Mission Control Manager

About the role

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.

Waabi is building generative AI for the physical world, starting with autonomous trucks. Our Texas road operations run both R&D testing and commercial freight. Mission Control is the operational nerve center of the Waabi Network. Every mission and load flows through it. The Waabi Driver drives and owns safety in the moment. Mission Control manages everything around the driving: monitoring, remote assist, customer and site coordination, exceptions, and keeping freight moving.

The Mission Control Manager owns that operation end to end. This is senior people leadership: build the team, set the standards, own the service levels, and stand up and validate the operating model. This role is a peer to the Vehicle Operations Lead and the Test Operations Lead.

• You will…
• End-to-end ownership. Own Mission Control operations end to end (remote assist, fleet and mission management, dispatch coordination) across both supervised R&D testing and driverless operations at launch.
• Team building. Build, lead, and coach the team (Remote Assist Specialists, Mission Control Specialists): hiring, staffing, scheduling, training, performance management, and career development.
• KPI ownership. Own the team's KPIs: mission completion rate, intervention rate, remote resolution rate, mean time to respond/resolve, operator-to-truck ratio, and fleet uptime.
• Continuous improvement loop. Own the intervention-to-improvement loop: turning novel road events into updated SOPs, debriefs, and handoffs.
• Key Escalation Point. Be the escalation point for anything that outgrows the floor (engineering, legal, safety, leadership).
• Standards setting. Set standards for emergency response and redundancy procedures.
• Operating model validation. Stand up and pressure-test the Mission Control operating model during supervised operations, before it has to carry a driverless load.
• Coverage planning. Own 24/7 coverage planning as the operation scales.
• Cross-functional partnership. Partner across Dispatch, Vehicle Operations, Test Operations, Fleet Readiness, Training, Autonomy, and Commercial.
• External representation. Represent Waabi to customers, regulators, and visitors touring Mission Control.

Qualifications

• People leadership.
• 6+ years leading operations, with substantial people-leadership depth (you've led leaders, not just individual contributors).
• Experience managing both full time employees and outsourced teams and functions.

• Control-center experience. Experience running or standing up a 24/7 shift-based control center, NOC, command center, or dispatch floor.
• Track record of scaling. A track record of building and scaling a team and an operating model from an early stage.
• Composure and communication. Calm judgment under pressure and excellent cross-functional communication.
• Continuous-improvement discipline. A continuous-improvement discipline: you turn incidents into better processes, not just after-action reports.
• Technical comfort. Comfortable working in a technical environment (deep autonomous-vehicle or engineering expertise is not required).
• Relevant background is a plus. Logistics, trucking, aviation, emergency dispatch, or AV operations background is a plus.
• Location and schedule. Willing to work onsite in Lancaster, TX and flex to shift-based coverage as needed.