Data Operations Lead

Socket.dev; New York (NY); On-site; USD 150,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Ultra in the United States is seeking a Technical Program Manager to coordinate robotics data programs across ML researchers, engineers, data teams, and operations. You will translate priorities into data collection, annotation, and evaluation workflows, ensuring high-quality datasets delivered on schedule.

You will own the data lifecycle, drive cross-team execution, and build internal tools to streamline processes as requirements evolve in a fast-moving robotics program environment.

Qualifications

• Significant experience in technical program management, ML operations, robotics, autonomy, data platforms, or related technical field.
• Managed complex programs spanning research, software, hardware, and operations.
• Understanding of ML training data, evaluation, dataset quality, and experimentation.
• Clear communication in technical specs, program reviews, and executive updates.

Responsibilities

• Operationalize the execution of collection, annotation, validation, and management of data.
• Translate model-training priorities into concrete data requirements, task definitions, collection plans, and acceptance criteria.
• Own the roadmap and delivery plan for major robotics data programs.
• Continually improve processes around data collection and evals.
• Build internal tools to streamline and improve the data lifecycle.

Skills

Technical program management

ML operations

Robotics

Data platforms

Tools

SQL

Python

Job description

About Ultra

Ultra builds industrial AI robots that are working in the real world today. Our robots automate mission-critical warehouse labor end-to-end, starting with e-commerce order packaging. We deploy fast, learn from real production data, and iterate aggressively. We already have a quickly growing number of revenue-generating robots operating in U.S. warehouses, and are now scaling towards thousands of deployments over the next few years. Our mission is simple: build the world's most useful and deployable robot.

WARNING: Robotics is not for the faint of heart. There are no silver bullets here. It is tiresome, unglamorous, and at times brutal work. The only way out is through, and the only way through is treacherous and unknown. Success will require teamwork - so we are building a world-class team to tackle some of the most exciting problems out there. We hope you join us.

About the role

You will own the programs that turn research priorities into usable robotics datasets, working with ML researchers, robotics engineers, data engineers, and operations teams to determine what data we need, translate those requirements into collection and annotation programs, and ensure the resulting datasets are delivered with the required quality, coverage, and timing. This is a technically demanding program role. You will not directly build every tool or run every collection shift, but you will understand the complete data lifecycle and drive coordinated execution across the teams responsible for it.

What you’ll do

• Operationalize the execution of the collection, annotation, validation, and management of our data
• Translate model-training and evaluation priorities into concrete data requirements, task definitions, collection plans, and acceptance criteria.
• Own the roadmap and delivery plan for major robotics data programs.
• Continually improve our process around collecting data and running evals
• Build internal tools and software to streamline and make our process more efficient

Who You Are

• You have significant experience in technical program management, ML operations, robotics, autonomy, data platforms, or a related technical field.
• You have managed complex programs spanning research, software, hardware, and operations.
• You understand the fundamentals of ML training data, evaluation, dataset quality, and experimentation.
• You communicate clearly in technical specifications, program reviews, and executive updates.
• You thrive in an environment where requirements and priorities change quickly.
• You are comfortable getting your hands dirty, whether that means writing some scrappy code or hopping on a flight to get things done

Bonus Points

• Experience with robotics, autonomous vehicles, embodied AI, or multimodal ML.
• Experience with video, sensor, trajectory, or teleoperation datasets.
• Familiarity with SQL, Python, or direct dataset analysis.
• Experience designing annotation ontologies or evaluation datasets.
• Experience coordinating external data vendors or collection partners.

Expected Compensation

$150,000 - $250,000/annual salary + equity + benefits

This compensation range may be inclusive of several career levels at Ultra and will be narrowed during the interview process based on the candidate’s experience and qualifications. Adjustments outside of this range may be considered for candidates whose qualifications significantly differ from those outlined in the job description.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and encourage applicants from all backgrounds to apply.