---
title: 'Lead Technical Program Manager, Robotaxi at Waabi'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/lead-technical-program-manager-robotaxi-waabi-san-francisco-q9ptzpztg54h'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-15'
---

# Lead Technical Program Manager, Robotaxi at Waabi

- **Company:** Waabi
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-10-10
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-15
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/waabi/3acdfa36-848c-4720-b7a0-f80a6c30cbe6

## 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 is bringing its proven autonomous driving technology from trucking to the robotaxi space, and we need a program management leader to drive the execution. You will own the roadmap for integrating the Waabi Driver into our commercial fleet, acting as the connective tissue between engineering, operations, and external partners. You will partake in shaping our go-to-market approach, drive partner strategy, and ensure we deliver a safe, scalable rider experience. If you thrive on turning complex technical milestones into seamless commercial launches, this is your chance to be an integral part of Waabi’s next chapter.

You will... Define and maintain the integrated robotaxi program plan — key milestones, cross-team dependencies, and critical path — spanning autonomy, vehicle hardware, safety/V&V, fleet operations, and commercial launch readiness. Own program-level risk management. Surface issues early, bring data-backed options rather than just status updates, and ensure every dependency has a clear owner and ETA. Drive launch and market-readiness planning across vehicle readiness, ODD (operational design domain) coverage, safety validation sign-off, site and facility readiness, and regulatory or permitting requirements for new markets and service areas. Partner with Autonomy, Safety, Commercial, and Operations to translate top-down strategy into executable roadmaps, and hold teams accountable to the plan. Build and run executive reporting — concise, credible updates on program status, risk, and path-to-green for leadership. Define and track the KPIs that measure readiness for driverless operation, such as ODD coverage, disengagement rates, system readiness, and rider experience metrics. Establish scalable processes and tooling for robotaxi program tracking, ensuring a single source of truth as the program and fleet scale. Represent the robotaxi program in cross-company planning, ensuring it's properly sequenced against Waabi's trucking roadmap and shared platform investments. Qualifications: 10+ years of technical program management experience, with a track record leading complex, cross-functional technical programs from ambiguity to delivery. Direct experience in autonomous vehicles, robotics, or another safety-critical, deeply cross-functional environment spanning hardware, software, and safety. Demonstrated ability to build program structure from scratch — dependency maps, risk registers, executive reporting, milestone tracking — in a fast-moving, early-stage environment. Strong technical fluency across hardware, software, and autonomy/ML domains — able to ask the right questions and spot a false dependency without being a domain expert in any one area. Excellent written and verbal communication; comfortable writing a crisp one-pager for an executive audience and facilitating a working-level technical review in the same week. Proven cross-functional leadership without formal authority — you drive alignment and hold teams accountable through influence, not org-chart position. Hands-on experience with program tracking tools such as Jira, Asana, or other Project Management. BS or MS in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field, or equivalent experience.

Bonus/Nice to Have: Proven history executing driverless commercial rollouts, operational domain expansions, or initial market deployments for robotic transport platforms. Working knowledge of system safety assurance, ODD boundaries, and integrating safety sign-off gates into target deployment schedules. Track record establishing or scaling continuous fleet management, remote command facilities, or real-time operations centers. Prior collaboration with policy, legal, and public affairs stakeholders to secure local operating authorizations and permits. Hands-on application of modern AI solutions to streamline operational tracking, eliminate manual administrative friction, and speed up critical decisions.

The US yearly salary range for this role is: $235,000 - $270,000 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.

Perks/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!

Waabi is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating a supportive, inclusive, and accessible workplace for all our employees. We seek applicants of all backgrounds and identities, across race, color, ethnicity, national origin or ancestry, age, citizenship, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, military or veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or parental status, caregiver status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law. We make workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities as required by applicable law. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process please let our recruiting team know.

## About Waabi

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Waabi is pioneering Physical AI for autonomous vehicles, starting with self-driving trucks and expanding into robotaxis, using a breakthrough interpretable AI model and the industry's most realistic neural simulator.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series C, $1B total funding)
- **Headquarters**: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- **Founded**: 2021
- **Founders**: Raquel Urtasun

## Core Business
- **Primary industries**: Autonomous vehicle technology, truck transportation, logistics, robotaxi services
- **Target customers**: B2B – trucking fleets, logistics providers, and eventually ride-hailing operators; enterprise partnerships with OEMs and transportation companies
- **Mission**: To empower humanity to build a better tomorrow by fundamentally rethinking how autonomous vehicles are developed, deployed, and scaled – safely and efficiently.

## Products & Services
- **Waabi Driver**: An end-to-end, interpretable and verifiable AI system that enables self-driving capabilities for trucks and, soon, robotaxis. The system is designed to be scalable and safe by leveraging a next-generation neural simulator (Waabi World) for validation before deployment on public roads.
- **Waabi World**: The industry’s most realistic neural simulator, used for testing and training the Waabi Driver in millions of scenarios, dramatically reducing the time and resources needed to bring autonomous vehicles to market.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private company)
- **Key Metrics**: Annual Revenue: $11.2M (est., from private data providers); Total Funding: ~$1B across four rounds; Headcount: 271 employees (+51% YoY)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Khosla Ventures (lead in Series B & C), Uber, Volvo Group Venture Capital, Radical Ventures, NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture arm)
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Raised $750M Series C in January 2026 (led by Khosla Ventures)
  - Expanding from autonomous trucks into robotaxi market (hired Ryan Wallace as GM of Robotaxi in Sept 2026)
  - 52 active job postings (+62% YoY job posting growth)
  - Talent influx from Cruise, Aurora, Uber, Waymo, TuSimple, NVIDIA

## Competitive Advantages
- **Interpretable & verifiable AI**: Unlike black-box systems, Waabi’s end-to-end model is designed to be transparent and auditable, increasing trust and regulatory viability.
- **Neural simulator (Waabi World)**: Enables massive-scale virtual testing that accelerates development while maintaining safety – a key moat over rivals that rely on costly real-world miles.
- **Founder-led**: Raquel Urtasun is a world-renowned AI researcher (former Uber ATG chief scientist) with deep expertise in computer vision and autonomous systems.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale the Waabi Driver** for commercial trucking operations and simultaneously **enter the robotaxi market**.
- **Deepen OEM and strategic partnerships** (e.g., with Volvo and Uber) to integrate technology into production vehicles.
- **Continue aggressive hiring** of AI researchers, software engineers, systems engineers, and policy experts across North America.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Values safety, efficiency, data-driven decision-making, and a "virtuous cycle of innovation." Emphasis on real-world impact and personal growth.
- **Remote/Hybrid**: Offers remote flexibility with 5 offices across North America (Toronto, San Francisco, Dallas, Phoenix, Pittsburgh). Many roles are hybrid or remote.
- **Engineering culture**: Technical stack includes Python, PyTorch, TensorFlow, CUDA, ROS, Linux, Kubernetes, and proprietary simulation tools. 43% of employees are in technical roles, 15% in research.
- **Perks**: Not explicitly listed, but strong employer rating (4.6/5 on third-party reviews) and high compensation (e.g., Staff Software Developer median ~$151K USD, Systems Engineer ~$124K).
- **Growth opportunities**: 51% YoY headcount growth, many leadership hires; career progression from intern to director roles is common.

## Sources
1. [waabi.ai/careers](https://www.waabi.ai/careers)
2. [waabi.ai/company](https://waabi.ai/company)
3. [jobs.lever.co/waabi](https://jobs.lever.co/waabi)
4. [linkedin.com/company/waabi](https://www.linkedin.com/company/waabi)
5. [cbinsights.com/company/waabi](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/waabi)

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