Program Manager, New Markets & Platforms

Waymo; California (MO); Hybrid; USD 159,000 - 196,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary annual bonus

Equity incentive plan

Generous benefits program

Job summary

Waymo is seeking a seasoned leader for its SWQ Ops team. The role leads a 5-person group focused on safety, reliability, and quality of the Waymo Driver while expanding into new markets and vehicle platforms. It emphasizes cross‑functional program management and data-driven decision making.

The position follows a hybrid work schedule and reports to a SWQ Ops Triage Program Manager Team Lead. Salary ranges reflect US locations and the company’s bonus and equity programs.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in technical or business discipline.
• 7+ years of experience in Technical Operations, Program Management, or Quality Engineering.
• Proven ability to manage complex technical programs, including structuring project plans, identifying dependencies, and driving execution using Agile methodologies.
• Increased competency in supporting all phases of the machine learning development lifecycle, from data preparation and training to validation, deployment, and continuous monitoring.
• Ability to thrive in a high ambiguity, dynamic environment.
• People management experience

Responsibilities

• Drive outcomes for programs that span multiple orgs. Responsible for long term forecasting and resource planning.
• Be responsible for standing up new workflows and scaling existing workflows to support new market expansions. Translate complex human operations into scaled and reliable operations, bringing key insights to customers at highest quality.
• Communicate overall program status, risks and current priorities to stakeholders. Drive tradeoff decisions making across functions.
• Define program / workflow KPIs and SLAs. Drive high-quality outcomes through deployments with a global vendor workforce.
• Drive workflow transformation efforts to meet evolving business needs. Partner with Engineering to design, test, and deploy cutting-edge Machine Learning (ML) and Generative AI (Gen-AI) models and tools to drive step-change improvements in issue discovery & detection, triage efficiency, and quality assurance.

Skills

Program management

Agile methods

People management

Technical operations

ML lifecycle

Education

Bachelor's degree in technical or business discipline

Job description

Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with the mission to be the world's most trusted driver. Since its start as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo has focused on building the Waymo Driver - The World's Most Experienced Driver - to improve access to mobility while saving thousands of lives now lost to traffic crashes. The Waymo Driver powers Waymo's fully autonomous ride-hail service and can also be applied to a range of vehicle platforms and product use cases. The Waymo Driver has provided over ten million rider-only trips, enabled by its experience autonomously driving over 100 million miles on public roads and tens of billions in simulation across 15+ U.S. states.

The Software Quality Operations (SWQ Ops) team is at the heart of ensuring the safety, reliability, and quality of the Waymo Driver. Our mission is to build an adaptable and scalable operation, increasingly powered by AI, to deliver the crucial insights necessary to confidently deploy and grow Waymo's autonomous vehicle service.

This role follows a hybrid work schedule and reports to a SWQ Ops Triage Program Manager Team Lead. This role will lead a team of 5 and requires prior leadership experience.

Waymo is undergoing unprecedented growth, rapidly expanding into new cities and launching new vehicle platforms. SWQOps plays a critical role in this expansion, making it possible to scale safely and efficiently. We are on the front lines of:

• De-risking New Deployments: Through meticulous triage of driving events, issue discovery, and continuous field monitoring, SWQOps provides early warnings and critical insights. This "early intervention in RO issue detection" ensures operational resilience and safety, particularly in new and complex environments, which is critical as Waymo enters multiple new cities and ramps up platforms like Ojai.

• Enabling Market Expansion: Our team is deeply integrated into every stage of Waymo's market entry framework, from initial city evaluation (OK2Plan) to scaling operations (OK2Scale). We provide the necessary triage, data analysis, and quality assurance to unblock critical milestones, preventing slowdowns in market expansion velocity.

• Driving Engineering Velocity: By handling the vital work of performance evaluation, issue deep-dives, and data set curation, SWQOps collaborates heavily and allows Waymo's Engineering, SysEng, Simulation, and Data Science teams to focus on their core tasks of developing and improving the Waymo Driver.

• Data Flywheel: Supporting the development of a single, automated, end-to-end machine learning flywheel for the entire Waymo Driver. A successful flywheel will be the core engine for scaling our technology, enabling faster ODD expansion, quicker remediation of driving issues, and a significant reduction in the engineering effort required to maintain and improve the driver.

You will:

• Drive outcomes for programs that span multiple orgs. Responsible for long term forecasting and resource planning.

• Be responsible for standing up new workflows and scaling existing workflows to support new market expansions. Translate complex human operations into scaled and reliable operations, bringing key insights to customers at highest quality.

• Communicate overall program status, risks and current priorities to stakeholders. Drive tradeoff decisions making across functions.

• Define program / workflow KPIs and SLAs. Drive high-quality outcomes through deployments with a global vendor workforce.

• Drive workflow transformation efforts to meet evolving business needs. Partner with Engineering to design, test, and deploy cutting-edge Machine Learning (ML) and Generative AI (Gen-AI) models and tools to drive step-change improvements in issue discovery & detection, triage efficiency, and quality assurance.

You have:

• Bachelor's degree in technical or business discipline

• 7+ years of experience in Technical Operations, Program Management, or Quality Engineering

• Proven ability to manage complex technical programs, including structuring project plans, identifying dependencies, and driving execution using Agile methodologies (e.g., Scrum)

• Increased competency in supporting all phases of the machine learning development lifecycle, from data preparation and training to validation, deployment, and continuous monitoring

• Ability to thrive in a high ambiguity, dynamic environment.

• People management experience

We prefer:

• Undergraduate in technical degree preferred

• MBA or graduate operations experience preferred

• Experience within A / V space

• Experience with Lean / Six Sigma process improvement methodologies

• Experience working with offshore teams / multiple local operations hub

The expected base salary range for this full-time position across US locations is listed below. Actual starting pay will be based on job-related factors, including exact work location, experience, relevant training and education, and skill level. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for the role location or, if the role can be performed remote, the specific salary range for your preferred location, during the hiring process.

Waymo employees are also eligible to participate in Waymo's discretionary annual bonus program, equity incentive plan, and generous Company benefits program, subject to eligibility requirements.

Salary Range

$159,000-$196,000 USD