Director, AI Opportunity Development

datadotorg; United States; Hybrid; USD 250,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

datadotorg in San Francisco blends AI research with public-interest work. This senior role scouts opportunities across AI research, the builder ecosystem, civil society, government, philanthropy, and communities to surface capabilities, unmet needs, and teams with the potential for meaningful adoption.

You will assess technical credibility, safety, and social value, define user outcomes, and develop execution paths with engineers, researchers, and partners to advance high-impact projects.

Qualifications

• Deep understanding of current AI capabilities and limitations.
• Experience building technology or products from 0-to-1.
• Ability to spot emerging signals and connect them to social impact.

Responsibilities

• Build a high-quality opportunity pipeline. Develop trusted relationships with AI researchers, engineers, founders, nonprofit leaders, public servants, domain experts, funders, and frontline organizations; use conversations to surface ideas and capabilities that others may overlook.
• Track the frontier and connect it to real needs. Stay current on rapidly changing AI capabilities, limitations, costs, and implementation patterns, and identify where they create newly possible approaches to social problems.
• Turn signals into concrete opportunity theses. Define the user, problem, intervention, value, differentiation, risks, and adoption path for evaluation.
• Conduct technical and strategic diligence. Assess model fit, data and infrastructure requirements, safety, cost, readiness, distribution, durability, and scale potential.
• Pressure-test opportunities in the field. Validate demand through interviews and field visits to understand fit with existing systems.
• Recommend the path to execution. Identify who should build, required resources, and structure; establish a repeatable scouting/diligence approach.

Skills

Deep AI judgment

Tech product experience

Early spotting of possibilities

Rigorous analysis

Portfolio judgment

Cross-domain fluency

Public-benefit focus

Job description

In A Nutshell

Location

Hybrid San Francisco, CA, United States

Salary

$250,000 - $300,000 / year

Job Type

Full-time

Experience Level

Senior-level

Deadline to apply

September 30, 2026

This is a senior opportunity-scouting and diligence role. You will range across AI research and the builder ecosystem, civil society, government, philanthropy, and communities to surface emerging capabilities, unmet needs, promising ideas, and exceptional teams. You will determine which opportunities are technically credible, socially valuable, differentiated, and positioned for meaningful adoption.

Responsibilities

• Build a high-quality opportunity pipeline. Develop trusted relationships with AI researchers, engineers, founders, nonprofit leaders, public servants, domain experts, funders, and frontline organizations; use those conversations to surface ideas and capabilities that others may be overlooking.
• Track the frontier and connect it to real needs. Stay current on rapidly changing AI capabilities, limitations, costs, and implementation patterns, and identify where they create newly possible approaches to consequential social problems.
• Turn signals into concrete opportunity theses. Define the intended user, problem, proposed intervention, source of value, differentiation, risks, and path to adoption so that a broad idea can be evaluated and acted on.
• Conduct technical and strategic diligence. Assess model fit, data and infrastructure requirements, safety, cost, organizational readiness, distribution, durability, and potential for scale; distinguish what can be built now from what requires further technical progress.
• Pressure-test opportunities in the field. Work with prospective users, practitioners, and domain experts through interviews, workshops, and field visits to validate demand, surface constraints, and understand how a solution would need to fit existing systems.
• Recommend the path to execution. For the strongest opportunities, identify who should build, what resources and partners are required, and what structure best fits; present clear fund, partner, prototype, recruit, incubate, revisit, or stop recommendations. Help establish a repeatable scouting and diligence approach for the Foundation.

Skillset

• Bring deep technical judgment about AI. You understand current model capabilities and limitations, can interrogate technical claims, and can assess feasibility credibly with engineers and researchers.
• Have built technology or products. You have enough first-hand 0-to-1 experience to understand what makes an idea buildable, where execution usually fails, and what a strong founding or product team needs.
• See important possibilities early. You are intellectually curious, follow weak signals across disciplines, and connect emerging technical capabilities to problems that may not yet have obvious solutions.
• Run ideas down with rigor. You know how to move from an intriguing conversation to evidence: finding the right experts, testing assumptions, synthesizing conflicting information, and identifying the decisive unknowns.
• Exercise strong portfolio judgment. You can compare many interesting opportunities, prioritize the few that matter most, and stop work when the evidence does not support further investment.
• Move fluently across worlds. You can earn trust with technical builders, institutional leaders, frontline organizations, and communities, then translate what you learn into precise recommendations for technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Care deeply about public benefit. You bring sound judgment about safety, equity, local context, and the responsibilities that come with deploying technology in people’s lives.

Spot any inaccurate information? Have a job to share? Let us know.