Director – Surgical Data Annotation & Programs (Pune)

Codvo Private Limited; Pune District; On-site; INR 2,500,000 - 3,500,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading tech firm in Pune is seeking a Senior Program Leader for surgical video annotation processes. The ideal candidate will provide strategic leadership, ensuring quality assurance and regulatory compliance across multiple programs. With 12-15 years of relevant experience, the successful candidate will manage program portfolios and enhance operational effectiveness through automation and governance. This full-time role offers a hybrid working model, emphasizing leadership and innovation in video annotation and clinical data management.

Qualifications

• 12–15+ years of hands-on experience in data operations and annotation programs.
• 5+ years leading managers or owning multi-program portfolios.
• Expertise in video annotation programs, temporal segmentation, and event labeling.

Responsibilities

• Provide leadership for surgical video annotation programs.
• Ensure quality systems are in place and operations are compliant.
• Lead client and executive program reviews and discussions.

Skills

Data operations

Clinical data management

Quality assurance

Project management

Job description

Company: CODVO.AI
Department: Engineering
Location: Pune, India (Hybrid)
Employment Type: Full-time
Experience Level: Expert (12–15+ years)
Shift Timing: 2:30 PM – 11:30 PM IST
Work Days: 3 days per week on-site

Role Goal

Provide strategic and operational leadership for a portfolio of high throughput, clinically defensible, audit ready surgical video annotation programs. Own scale, standardization, automation leverage, quality systems, and client trust across multiple programs—ensuring predictable delivery, regulatory readiness, and measurable ROI on human in the loop operations.

What You’ll Do

Portfolio & Delivery Ownership (E2E)

• Own end to end delivery for multiple concurrent surgical video annotation programs across clients, procedures, and modalities.
• Set and enforce standard operating models from intake → de-identification → annotation → QA/IRR → adjudication → dataset release + evidence packs.
• Ensure programs meet or exceed SLAs, quality thresholds, and release timelines at scale.

Operating Model & Standardization

• Define and institutionalize annotation operating standards:
  • Program playbooks
  • SOPs
  • Quality gates
  • Evidence pack structure
  • Dataset versioning discipline
• Ensure every program is reproducible, auditable, and clinically defensible.

Ontology & Clinical Governance

• Partner with senior clinical SMEs to:
  • Define and approve procedure level ontologies (phases, steps, anatomy, tools, events).
  • Ensure consistent translation into labeling guidelines, UI constraints, and QA checks.
• Own governance mechanisms to resolve clinical ambiguity, manage guideline evolution, and prevent ontology drift across programs.

Automation First Strategy

• Set the automation vision and roadmap for surgical video labeling:
  • Pre labeling + verification as default
  • Confidence/uncertainty based task routing
  • Active learning feedback loops
• Drive continuous reduction in cost per labeled minute and human effort per release.
• Partner with ML, platform, and data engineering leaders to productionize automation gains.

Quality Systems & Audit Readiness

• Design and govern enterprise grade quality systems:
  • Multi rater strategies by label class
  • IRR standards (kappa, alpha, IoU/Dice as applicable)
  • Calibration and retraining frameworks
  • Acceptance thresholds by use case (R&D vs regulated)
• Ensure every dataset ships with a complete Evidence Pack:
  • Provenance
  • QA & IRR reports
  • Adjudication logs
  • Clinical and delivery sign offs

Adjudication & Risk Management

• Own disagreement governance across programs:
  • Escalation paths to senior adjudicators and clinicians
  • Systematic tracking of ambiguity categories
  • Closure of recurring issues via guideline and tooling updates
• Proactively identify delivery, quality, compliance, and reputational risks.

Security, Privacy & Compliance Leadership

• Ensure all annotation programs comply with:
  • De-identification standards
  • Data access controls
  • Logging, retention, and audit requirements
• Serve as executive owner for security reviews, audits, and vendor risk assessments (SOC2 / ISO aligned environments).

Client & Executive Leadership

• Act as senior escalation and trusted advisor for clients.
• Lead executive level program reviews, roadmap discussions, and expansion opportunities.
• Ensure PoCs convert into long term, scaled production partnerships.

Build & Scale Organization & Talent

• Build and lead a multi layered delivery organization:
  • Program Leads
  • Senior annotators & adjudicators
  • QA auditors
  • Training & calibration leads
• Define career pathways, certification standards, and succession plans.

Operating Infrastructure

• Enterprise level:
  • SOP libraries
  • Training academies
  • Calibration playbooks
  • Release governance checklists
• Cross program tooling consistency and metrics instrumentation.

Metrics & Executive Dashboards

• Own portfolio level metrics:
  • Throughput & cycle time
  • Rework and defect density
  • IRR trends by label type
  • Acceptance pass rate
  • Cost per labeled minute/hour
  • Automation leverage and pre label acceptance
• Translate metrics into decision ready insights for leadership and clients

Required Qualifications

• 12–15+ years of hands‑on experience in data operations, annotation programs, QA‑led delivery, or clinical data management
• 5+ years leading managers or owning multi‑program portfolios
• Deep, hands‑on expertise with video annotation programs, including temporal segmentation, event labeling, and annotation tool workflows at scale
• Proven track record designing and running enterprise‑grade quality systems with IRR accountability
• Strong executive program management skills: capacity planning, financial control, risk management, and stakeholder leadership
• Demonstrated ability to operationalize clinical guidelines into enforceable, tool‑based workflows
• Experience working in regulated or high‑trust environments (healthcare, life sciences, sensitive data handling)

Preferred Qualifications (Strong Plus)

• Direct experience with surgical video data (endoscopy, robotics, OR cameras).
• Prior ownership of automation or ML assisted labeling programs at scale.
• Experience leading dataset versioning, reproducibility, and audit ready release processes.
• Exposure to enterprise security, privacy, and compliance frameworks.
• Background in building delivery organizations from early scale to maturity.