Strategic Partnership Manager

Before the detail, here's the challenge you'd help us solve.

We build the embodied intelligence that moves real vehicles safely, and the ecosystem a billion machines will run on in the future. Very few people in AI can say this. Every role here, whatever the team, plugs into that.

Here’s what this particular role covers.

The role

Wayve is building the AI Driver to power autonomous mobility at global scale. We have launched in London, are preparing for Tokyo and are building toward the US — and none of it scales without fleet operations. Our fleet operations run through a network of external partners who deliver vehicle operations and driving data collection across the UK, Germany, Japan and the US, and that network has grown quickly.

We are hiring a Strategic Partnership Manager to take global ownership of this partner network. You will own the relationships, the commercial terms and the performance standards, decide who we work with next, and build the operating model that lets the network scale. You will also be the fleet operations partnership expert our Robotaxi teams turn to as those services grow. This is a newly created role with real commercial accountability and high visibility across Fleet Operations, Safety, Legal, Finance and company leadership.

Key responsibilities

• Own end-to-end relationships with the external partners who deliver Wayve’s fleet operations across the UK, Germany, Japan and the US — building trust with partner leadership, navigating disagreements and leading major partner changes
• Act as the primary link between regional Fleet Operations leads and partners, resolving performance, capacity and operating-model issues
• Own contract negotiations, commercial terms, renewals and contractual compliance, and lead recurring partner reviews covering hiring, training, KPIs and operations
• Scan the market, source and evaluate new partners, and bring diligence and proposals to leadership for decision
• Lead partner onboarding, transitions and offboarding, ensuring operational continuity and carrying learnings across markets
• Build the global playbook and performance framework for fleet operations partnerships, and support internal change initiatives that depend on partner alignment
• Provide partnership and commercial support to our Robotaxi operations teams on fleet-related topics as our services scale

About you

In order to set you up for success as a Strategic Partnership Manager at Wayve, we’re looking for the following skills and experience.

Essential

• Strong ownership mindset, with a proven track record of managing strategic partnerships or outsourced/vendor relationships end-to-end and clear commercial accountability for the outcome
• Experience negotiating commercial terms and contracts, and holding partners to KPIs or SLAs — including when performance slips
• Operational depth: you have managed partners who deliver a frontline operational workforce, and you are credible on hiring ramp, training, utilisation and quality
• Comfortable operating across multiple markets and time zones, building trust with partners and stakeholders in different cultures and operating models
• Able to bring structure and momentum to fast-moving, ambiguous situations, particularly where a partner network has outgrown its operating model
• A credible internal partner to operations leaders — you work through them rather than around them

Desirable

• 6+ years in strategic partnerships, vendor or outsourcing management, mobility or operations roles
• Experience in mobility, autonomy, logistics or another highly operational or regulated industry
• Experience managing partners in Germany, Japan and/or the US
• Experience standing up a partnership operating model or playbook from scratch

A quick, honest note before you apply.

Wayve is not a mature, fully-structured place with the playbook already written. Much of how we work is still being written, and if you join, you’ll help write it. That suits people who want real ownership more than people who need a settled structure from day one.

If that sounds like the kind of problem you want to spend your time on, we’d really like to hear from you.