AV Compliance Lead, Fleet & Operator Compliance

Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with the mission to be the world's most trusted driver. Since its start as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo has focused on building the Waymo Driver—The World's Most Experienced Driver™—to improve access to mobility while saving thousands of lives now lost to traffic crashes. The Waymo Driver powers Waymo’s fully autonomous ride-hail service and can also be applied to a range of vehicle platforms and product use cases. The Waymo Driver has provided over ten million rider-only trips, enabled by its experience autonomously driving over 100 million miles on public roads and tens of billions in simulation across 15+ U.S. states.

As part of Waymo's Legal team, you will work on the exciting legal issues surrounding our transformational autonomous driving technology and help drive our business lines forward from technology ideation through scaled commercial deployment. We partner with our public policy, safety, security and privacy experts to define transportation policy for the autonomous driving world to come, advising on regulatory changes that support and protect our users around the world. We collaborate with our engineering, product, strategy and operations teams to develop and protect our intellectual property portfolio and drive our corporate and commercial transactions. We ensure compliance with an increasingly complex and dynamic range of global regulations. And we anticipate, mitigate, and litigate high-profile and precedent-setting legal matters.

This role follows a hybrid work schedule and reports to the Head of AV Compliance.

You will:

• Develop and execute a comprehensive strategy and implementation plan for Waymo vehicle and operator compliance activities to enable the company’s rapid global scaling
• Build and maintain relationships with regulators, government agencies, and vendors
• Provide close, active onsite program management of employees, temps, and vendors conducting activities such as permitting, registration, and compliance materials shipment and management
• Develop and maintain status reports and dashboards to provide timely reporting to executives on critical compliance activities, vehicle status, risks, and blockers
• Scale Waymo’s fleet and operator compliance program through new processes and automation, including through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
• Design and implement comprehensive KPI frameworks and reporting structures to monitor, assess, and drive improvements in team and vendor performance.
• Establish documentation standards for compliance processes and lead communication strategies for vendors and executive stakeholders.
• Drive cross-functional collaboration with internal software development teams to build consistent, scalable technical solutions for evolving regulatory requirements.

You have:

• At least 12-15 years of experience in operational and/or program management roles, preferably with a compliance focus.
• Proven track record of managing large teams (10+employees) and active management of complex vendor engagements or projects, including holding partners accountable to rigorous compliance and performance metrics.
• Experience working in high-growth, fast-paced companies.
• Top-notch, strategic leadership skills, with high responsiveness, attention to detail, and ability to manage multiple workstreams in parallel.
• Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to interact with diverse audiences from regulators to engineers to executives.
• Advanced "gap-finding" and risk-assessment abilities, with experience proactively mitigating issues before they impact operations.
• High-level organizational and project management skills, with a demonstrated ability to lead initiatives from concept to completion.
• Data and technology-driven mindset, with the ability to transform manual, repetitive tasks into sophisticated, automated workflows at scale.

We prefer:

• Strong technical aptitude with the ability to influence the development of proprietary software tools.
• Demonstrated resilience and leadership in ambiguous environments, with a focus on problem-solving.
• Experience working in highly complex logistical and operations workflows involving physical materials.
• High EQ and mentorship mindset, with a history of scaling systems efficiently within a team.
• Experience "owning the room" when conceptualizing and operationalizing new processes that close critical gaps in existing operational flows.
• Experience scaling a critical company program during a period of significant company growth or international expansion.

Travel Requirements:

• This individual will be required to travel to build relationships with vendors and local regulators, potentially both domestically and internationally. Travel is expected to  be 10-15% of the year with a maximum of 20%.

The expected base salary range for this full-time position across US locations is listed below. Actual starting pay will be based on job-related factors, including exact work location, experience, relevant training and education, and skill level. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for the role location or, if the role can be performed remote, the specific salary range for your preferred location, during the hiring process. 

Waymo employees are also eligible to participate in Waymo’s discretionary annual bonus program, equity incentive plan, and generous Company benefits program, subject to eligibility requirements.