Director, Data Acquisition

Datassential; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity eligibility

Performance bonus

401K match

Unlimited PTO

Remote stipend

Job summary

Datassential seeks a results‑driven Director of Data Acquisition to lead global data sourcing, vendor partnerships, and data asset growth. You will oversee internal scraping operations and manage external providers while aligning with product roadmaps and budget targets.

You will guide strategic data sourcing decisions, evaluate AI options, and ensure data quality, coverage, and cost efficiency across the organization. Remote options are available for eligible US candidates.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in data acquisition or related data management function.
• 5+ years directly managing a team.
• Experience sourcing, evaluating, onboarding third‑party data providers.
• Experience budgeting or cost centers and forecasting.
• Ability to build a make‑vs‑buy framework for data collection.

Responsibilities

• Define strategies for building proprietary data assets to drive growth.
• Coordinate with Data/Product teams to identify data sources and improvements.
• Own source decisions; balance cost, quality, coverage, and timeliness for data.
• Lead onboarding of third‑party data sources; negotiate licensing terms.
• Work with Engineering to set up data collection and ingestion processes.
• Determine use of AI and other tech to improve data collection.
• Manage data collection budget; track and report variances.
• Lead internal scraping team and coordinate external data‑management vendors.
• Collaborate with Product and leadership on data asset growth roadmap.
• Identify and track KPIs for coverage, quality, cost, and speed.

Skills

Data acquisition

Data operations

Vendor management

Budget management

Make-vs-buy

Negotiation

Stakeholder management

Data quality

Data analysis

ETL pipelines

Tools

APIs

SQL

Web scraping

Alteryx

Jira/Confluence

Job description

Who We Are

Datassential is a leading global intelligence platform for the food and beverage industry. Leveraging billions of data points and cutting-edge AI, we provide a suite of innovative solutions that empower more than 90% of the world’s largest food and beverage brands to develop, market, and sell their products more effectively.

Who We Are

Datassential is a leading global intelligence platform for the food and beverage industry. Leveraging billions of data points and cutting-edge AI, we provide a suite of innovative solutions that empower more than 90% of the world’s largest food and beverage brands to develop, market, and sell their products more effectively.

Based in Chicago, USA, Datassential has expanded its global reach through strategic acquisitions of CHD Expert (France) in 2022 and Brizo Data, Inc. in 2025. In 2024, we secured investment from top-tier private equity firms New Mountain Capital and Endicott Capital - a milestone that fuels our accelerated product roadmap and strengthens our research and development, enabling us to deliver even greater value to our clients.

Our remote-first, globally distributed team thrives on diverse perspectives and deep expertise in the food and beverage space. Food brings people together—and at Datassential’s table, there’s room for everyone.

Why You Should Join Us

Data is the foundation for everything we deliver at Datassential, and expanding and improving our data sources is of central strategic importance to our company and the customers we serve, who include some of the biggest brands in the food industry. Foodservice is a complex and nuanced data landscape, and you will have the opportunity to think creatively about how to expand the insights we can deliver on a global basis. We are passionate about data, committed to doing the work well, and have a ‘we can do anything’ attitude. We value work‑life balance, and you will be joining a team and company that wants you to grow.

Who You Are

• An experienced data management professional and team leader who is equally comfortable in multiple modes of work: guiding a data acquisition roadmap, managing vendor relationships, and ensuring operational rigor in a multi-faceted data-centric business
• A detail-oriented mind with an eye for continuous improvement and optimizing quality and efficiency
• An adept communicator and negotiator, able to drive conversations that span the technical, legal, and financial, and recognize and explain the business value of data
• Energized by the challenge of building data assets that expose new insights to customers and drive new product value
• Curious and energized at the prospect of working in the food industry and impacting strategic decisions for some of the world’s largest food and beverage brands
• Actively engaged and curious about AI and LLM applications in day-to-day work as well as in data extraction and process automation
• Willing to mentor and share knowledge, you make the people around you better

What You Will Do

The Director, Data Acquisition will lead the sourcing and collection of data to support Datassential applications, research, and insights analysis globally. Reporting to the SVP of Data Strategy, this role will include management of data collection across a variety of forms and collection channels, including data collected directly via internal scraping operations as well as from external third party service and providers.

You will guide and collaborate with Datassential's senior leadership to define strategies for building proprietary data assets in support of company objectives. You will follow through on these strategies by identifying and championing new data sources, managing negotiations of terms with new third party providers, and working with Product, Engineering, and Data Operations teams to coordinate data onboarding and ingestion. You will manage data vendor and partnership relationships, ensuring that requirements for downstream use are met, and lead corrective actions as well as innovation efforts to ensure quality and efficiency of collected data. As a hands‑on data leader, you will interact directly with data to assess data relevance, sufficiency, and quality.

