External Data Quality Partnerships Lead

Figureai; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Figure, a pioneering AI robotics company headquartered in San Jose, seeks an External Partnerships Lead to own and optimize its external data vendor portfolio for Data Quality. You will source, negotiate, and manage vendors, set rigorous SLAs, and stand as the senior owner when projects move to external support.

You will collaborate with engineering and ML stakeholders to translate complex data quality needs into practical vendor guidelines, ensuring timely capacity planning and regional

Qualifications

• 6+ years in data quality, data labeling operations, vendor or ML data operations, with end-to-end ownership of vendor relationships or major workstreams.
• Direct experience selecting, contracting, and managing external data vendors, including defining and enforcing SLAs.
• A track record negotiating commercial terms (pricing, SOWs, capacity) and running vendor business reviews.
• Experience setting quality standards, acceptance criteria, and audit or calibration processes that external teams executed against.
• Comfort working with engineering and ML stakeholders to translate technical requirements into operational guidance.
• Leadership across people you both do and do not directly manage, including coordinators running work on your vendors.

Responsibilities

• Own the full external vendor portfolio for Data Quality: sourcing, evaluation, onboarding, and offboarding of data labeling and review partners.
• Negotiate commercial terms, statements of work, and contracts, and manage pricing, budgets, and surge capacity across vendors.
• Set and enforce SLAs and acceptance criteria; hold every vendor to the same golden set and audit bar as the in-house team.
• Serve as the senior owner when a project rotates to external support, directing the Project Coordinators running that work.
• Build and run the vendor scorecard: throughput, quality, inter-annotator agreement, and SLA adherence, reviewed in regular business reviews.
• Stand up calibration exercises and golden set checks with each vendor so external output matches internal standards.
• Partner with engineering and ML stakeholders to translate data quality requirements into vendor-ready guidelines and specs.
• Plan capacity and ramp with vendors to meet project timelines, including surge needs and new regions.
• Coordinate with internal Project Coordinators and leadership on which projects rotate to which vendors and when.

Skills

Vendor management

Data quality operations

Contracting & SLAs

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

Contract management software

Vendor scorecard tools

Job description

Figure, a pioneering AI robotics company headquartered in San Jose, seeks an External Partnerships Lead to own and optimize its external data vendor portfolio for Data Quality. You will source, negotiate, and manage vendors, set rigorous SLAs, and stand as the senior owner when projects move to external support.

You will collaborate with engineering and ML stakeholders to translate complex data quality needs into practical vendor guidelines, ensuring timely capacity planning and regional