Data Operations & Annotations Lead

Zipline; Detroit (MI); On-site; USD 150,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline seeks a leader to build and scale data-collection operations for ML and autonomy. You will define how data is gathered, annotated, and validated, and grow the organization to support rapid, cost-efficient data production across field operations and engineering teams.

You will partner with ML, autonomy, and data-infra teams to optimize data workflows, improve quality and coverage, and drive automation for scalable performance.

Qualifications

• Experience leading and scaling operational or technical teams, including developing managers.
• Experience owning technically complex operational systems and improving their performance at scale.
• Strong systems thinking and technical judgment across people, process, hardware, software, and infrastructure.
• Experience leading ambiguous, cross-functional work from problem definition through sustained operation.
• Experience designing or operating large-scale data labeling or annotation programs.

Responsibilities

• Lead the organization and end-to-end operations that collect, annotate, validate, and deliver high-quality real-world data at the scale, speed, and cost required for ML and autonomy development.
• Partner with ML and autonomy teams to translate model needs into data requirements, collection strategies, and operational priorities.
• Design and improve annotation, validation, and quality-control workflows, using tooling, automation, and metrics to optimize quality, coverage, speed, and cost.
• Develop managers and teams, establish clear ownership, and build a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
• Lead cross-functional programs and drive decisions across operations, engineering, ML, and autonomy.
• Use operational data and feedback to identify bottlenecks and drive automation or engineering improvements that increase scale without proportional growth in manual effort or cost.

Skills

Leadership & scaling

Operational systems ownership

Systems thinking

Cross-functional leadership

Data operations lifecycle

Metrics & automation

Communication & alignment

Job description

Zipline seeks a leader to build and scale data-collection operations for ML and autonomy. You will define how data is gathered, annotated, and validated, and grow the organization to support rapid, cost-efficient data production across field operations and engineering teams.

You will partner with ML, autonomy, and data-infra teams to optimize data workflows, improve quality and coverage, and drive automation for scalable performance.