Director, Forward Deployed Researcher - Data as a Service

Fdetimes; New York, San Francisco (NY, CA); Hybrid; USD 229,000 - 403,000; Full time

Job summary

Snorkel AI is hiring a Director, Forward Deployed Researcher to lead a Data-as-a-Service team working with frontier AI labs on data problems, RL environments, and evaluation frameworks. The role blends people leadership with hands-on technical work on strategic accounts, setting standards and building scalable playbooks for the team.

The ideal candidate will drive talent development, partner with sales leadership on strategy, and collaborate across Delivery, Research, and Engineering to ensure

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in applied ML, AI solutions engineering, technical presales, or research-intensive customer-facing roles.
• 5+ years managing or leading technical individual contributors, in presales or solutions engineering.
• Strong expertise in frontier AI concepts including LLMs, training data pipelines, evaluation methodologies, and RLHF, DPO, RLAIF.

Responsibilities

• Recruit, hire, and develop the forward deployed research team, coaching on technical quality, customer engagement, and career growth.
• Set and maintain the technical bar for specifications, evaluation frameworks, and customer deliverables.
• Own SE capacity planning and account coverage; partner with AE leadership on deal strategy, engagement prioritization, and pipeline forecasting.
• Establish team processes and playbooks for discovery, spec development, and knowledge sharing.
• Lead technical conversations on select strategic accounts, including scoping, solution design, and partnership with frontier AI research teams.
• Serve as escalation point for technically complex or high-stakes customer situations.

Skills

Applied ML

Solutions engineering

Presales

Customer-facing roles

People leadership

Education

B.S. in Computer Science / ML or related field

Job description

About Snorkel

Snorkel AI is the frontier AI data lab, helping teams build the data and environments behind high-performing frontier and agentic AI. We combine technology with research-driven AI data development to create datasets, benchmarks, evals, and custom solutions for real-world AI systems. Founded out of the Stanford AI Lab in 2019, Snorkel works with leading AI labs and enterprises to move from better data to better outcomes.

Excited to help us redefine how AI is built?

About the Role

Snorkel AI is hiring a Director, Forward Deployed Researcher on the Data-as-a-service team. Your team will partner directly with frontier AI labs on their hardest data problems: scoping training data needs, designing RL environments, developing evaluation frameworks, and translating customer research objectives into actionable technical plans.

This is a player-coach role. Roughly half your time goes to people leadership (hiring, coaching, developing your team) and the other half to hands-on technical work on strategic accounts. You set the technical bar for spec quality and build the playbooks and processes that let the team scale. You influence how the function operates, from process and standards to team culture.

You partner closely with AE leadership on pipeline strategy, account coverage, and SE allocation. You also work cross-functionally with Delivery, Research, and Engineering to ensure smooth handoffs. The right person for this role can hold their own with frontier AI researchers, has strong presales instincts, and wants to build a team.

Main Responsibilities

• Recruit, hire, and develop the forward deployed research team, coaching the team on technical quality, customer engagement, and career growth
• Set and maintain the technical bar for specifications, evaluation frameworks, and customer deliverables
• Own SE capacity planning and account coverage; partner with AE leadership on deal strategy, engagement prioritization, and pipeline forecasting
• Establish team processes and playbooks for discovery, spec development, and knowledge sharing
• Lead technical conversations on select strategic accounts, including scoping, solution design, and partnership with frontier AI research teams
• Serve as escalation point for technically complex or high-stakes customer situations

Preferred Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in applied ML, AI solutions engineering, technical presales, or research-intensive customer-facing roles
• 5+ years managing or leading technical individual contributors, ideally in a presales or solutions engineering org
• Strong expertise in frontier AI concepts including LLMs, training data pipelines, evaluation methodologies, post-training techniques (RLHF, DPO, RLAIF), and domain areas such as coding agents, reasoning, multimodal models, or RL environments
• Track record of hiring and developing technical talent
• Experience operating against revenue or pipeline goals in a GTM organization
• Excellent communication skills, able to coach a team, partner with sales leadership, and engage credibly with frontier AI researchers
• Ability to work in a fast-moving environment, comfortable with ambiguity and rapid iteration
• B.S. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or related field

Be Your Best at Snorkel

Joining Snorkel AI means becoming part of a company that has market proven solutions, robust funding, and is scaling rapidly — offering a unique combination of stability and the excitement of high growth. As a member of our team, you'll have meaningful opportunities to shape priorities and initiatives, influence key strategic decisions, and directly impact our ongoing success. Whether you're looking to deepen your technical expertise, explore leadership opportunities, or learn new skills across multiple functions, you're fully supported in building your career in an environment designed for growth, learning, and shared success.

Snorkel AI is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and is committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. Snorkel AI embraces diversity and provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment. Snorkel AI prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type on the basis of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, performance, merit, and business need.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

The base salary range for this position is $228,800–$403,200, depending on location, experience, and qualifications. This role is also eligible for variable compensation and equity.

Actual compensation will be determined based on factors including skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location.

Salary range(s) for this role

$228,000—$403,200 USD

Be Your Best at Snorkel

Joining Snorkel AI means becoming part of a company that has market proven solutions, robust funding, and is scaling rapidly—offering a unique combination of stability and the excitement of high growth. As a member of our team, you’ll have meaningful opportunities to shape priorities and initiatives, influence key strategic decisions, and directly impact our ongoing success. Whether you’re looking to deepen your technical expertise, explore leadership opportunities, or learn new skills across multiple functions, you’re fully supported in building your career in an environment designed for growth, learning and shared success.

Snorkel AI is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and is committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. Snorkel AI embraces diversity and provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment. Snorkel AI prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type on the basis of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, performance, merit, and business need.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.