Director of Forward-Deployed Research (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

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