This role will have responsibility for defining and tracking costs against budget for all Datassential data acquisition, and working with data operations and finance and accounting teams to ensure cost efficiency and predictability.

The Director, Data Acquisition will manage an internal team responsible for data scraping operations, coordinating scraping maintenance and execution to support continuous and timely collection of foodservice industry, operator and menu data. This role will also manage the relationship with multiple outsourced data management teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Define strategies for building proprietary data assets that drive company growth and customer retention
• Coordinate and work with the Data and Product teams as well as other global stakeholders to identify and evaluate sources for new data elements and improved sources for existing data elements
• Own the determination of the best source or process for data collection, presenting options to stakeholders and promoting the correct balance of cost, quality, coverage, and timeliness to meet the needs of the business. As part of this function, manage decisions on the use of internal scraping vs third-party sourcing
• Lead the onboarding of new third-party data sources, negotiating terms favorable to Datassential and aligned with business, financial, legal, and data usage objectives
• Work with Engineering and other Data Team members to set up data collection and ingestion processes for new data sources
• Determine the most appropriate, advantageous and cost-effective use of AI and other technologies in data collection to deliver expanded and improved data
• Manage the budget determination for data collection, track and report actuals against budget, and take action to ensure budget alignment
• Ensure successful achievement of expected data collection cycles, and manage internal stakeholder communication on variance to plan
• Manage a team providing scraping script creation and maintenance, coordinating their work, and ensuring responsiveness and communication regarding issues in data scraping that will impact customers
• Collaborate with the Product team and other key stakeholders to align data collection projects and timing with the product roadmap
• Collaborate with senior leadership on strategic planning for data asset growth
• Identify and track KPI’s on the coverage, quality, cost, and speed of data collection. Communicate progress in improvement these metrics

What You Bring

• 10+ years of experience in data acquisition, data operations, data vendor management, or a related data management function, including 5+ years directly managing a team
• Demonstrated experience sourcing, evaluating, and onboarding third‑party data providers, including negotiating licensing and usage terms
• Experience owning or supporting management of a budget or cost center: building forecasts, tracking actuals against plan, and reporting variance to stakeholders
• Ability to build and apply a make‑vs‑buy framework such as internal collection vs. third‑party sourcing, weighing cost, coverage, quality, and timeliness
• Experience managing vendor relationships post‑contract, including quality issues, corrective action plans, and renewal negotiations
• Working understanding of data quality concepts (coverage, accuracy, freshness) sufficient to define and track KPIs against them
• Fluency in hands‑on data analysis and working directly with data to evaluate consistency and quality
• Familiarity with data ingestion/ETL pipelines and how new sources get onboarded technically (APIs, file feeds, scraped data)
• Interest in and awareness of AI/automation tools relevant to data collection, with the judgment to evaluate cost‑benefit tradeoffs
• Track record managing stakeholders across Product, Engineering, Data Operations, Legal, and Finance
• Strong negotiation skills, with examples of favorable outcomes in vendor or partnership discussions
• Clear, proactive communicator, able to report on plan variance, elevate risk, and align teams around priorities

Nice To Have

• Domain experience in foodservice, food & beverage, hospitality, or adjacent consumer industries
• Familiarity with Alteryx or other low‑code ETL environments
• Proficiency in SQL across one or more environments
• Familiarity with web scraping as a data collection method
• Familiarity with project management tools such as Jira/Confluence

This role is open to candidates currently residing in and authorized to work in the United States. Salary base range for this role will be $150,000-$170,000 USD/year. The final offer will be determined by several factors including experience, skills, interview performance, location etc.

US Benefits

• Competitive salary plus eligibility for equity and performance‑linked annual bonus plan.
• Affordable Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance, including a no cost employee‑only plan
• Paid parental leave
• 401K with dollar‑for‑dollar company match up to 5%
• Unlimited PTO, recharge days, and Christmas through New Year break
• 100% business travel reimbursement
• Wellness Reimbursement or HQ Gym access
• Remote stipend for 100% remote roles.

Our Table Welcomes All.

We embrace diversity of both background and thought and foster an inclusive environment that extends an open landscape of opportunities to everyone. We invite each of us to simply be ourselves. We operate with respect and without judgment, celebrating both the power of the individual as well as our shared humanity.

Datassential is an E-Verify employer.

If you require reasonable accommodation to complete a job application, pre‑employment testing, or a job interview or to otherwise participate in the hiring process, please contact [e-mail].