Commercial Strategy Manager
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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
Wayve is looking for a Commercial Strategy Manager to own some of the company’s most critical strategic partnerships (cloud compute) and initiatives. The Commercial Strategy team helps guide strategy and deliver impact across many of Wayve's most important technology and infrastructure partnerships.
In this role, you'll wear many hats, but one leading focus will be driving Wayve’s compute strategy and managing our most critical cloud and infrastructure partnerships as we scale next-generation embodied AI models. You will sit at the intersection of technical planning and commercial execution—helping Wayve secure the capabilities, reliability, and economics required to deliver global L4 autonomy. You will own relationships with hyperscalers, GPU providers, and infrastructure vendors, while also acting as a versatile commercial operator who can step into high-priority strategic efforts across the business. You will help shape how Wayve scales training, storage, and inference capacity; lead commercial engagements that optimise cost structure and future readiness; and build the analytical foundations that guide multi-year infrastructure strategy.
Beyond compute, you will support a broader set of commercial strategy workstreams. This includes evaluating new technology and ecosystem partners, conducting market and competitive analysis across AV/ADAS/AI, building internal tools that clarify commercial and technical trade-offs, and driving alignment across engineering, product, finance, and commercial teams. You will help structure ambiguous problems, bring analytical rigor to cross-functional discussions, and ensure that strategic decisions are grounded in data and tied to company priorities.
You’ll also play a key role in preparing leaders for external engagements - ensuring we show up with clarity, consistency, and a well-reasoned point of view across negotiations, partner reviews, and joint planning sessions. As infrastructure demands grow, your work will help Wayve right-size commitments, optimize spend, and maintain flexibility while deepening key technology partnerships.
Key Responsibilities:
Compute Strategy & Infrastructure Partnerships
- Lead Wayve’s compute strategy commercially, partnering with engineering and finance to translate technical needs into clear commercial and infrastructure plans, across training, storage, and inference.
- Own day-to-day relationships with hyperscalers and infrastructure vendors, ensuring strong alignment, operational reliability, and forward visibility into roadmaps.
- Drive commercial negotiations across pricing, commitments, discount structures, and capacity planning to secure scalable, cost-efficient infrastructure.
- Build and maintain forecasting models that balance product milestones, engineering demand, financial constraints, and vendor capabilities.
- Monitor GPU utilisation, storage growth, and cloud spend to generate insights that guide decision-making and improve ROI.
Strategic Initiatives & Cross-Functional Alignment
- Lead high-impact, ambiguous workstreams that require structured thinking, analytical depth, and coordination across engineering, product, finance, and commercial teams.
- Evaluate new technology and ecosystem partners—synthesizing technical, commercial, and competitive considerations to guide partnership strategies.
- Develop internal tools, frameworks, and dashboards that create transparency around technical and commercial trade-offs.
- Support scenario planning, business case development, and long-term strategy work across compute, SoC, and broader technology partnerships.
Commercial Analysis & Market Intelligence
- Conduct research and analysis across the AV/ADAS/AI and infrastructure landscape to inform Wayve’s partnership and commercial strategy.
- Synthesize market trends, competitive positioning, vendor roadmaps, and pricing benchmarks into clear recommendations for leadership.
- Identify risks, opportunities, and leverage points across Wayve’s strategic ecosystem.
Partner Engagement & Execution Excellence
- Prepare senior leaders for high-stakes partner discussions by developing clear narratives, briefing materials, and analytical backing.
- Support escalation management, including documenting issues, coordinating responses, and ensuring accountability from vendors.
- Build repeatable processes that improve governance, forecasting, and operational readiness across key partnerships.
- Ensure Wayve presents a consistent, well-reasoned point of view in negotiations, quarterly business reviews, and joint planning sessions.
About you
To thrive as a Commercial Strategy Manager at Wayve, you bring a balanced mix of strategic thinking, commercial instincts, and analytical depth. You’re comfortable managing critical external partnerships, representing Wayve in conversations with hyperscalers and technology providers, and building strong relationships across the business. You are intellectually curious and able to ramp quickly on new technical topics—including Wayve’s compute infrastructure—by collaborating closely with engineering, commercial, and finance teams. You operate confidently across technical and commercial domains, bring structure and clarity to complex problems, and communicate in a way that aligns stakeholders and moves work forward. You approach challenges with curiosity, rigor, and a bias for action.
Essential
- Background in strategy consulting, corporate strategy, business operations, or strategic partnerships—ideally in a technology-focused environment.
- Strong commercial judgment with experience evaluating trade-offs, negotiating with external partners, or shaping strategic recommendations.
- Experience collaborating closely with engineering and product teams, translating technical requirements into commercial and strategic implications.
- Demonstrated analytical strength, including financial modeling, scenario planning, and synthesizing complex information into clear guidance.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to prepare senior leaders for external discussions and represent commercial perspectives with credibility.
- Proven ability to operate with ownership, urgency, and adaptability in fast-paced or R&D-heavy environments.
Desirable
- Experience working with cloud infrastructure, compute strategy, semiconductors, or adjacent technical domains.
- MBA or advanced degree in business, strategy, or a related field.
- Prior experience managing or supporting technology partnerships (ideally with hyperscalers, GPU providers, or enterprise technology vendors)
- Exposure to autonomous systems, AI/ML infrastructure, mobility, or other complex technology industries.
- Comfort using data tools or metrics platforms to support decision-making.
This is a full-time role based in our office in London. At Wayve we want the best of all worlds so we operate a hybrid working policy that combines time together in our offices and workshops to fuel innovation, culture, relationships and learning, and time spent working from home. We operate core working hours so you can determine the schedule that works best for you and your team.
Wayve is committed to creating an inclusive interview experience. If you require any accommodations or adjustments to participate fully in our interview process, please let us know
We understand that everyone has a unique set of skills and experiences and that not everyone will meet all of the requirements listed above. If you’re passionate about self-driving cars and think you have what it takes to make a positive impact on the world, we encourage you to apply.
For more information visit Careers at Wayve.
To learn more about what drives us, visit Values at Wayve
DISCLAIMER: We will not ask about marriage or pregnancy, care responsibilities or disabilities in any of our job adverts or interviews. However, we do look to capture information about care responsibilities, and disabilities among other diversity information as part of an optional DEI Monitoring form to help us identify areas of improvement in our hiring process and ensure that the process is inclusive and non-discriminatory.