Director Lean Manufacturing Jobs in Reston, VA (NOW HIRING)

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 role follows a hybrid work schedule and reports to the Head of Market Operations - East Region.

You will:

• Regional Fleet Integration & Scalability: Lead the strategic scale of new EV platforms across multiple Eastern Region markets, prioritizing fleet uptime and platform maturity through rigorous oversight of field integration, high-voltage stabilization, and sensor-health protocols.

• Technical & Diagnostic Leadership: Provide dotted-line leadership and technical oversight to a multi-site team of Diagnostic Technicians, setting daily priorities and providing technical mentorship to ensure high-quality execution of complex powertrain and AV-stack troubleshooting.

• Engineering-to-Ops Liaison: Serve as the primary conduit between Hardware/Electrical Engineering and Field Ops, translating systemic technical failures into actionable Standard Work (SW) and driving Root Cause Analysis (RCA).

• Vendor Management & Workforce Readiness: Demonstrated ability to manage complex service-level agreements (SLAs) while ensuring third-party partners are appropriately staffed and technically trained to support multi-platform EV operations. Experience auditing vendor "Standard Work" and safety certifications is essential.

• Operational Governance & Automation: Champion the deployment of automated systems and advanced tooling to maximize depot throughput; provide executive-ready reporting on fleet health and maturity to Global Leadership.

• Supply & Asset Integration: Partner with Supply Management to oversee critical component lifecycles and "just-in-time" part availability, ensuring zero-downtime for mission-critical EV hardware.

You have:

• Educational Foundation: Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering or a related technical/industrial field.

• 10+ Years of Industry Experience: Proven track record in large-scale commercial operations, logistics, or hardware manufacturing, with at least 3 years specifically focused on Electric Vehicle (EV) platforms.

• NPI & Scaling Success: Demonstrated experience taking a vehicle platform or complex hardware product from the NPI phase through to stable, commercial-scale field deployment.

• Vendor Management Excellence: Proven ability to manage complex service-level agreements (SLAs) and drive vendor accountability through data-driven performance audits.

• Analytical Rigor: Advanced ability to interpret telemetry data, diagnostic codes (DTCs), dashboarding and fleet metrics to identify operational gaps and mitigate market-level risks.

• Project Leadership: Experience managing multiple high-stakes technical projects simultaneously in a high-velocity environment (e.g., retrofits, software-defined hardware updates).

We prefer:

• AV Industry Fluency: Direct experience with autonomous vehicle ecosystems, specifically the integration of compute/sensing suites with EV powertrains.

• Process Engineering (WOS/Lean): Experience implementing or refining formal operating systems (e.g., Waymo Operating System or Lean Manufacturing) to reduce operational drag.

• High-Voltage Safety: Advanced knowledge of EV safety standards and the ability to design/manage safe workspaces for high-voltage battery service.

• Change Management Leadership: Skilled in navigating organizational restructuring and leading teams through the "fluid" environment of a scaling startup.

• Relationship Building: Ability to build and manage relationships, engage in-person, and foster cross-functional communication and alignment.

• Strategic Decision-Making: Skilled in analytical and critical thinking, problem-solving, risk assessment, management, and long-term planning and prioritization.

Travel Requirements:

• Primarily domestic travel, accounting for 30% of the time, with very minimal international trips.