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Waabi is a Physical AI company pioneering autonomous transportation technology for commercial trucks and robotaxis. Founded by AI researcher Raquel Urtasun, the company operates offices in Toronto, San Francisco, Dallas, and Pittsburgh.
As Staff Vehicle Program Manager, you will own the technical integration of Waabi's autonomous driving platform with OEM (original equipment manufacturer) partners, from initial program setup through driverless operation. This is a high-impact technical leadership role that bridges Waabi's engineering teams and external partners.
Key responsibilities include:
- Owning end-to-end technical integration of the Waabi Driver with assigned OEM partner
- Translating company goals into integrated program plans covering Waabi and OEM deliverables, dependencies, and critical path
- Coordinating across Hardware, Embedded, Onboard, Infra, and Autonomy teams to balance resources and make trade-off decisions
- Serving as Waabi's primary technical interface to the OEM, building trust across executive and working-level engineering teams
- Conducting deep technical troubleshooting on test vehicles to diagnose and resolve integration issues
- Identifying program risks early, developing mitigation options with recommendations, and escalating clearly
- Maintaining Waabi's technical standards while adapting to each OEM's processes and pushing back credibly when needed
- Developing and maintaining program reporting for Waabi leadership and partner executive forums
You will work within a multidisciplinary team of engineers and research scientists using an AI-first approach to enable safe self-driving at scale. The role requires comfort spanning from high-level executive meetings to hands-on vehicle debugging on the test track.
Requirements:
- 8+ years of engineering experience in vehicle development, autonomous vehicles, ADAS, or robotics, including 3+ years leading technical integration programs
- Bachelor's degree or higher in Mechanical, Electrical, Computer, or Systems Engineering, or related technical field
- Breadth across actuation and autonomy system integration (sensors, compute, embedded, software) with judgment to weigh trade-offs
- Ability to rapidly go deep on technical issues with engineers, work to resolution, and return to program-level perspective
- Strong problem-solving using dependency mapping, critical-path analysis, and risk management
- Excellent written and verbal communication, effective in both executive reviews and technical debug sessions
- Comfort with ambiguity and startup pace; ability to filter signal from noise and add structure without overhead
- Collaborative team player with willingness to help others
- Passion for self-driving technologies and solving hard problems
Bonus qualifications:
- Understanding of OEM planning, gating, validation, and decision-making processes (vehicle programs, DVP&R, V&V, supplier management)
- Experience with commercial truck or heavy-duty vehicle platforms
- Hands-on experience with test vehicles, vehicle networks (CAN), and field issue triage
- Familiarity with program tools (Jira) and AI tools that reduce manual tracking
- Technical experience developing self-driving vehicles
