Director of Fleet Operations Execution

wayve; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 165,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work policy

Job summary

Wayve is seeking a Director of Fleet Operations Execution to lead a 300+ person global fleet ops organization across UK, US, Germany, and Japan. You will set standards, KPIs, and incident response for high-severity events while balancing safety with operational and commercial needs.

Based in London with in-person presence and international travel, you will guide regional Heads of Fleet Ops and coordinate with Safety and Technical Operations to ensure consistent global operations and risk

Qualifications

• Extensive leadership experience managing large global teams (100+).
• Experience in technical development cycles (R&D, product development, testing/validation).
• Sound judgment in high-stakes safety-critical situations and ability to own a decision.

Responsibilities

• Own and develop a team of regional Heads of Fleet Ops across a 300+ person global org.
• Serve as the authoritative decision-maker on on-road risk in complex situations.
• Own incident response for high-severity events across geographies, top of escalation chain.
• Balance operational requirements, safety, and commercial objectives in major decisions.
• Drive global operations via clear KPIs and performance metrics across regions.
• Partner with Safety, Technical Operations, and other teams to operationalize testing.
• Proactively surface risks and gaps across regions, driving reviews and course-corrections.
• Set and maintain a single global operating standard while managing multiple programs.

Skills

Leadership

Global teams

Safety-critical decisions

Cross-functional influence

Incident response

Job description

About us

Founded in 2017, Wayve is the leading developer of Embodied AI technology. Our advanced AI software and foundation models enable vehicles to perceive, understand, and navigate any complex environment, enhancing the usability and safety of automated driving systems.

Our vision is to create autonomy that propels the world forward. Our intelligent, mapless, and hardware-agnostic AI products are designed for automakers, accelerating the transition from assisted to automated driving.

In our fast-paced environment big problems ignite us-we embrace uncertainty, leaning into complex challenges to unlock groundbreaking solutions. We aim high and stay humble in our pursuit of excellence, constantly learning and evolving as we pave the way for a smarter, safer future.

At Wayve, your contributions matter. We value diversity, embrace new perspectives, and foster an inclusive work environment; we back each other to deliver impact.

Make Wayve the experience that defines your career!

The role

As Director of Fleet Operations Execution, you'll own the health, performance, and on-road risk posture of Fleet Operations globally - leading a team of teams across UK, US, Germany, and Japan through the regional Heads of Fleet Ops. This is a leadership role first: you'll be the authoritative voice on on-road decisions, holding the line on safety while balancing operational and commercial demands across a 300+ person global org.

Day to day, you'll set and enforce the standards, KPIs, and performance metrics that keep operations consistent across every region, while demanding excellence from the regional leads who report to you. You'll own incident response execution for high-severity events globally, bringing judgment and authority to complex, nuanced on-road risk decisions. You'll partner with Safety, Technical Operations, and other cross-functional teams to operationalize feature and milestone testing, and you'll be relentless about surfacing risks and gaps before they become problems - all while managing the tension between a single global standard and the real nuance of running multiple internal and external programs and platforms at once.

Key responsibilities

• Own and develop a team of teams: manage, coach, and hold accountable the regional Heads of Fleet Ops across a 300+ person global organization.
• Serve as the authoritative decision-maker on on-road risk, bringing sound judgment to complex, ambiguous, and high-stakes situations.
• Own incident response execution for high-severity events across all geographies, sitting at the top of the escalation chain.
• Balance operational requirements, safety, and commercial objectives in every major decision.
• Drive consistent operations globally through clear KPIs and performance metrics, holding regional leads to a high bar.
• Partner with Safety, Technical Operations, and other cross-functional teams to operationalize feature and milestone testing.
• Proactively surface risks and gaps across regions and programs, driving structured reviews and course-correction.
• Set and maintain a single global operating standard while managing the nuance and complexity of multiple internal and external programs and platforms.

About you

You'll thrive in this role if you've led large, global organizations through other leaders and have the judgment to own safety-critical decisions at scale.

Essential

• Extensive leadership experience managing global, multi-site teams of at least 100+ people through a layer of leaders - you've managed managers, not just individual contributors.
• Demonstrated experience operating in and leading through technical development cycles (e.g. R&D, product development, testing/validation), with enough fluency to hold your own with engineering and technical partners.
• Sound judgment and decisiveness in high-stakes, ambiguous, safety-critical situations - you can own a decision and stand behind it.
• Track record setting and enforcing performance standards, KPIs, and accountability across leaders you don't work alongside day to day.
• Strong cross-functional influence - able to partner with Safety, Technical Operations, and other functions without formal authority over them.
• Experience owning incident response and risk management for high-severity events.
• Comfortable managing a mixed workforce of contractors and full-time employees, across regions and time zones.
• Based in or willing to relocate to London, with the expectation of being in-person the large majority of the time, plus regular international travel.

Desirable

• Experience in autonomous systems, robotics, automotive engineering, or aerospace.
• Background in a regulated or safety-critical industry.

This is a full-time role based in our London office. At Wayve we want the best of all worlds so we operate a hybrid working policy that combines time together in our offices and workshops to fuel innovation, culture, relationships and learning, and time spent working from home. We operate core working hou