Material Program Manager

Job description

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. 🛠️ About our Supply Chain Teams The Supply Chain team sits within Hardware & Supply Chain and works at the intersection of hardware development, engineering and operations. We are a lean, hands-on, highly cross-functional global team in a fast-paced environment, and we’re building our local capability in Japan as Wayve scales there. 🧠 Your day-to-day As Material Program Manager in Japan, you’ll own end-to-end materials execution for Wayve’s autonomous vehicle and hardware programs: procurement, supplier coordination, CTB (Clear to Build) readiness, receiving, secure storage and outbound shipping. You’ll physically manage prototype material flow in our warehouse while also owning the commercial relationships with our local vehicle outfitters and other local suppliers. You’ll work closely with Engineering, Operations and the global Supply Chain team to keep materials moving from suppliers to workshops and vehicle upfitting locations, with visibility, cost control and compliance. 🧩 What you’ll be working on: - Owning and managing the materials programs that enable Wayve’s autonomous vehicle and hardware development in Japan, driving execution across procurement, receiving, storage and shipping to meet aggressive program milestones. - Identifying and managing dependencies and blockers across multi-disciplinary teams to keep materials flowing. - Owning materials procurement in coordination with sourcing and purchasing teams, and supporting supplier negotiations on pricing, availability and scale readiness. - Driving the CTB (Clear to Build) process with suppliers, contract manufacturers, workshop teams and internal stakeholders, with clear visibility of material availability, lead times and build readiness. - Working with Engineering to onboard, set up and manage suppliers and partners in the Japanese market, and acting as the primary relationship owner for local vehicle outfitters. - Coordinating material receiving, secure storage of high-value, long-lead-time materials and inventory tracking, with accuracy, traceability and proper documentation. - Coordinating outbound shipping to workshops, vehicle outfitter facilities and other Wayve sites, in line with Japanese logistics and customs requirements, so retrofit schedules aren’t delayed. - Partnering with Engineering, Operations and Product to support design-for-manufacturing and design-for-scale decisions. - Acting as the central point of coordination across Engineering, Supply Chain, Operations and external partners, communicating risks, trade-offs and decisions clearly to teams and leadership. 🙌 You should apply if: - Experience bringing newly developed products to scale through supplier and partner relationships - Strong project or program management experience with the ability to influence across teams - Experience coordinating materials procurement, receiving, storage, and shipping - Full Professional proficiency in English and Japanese (written and verbal) - Knowledge of Japanese logistics, import/export regulations, and local business etiquette - Ability to perform cost analysis and support negotiations - Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills - Comfortable working in an Agile environment with aggressive timelines 🌱 Not ticking every box? That’s totally okay! If you’re passionate about autonomy and keen to learn, we encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet every requirement. More about Wayve: 🚀 Wayve is building the leading AI platform for autonomous driving. We are pioneering an end to end AI approach that enables vehicles to learn directly from real world experience, developing the ability to adapt, generalise and improve at scale. Instead of relying on hand coded rules or pre mapped environments, our AI Driver learns to drive by understanding the world around it. The result is technology that navigates complex urban environments with intelligence, precision and natural flow, unlocking meaningful advances in both safety and efficiency. We believe autonomy represents a once in a generation transformation in how people and goods move, comparable to the shift from horses to cars, and from human driven vehicles to intelligent machines. Our ambition is to make autonomy universal. Wayve’s mapless and hardware agnostic AI platform integrates with global OEM partners, enabling continuous software evolution and unlocking advanced levels of automation from L2 plus through to L4 as our core AI model scales. In a race increasingly defined by intelligence and real world learning, Wayve is taking a distinct approach, building a generalisable driving intelligence