Technical Program Manager, Product Planning

The role

The Product Planning role is a pivotal, cross-functional position that manages what to build, for whom, and how to deliver value, effectively bridging the gap between product strategy, direction and execution.

At Wayve, this generalist role cuts across all product categories (e.g., ADAS features, Robotaxi), customer programs (e.g, Nissan, Mercedes) distinguishing it from feature-owner Product Managers and Technical Program Managers who own the execution of a specific product. The planner focuses on setting the structure of the roadmaps to meet company growth and profit goals, rather than owning feature requirements in any single area. This role demands exceptional skill in executive communication, cultivating and maintaining strategic relationships with leadership across all orgs, and adeptly navigating intricate organizational dynamics.

Key Responsibilities & Activities

• Directional Planning & Initiatives: Develop, manage, and execute key portfolio projects, initiatives, and business opportunities. Help define the value proposition for portfolio projects, maintain detailed product roadmaps, and set milestones based on long-term vision. Conduct in-depth studies and analyses to understand the implications of proposed product changes across all business functions (e.g., engineering, data science, operations, finance, supply chain).
• Cross-Functional Alignment: Collaborate cross-functionally with business development, product management, finance, engineering, and operations teams to establish and maintain a single source of truth for all product plans, roadmaps, data and assumptions. Own the risk register for the company and proactively build risk mitigation plans.

• Executive Communication & Stakeholder Management: This role requires extensive experience in executive communication, nurturing strong relationships with company leadership, and adeptly navigating complex organizational dynamics. The ability to effectively communicate with, influence, and manage the expectations of senior leadership, while handling sensitive situations and fostering constructive relationships, is paramount.
• Operational Management: Focus on short-to-mid-term tactical plans, manage the full product lifecycle, and coordinate aspects like financials, logistics, inventory levels, and pricing.

About you

Required Qualifications/Skills

• Bold Generalist - High level of comfort with ambiguity, Ability to step outside their comfort zone and wear a multitude of hats as they help throughout the organization.
• Detail-oriented: You care about depth of knowledge and dive deep into the inner workings of every technology domain to identify dependencies and catch risks early.
• Program delivery experience:You get things done! You have shown agency by leading software projects in fast-paced or early-stage environments with over 5 to 8 yrs of experience.
• Technical fluency and strong analytical, quantitative skills - Proven ability to use data and metrics to back up assumptions and recommendations. Comfortable working with engineers and understanding systems, even if you don’t write code. Ideal if experience is in AV or AI/ML or Automotive domains.
• Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills, both written and verbal with emphasis on ability to collaborate, influence and align efforts of disparate groups to achieve a common goal.
• Strong project management: Skilled at planning, prioritising, managing risks, and adapting as things change. Proficiency in productivity, BI tools such as: Looker, Agentic AI, JIRA, Confluence etc

• Growth mindset: Always open to feedback and looking to improve.

This is a full-time role based in our office in Sunnyvale. 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.