Senior Manager, AV Deployment Readiness

The Senior Manager, AV Deployment Readiness owns end-to-end orchestration of every deployment from planning through go-live — ensuring that production, validations, deployment and all supporting infrastructure, staffing and customer commitments converge on time. You are the single-threaded owner of deployment delivery. This role is onsite 5 days a week at our Mountain View, CA office! What you'll do Deployment Tracking & Orchestration Own the master deployment readiness view across all customers, locations, and deployment phases — from vehicle allocation through operational go-live. Manage a multi-tier tracking system (Jira or equivalent) spanning deployment-level milestones and vehicle- level parallel workstreams: vehicle release from production, remote supervision station setup, route/map validation, and staff training completion among others. Build dashboards providing real-time visibility into vehicle-by-vehicle, customer-by-customer readiness, deployment-level status, and cross-cutting blockers. Define and enforce gate-based readiness criteria ensuring no deployment advances without prerequisites clearing. Track supply vs. demand metrics — vehicle release timing against customer dates, crew-to-vehicle ratios, and rolling readiness scores — to surface risks long before they become blockers. Escalation & Risk Management Operate as the central escalation point for deployment blockers. Maintain escalation protocols with defined SLAs based on deployment proximity and severity. Maintain a risk-weighted priority matrix accounting for customer contractual commitments, revenue impact, fleet availability, and operational complexity. Run regular deployment readiness reviews with engineering, safety, and operations leadership — crisp status updates with clear asks and owners for every open item. Cross-Functional Liaison Serve as the connective tissue between Hardware/Software Engineering (vehicle production, software feature readiness), Safety (safety case gating, operational design domain validation), and Operations (field staff, remote supervision/training, site infrastructure, customer interface). Translate engineering and safety constraints into operational timelines and vice versa. Coordinate with customer-facing teams to set expectations and provide early warning when timelines are at risk. Tooling & Continuous Improvement Own the project structure for deployment tracking: issue hierarchies, automation rules, custom workflows, and reporting dashboards. Develop runbooks, checklists, and SOPs for each deployment phase. Conduct post-deployment retrospectives and feed improvements back into readiness processes, tooling, and coordination cadences What we're looking for 7+ years in program management, deployment operations, or launch readiness in autonomous vehicles, robotics, aerospace, defense, automotive, or similarly complex hardware + software domains. Demonstrated experience managing multi-workstream programs where hardware, software, field infrastructure, regulatory approvals, and customer commitments must converge simultaneously. Deep proficiency with Jira or equivalent for complex project tracking: hierarchies, custom fields, automation, dashboards. You architect workflows, not just use them. Track record managing programs with hard external deadlines where missing the date has real financial and relationship consequences. Experience building deployment readiness frameworks from scratch in fast-moving environment Bonus Qualifications Direct experience in AV operations, fleet deployment, or connected vehicle programs. Familiarity with safety case frameworks (UL 4600, ISO 26262, SOTIF) is a strong differentiator. Background in organizations transitioning from human-operated to autonomous systems, particularly where operational mitigations are removed through phased gates. Experience with supply/demand forecasting for fleet operations: vehicle availability modeling, crew scheduling, capacity planning