.
• Experience with OEM or supplier delivery schedules as a dependency in a commercial plan.
• Zero-to-one program experience at an early-stage or scaling company.
• Direct experience in autonomous trucking, freight or AV commercialization.
• Experience working with operations and/or commercial teams.
• The US yearly salary range for this role is: $140,000 - $180,000 USD in addition to competitive perks & benefits. Waabi US Inc.’s yearly salary ranges are determined based on several factors in accordance with the Company’s compensation practices. Note: The Company provides additional compensation for employees in this role, including equity incentive awards and an annual performance bonus.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and equity awards.
• Health and Wellness benefits encompassing Medical, Dental and Vision coverage (for full-time employees only).
• 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 both on-site, off-site & virtually.
• As we grow, this list continues to evolve!
• Waabi is a technology start-up building technologies to transform the way the world moves. Join our talented team to be a part of the future and to make an impact!