Senior Director, Global Operations Center

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.

Waymo Operations exists to deliver the Waymo Driver to the world. We are a global team building and scaling the world's first and leading autonomous fleet and operations platform. From component sourcing to end customer management, we enable and create value for Waymo through scaled and orchestrated deployment of the Waymo Driver. At Waymo, we are dedicated to building a culture that promotes collaboration and celebration. We value our team members' unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences and support and encourage all team members to share their ideas to help Waymo better serve the communities in which we operate.

This hybrid role reports to the Head of Operations.

In this role, you will establish and lead Waymo's centralized real-time operations capability to enable operations at scale, protect operational network integrity, and ensure operational resilience as the business expands across vehicles, miles, markets, and partners. This role provides a unified operational voice in crisis situations for Waymo in real time, aligning decision making and accountability to act in the company's best interest across the global network in the most critical moments. The Senior Director sets the strategy, operating framework, and performance standards for real-time operations while leading execution during critical events. The role serves as the primary operational signal to engineering and product teams, delivering validated, prioritized insights that accelerate resolution and continuous improvement. The GOC ensures consistent operational standards, disciplined escalation, and coordinated response to disruptions and safety-critical events.

You will:

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Provide Enterprise Leadership: Drive accountability for centralized real-time operations across the global network

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Lead Operational Decision-Making: Serve as the senior authority for live operations and critical events

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Establish Unified Command: Establish an operational command structure that acts in the company's best interest at all times

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Protect Network Integrity: Prioritize system-wide impacts over local or market-level optimizations

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Define Decision Rights: Maintain clear escalation paths and accountability for all real-time operations

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Enforce Operational Principles: Ensure consistent application of safety standards across all markets

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Coordinate System Disruption Management: Lead the reaction to operational disruptions, safety-critical events, and emerging risks

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Interface With Cross-Functional Teams: Provide validated and prioritized operational signals to cross-functional teams (e.g. Safety, SysEng, Engineering, Marketing/Comms)

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Strengthen Regulatory Confidence: Drive disciplined execution, traceability, and operational control

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Own Business Continuity: Activate and coordinate resilience responses across the enterprise

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Oversee Support Functions: Provide operational oversight for Rider Support and ERT call centers as extensions of the network

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Integrate Real-Time Signals: Ensure Rider Support functions are tightly linked with GOC decision-making and escalation

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Align Response Workflows: Own the end-to-end synchronization between call centers and emergency response teams

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Ensure Interaction Standards: Guarantee customer and responder interactions are accurate and aligned to safety protocols

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Establish Escalation Paths: Enable fast, coordinated action between support centers and real-time operational command

You have:

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15+ years leading high-stakes and high urgency operations, global command centers, or autonomous networks

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Experience establishing and scaling centralized control functions or Global Operations Centers

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Proven ability to serve as a senior authority during live, safety-critical events

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Success defining unified command structures, decision rights, and complex escalation paths

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Expertise in System Disruption Management, emergency management, and business continuity coordination

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Track record of prioritizing global network integrity over local market optimizations

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Leveraged real-time signals to drive real-time decision-making and translate into prioritized insights for engineering and product

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Experience integrating support functions and call centers into real-time network operations

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Ability to build regulatory and partner confidence through operational maturity

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.

Salary Range
$334,000—$412,000 USD