Lead - Launch Operations

CargoX; Abu Dhabi Emirate; On-site; AED 240,000 - 420,000; Full time

Job summary

CargoX is seeking a Launch Ops Lead to own client deployments end to end—from initial conversations, through designing the solution, to putting autonomous vehicles on the road and growing pilots into sustained operations.

You will coordinate with engineering, product, operations and regulators, define requirements, secure approvals, and build repeatable playbooks that speed market rollouts while maintaining safety and performance.

Qualifications

• 4–8 years in Strategy, BizOps or Launch roles at high-growth tech startups or consultancies with startup experience.
• Degree in Business, Engineering or STEM from a top institution.
• Proven ability to scope cross-functional problems and deliver results.
• Experience coordinating with regulators and fleet for deployments.

Responsibilities

• Scope client needs and translate into deployment requirements (routes, sites, staffing, integrations).
• Design deployment with Engineering, Product and Operations; build business case, timeline, risks and unit economics.
• Lead internal teams and external partners through milestones; ensure launch readiness (sites, charging, mapping, staffing).
• Engage regulators and authorities; secure approvals and maintain safety cases.
• Scale pilots into sustained operations and develop repeatable launch playbooks.

Skills

Strategy & Ops

Cross-functional leadership

Analytical skills

Regulatory experience

Stakeholder communication

Ownership bias

SQL basics

Education

Bachelors degree in Business/Engineering/STEM

Tools

SQL

Job description

Put autonomous vehicles on real roads, for real customers, and own every step of getting them there. CargoX runs autonomous vehicles that move goods for logistics customers. As Launch Ops Lead, you own client deployments end to end from the first conversation about what a customer needs, through designing the solution and getting vehicles on the road, to growing a pilot into sustained commercial operations. You sit where customers, engineering, operations, commercial and regulators meet. You turn vague requests into concrete launch plans, catch metrics before they drift, and drive fixes until they land.

What you'll do

Scope what the client needs.

Work with new and existing clients to understand their logistics flows, sites, volumes, service levels and constraints. Turn that into clear requirements for autonomous operations: routes, vehicle setup, site readiness, staffing, integrations and SLAs.

Design the solution.

Shape the deployment with Engineering, Product and Operations, balancing what the client wants with what the technology can safely deliver today. Build the business case and launch plan: timeline, resources, risks, unit economics and success criteria.

Take launches to go-live

Lead internal teams (engineering, safety, fleet ops, commercial) and external partners (clients, site operators, vehicle OEMs, local vendors) through every milestone. Own launch readiness: charging and site infrastructure, routes and mapping, fleet setup, client integrations, staffing and training. Surface blockers early and make the trade-offs needed to hit the date.

Put safety first.

Make sure operator procedures, incident response and escalation paths are in place before day one, and keep improving them after.

Work with regulators

Engage local authorities before and during each deployment. Share operating rules, safety cases and deployment plans, and secure the approvals you need. Build relationships that make CargoX a trusted partner in shaping how autonomous vehicles operate.

Scale sites and own the numbers

Take ownership of a portfolio of client sites after launch and lead their ramp from pilot to scale. Define and track the metrics that matter: uptime, on-time delivery, interventions per km, cost per delivery, NPS/CSAT. When one goes off track, find the root cause, define the fix (technical, operational or commercial) and see it through.

Help clients grow

Partner with the commercial team on expansions and new accounts. Bring operational insight to proposals and spot where existing clients can do more with us.

Communicate clearly

Present launch status, findings and recommendations to leadership in a concise, insight-driven way. Feed field learnings back to Engineering and Product. Turn each launch into a repeatable playbook, adapted to local rules and infrastructure, so the next market goes live faster.

What success looks like

• 3 months: You know our technology, operations and active clients inside out, and you own at least one deployment in flight.
• 6 months: You've taken a new client from scoping to go-live, including regulatory engagement, and set up the metrics dashboard and operating rhythm for that site.
• 12 months: You run multiple sites in parallel, have turned around at least one off-track metric, and have built a launch playbook that measurably shortens time-to-launch.

What you bring

• 4-8 years in Strategy, Business Operations, BizOps, Launch or similar roles at high-growth tech startups (consulting followed by startup experience also works)
• A degree in Business, Engineering or a STEM field from a top institution
• A track record of taking ambiguous, cross-functional problems from scoping to a delivered result
• Range across technical, operational and commercial work: you can go deep with engineers, run an ops review and support a customer pitch in the same week
• Strong analytical skills: you build the model, read the data, find the root cause and turn it into a plan
• Experience with regulators and public authorities, or a clear appetite to learn
• Excellent written and verbal communication; you turn complex findings into a sharp story for senior stakeholders
• High ownership, a bias to action, and resilience in a fast-moving, sometimes ambiguous environment

Nice to have

• Experience in autonomous vehicles, robotics, mobility, logistics or marketplace operations
• Launching new cities, sites or markets, ideally across more than one regulatory regime
• Exposure to vehicle safety cases, permitting, or working with OEMs and fleet operators
• Hands-on SQL or similar tools to pull your own data