Data Operations Lead — AI Research Data & Vendors

XYZ Venture Capital; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 300,000 - 350,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, and vision benefits

Unlimited PTO

Paid parental leave

Relocation support

Job summary

Thinking Machines in San Francisco, CA is seeking a hands-on Data Operations specialist to help researchers access data for model training and evaluation. You will partner with researchers, source data, evaluate vendors, and build scalable processes that improve quality and speed.

You'll own data projects from sourcing through delivery, work with international vendors when needed, and help shape practical data governance while aligning with research priorities.

Qualifications

• Own operational, data, program, or vendor work from start to finish.
• Experience with data vendors, ideally in AI or tech.
• Strong problem-solving instincts and willingness to dig in.
• Comfortable working directly with researchers or technical teams and turning loosely defined needs into action.
• Good judgment about quality and willingness to inspect work closely, not just follow process.
• Strong communication across teams, vendors, and cultures.
• Able to adapt to ambiguity, changing priorities, and tight timelines.
• High initiative and willingness to move the work forward.

Responsibilities

• Understand data needs from researchers and translate requests into concrete plans.
• Own data projects from sourcing and vendor selection through quality review to delivery.
• Find best vendors, experts, and data sources for different tasks.
• Build and maintain partnerships with data vendors, including international partners.
• Review data with researchers and vendors, identify quality issues and improve outputs.
• Deep-dive into new data domains and learn what good looks like quickly.
• Create guidelines, processes, and tools to make recurring work scalable.
• Automate repetitive tasks where appropriate while staying close to judgment-required work.
• Collaborate with legal and other teams on vendor relationships and compliance.

Skills

Vendor management

Data sourcing

Problem solving

Communication

Ambiguity tolerance

Initiative

Process improvement

Structure

Job description

Thinking Machines in San Francisco, CA is seeking a hands-on Data Operations specialist to help researchers access data for model training and evaluation. You will partner with researchers, source data, evaluate vendors, and build scalable processes that improve quality and speed.

You'll own data projects from sourcing through delivery, work with international vendors when needed, and help shape practical data governance while aligning with research priorities.