About us
Founded in 2017, Wayve is the leading developer of Embodied AI technology. Our advanced AI software and foundation models enable vehicles to perceive, understand, and navigate any complex environment, enhancing the usability and safety of automated driving systems. Our vision is to create autonomy that propels the world forward. Our intelligent, mapless, and hardware-agnostic AI products are designed for automakers, accelerating the transition from assisted to automated driving. In our fast-paced environment big problems ignite us—we embrace uncertainty, leaning into complex challenges to unlock groundbreaking solutions. We aim high and stay humble in our pursuit of excellence, constantly learning and evolving as we pave the way for a smarter, safer future. At Wayve, your contributions matter. We value diversity, embrace new perspectives, and foster an inclusive work environment; we back each other to deliver impact. Make Wayve the experience that defines your career!
The role
Key responsibilities:
- Lead day-to-day customer interactions in Japan, building strong, trusted relationships across product, engineering and leadership stakeholders.
- Bridge the time-zone and communication gap between Japan and Wayve's global teams, ensuring fast, clear and accurate flow of information in both directions.
- Lead local development efforts in Japan and drive close partnership with our global engineering teams, scoping, prioritising and shipping the features and fixes that matter most to our customers.
- Set the technical and product direction for the Japan-based team, growing local engineering and product capability over time as the customer base scales.
- Translate customer feedback, technical questions and market context into actionable product requirements and clear input to the roadmap.
- Drive issue triage and resolution end-to-end, owning customer-facing communication and ensuring rapid, technically sound responses.
- Represent Wayve in customer meetings, technical reviews and on-site visits with a credible technical voice.
About you
In order to set you up for success as a Product Manager at Wayve, we’re looking for the following skills and experience.
Essential:
- Strong technical background (engineering, computer science, robotics, automotive or similar) with the ability to engage credibly on deep technical topics.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills in both English and Japanese, comfortable presenting to senior stakeholders.
- Proven track record in product management, technical program management or a customer-facing technical role, ideally on complex software or hardware-software products.
- Demonstrated leadership and ability to influence without authority across cross-functional, cross-geography teams.
- High autonomy and strong ownership — comfortable operating independently from HQ, across time zones, and driving outcomes with minimal oversight.
Desirable:
- Experience in automotive, ADAS, autonomous driving or other safety-critical product domains.
- Prior experience working with Japanese OEMs or Tier-1 suppliers.
- Background working across global teams (Japan ↔ Europe / US) in a startup or scale-up environment.