Senior Staff Technical Program Manager - New Product Programs

Waymo's Commercialization & Strategic PMO Technical Program Managers are accountable for delivering Waymo's commercial business lines, platform expansion, and strategic new initiatives. We provide thoughtful cross-functional planning, clarity, and proactive risk management. When a new product has no established playbook, we act with thoughtful urgency to structure the work, drive decisions, and align teams across organizations. We partner closely with Product, Engineering, Hardware, Safety, Legal, and Operations to take new initiatives from early concept to real-world launch.

This role follows a hybrid work schedule, and you will report to the Director of Technical Program Management, Commercialization & Strategic PMO.

You will:

• Architect and lead the holistic, cross-organizational technical program for Waymo's New Product Programs initiatives
• Own and drive the end-to-end program structure, work breakdown, and master schedule across pillars, delegating sub-projects across domain TPMs while retaining accountability for the holistic program and its interdependencies.
• Serve as a strategic technical partner to Product and Engineering leadership across TaaS, Fleet & Operations, Onboard Autonomy, Hardware, and Systems/Safety Engineering
• Simplify interfaces across organizational boundaries by establishing scalable operating frameworks, cross-org structures, and readiness playbooks.
• Occasional travel between Bay Area offices, test facilities/depots, OEM partner sites, or expansion markets, about one week per quarter (~10%).

You have:

• 10+ years of experience leading transformational, multi-organization technical programs from 0-to-1 conception through public launch and scaled operations across hardware, embedded/onboard software, cloud/mobile platforms, and physical operations.
• Demonstrated technical judgment equivalent to a senior/staff practicing engineer (L5+ SWE): ability to influence strategic technical direction, evaluate complex system architectures across onboard and offboard stacks, and broker high-stakes velocity vs. quality decisions.
• A proven track record of structuring ambiguous, company-level initiatives into unambiguous work breakdowns, milestones, and accountability frameworks while managing a portfolio of interdependent workstreams and guiding other TPMs.
• Deep experience in resource management, capacity forecasting, and financial/unit-economics modeling across large distributed engineering organizations (100+ engineers) without direct line authority.
• Experience navigating safety-critical, regulated, or hardware-software integrated consumer products where product readiness, verification & validation (V&V), and field operations must converge on strict release cadences.
• Exceptional executive presence and communication skills, with demonstrated ability to influence VP/C-level leadership, align multidisciplinary leads (Engineering, Product, Legal, Safety, Operations, OEM Partnerships), and drive organizational change.

We prefer:

• Experience in autonomous vehicles, automotive OEM platform programs, robotics, aerospace, or complex consumer hardware-software ecosystems with long hardware freeze lead times.
• A track record of taking a net-new business line or incubation program inside a scaled technology company from early prototype/fishfood to external customer pilot and commercial agreement.
• Familiarity with automotive regulatory and homologation frameworks (DMV, CPUC, NHTSA, FMVSS, multi-stage manufacturing), consumer auto insurance/underwriting, or physical fleet/depot operations.
• Experience mentoring, coordinating, and scaling a cohort of Technical Program Managers across multiple functional pillars (e.g., Onboard, Cloud/Mobile, Fleet, Release/Safety).

Salary Range 272000 - 336000 USD