Head of Data Ops & Annotations for Autonomy

Namely; United States; On-site; USD 150,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline is hiring to lead the team responsible for turning real-world data into high-quality datasets for ML and autonomy teams. You will shape data collection, annotation, and validation strategies, while building an operation that improves quality, coverage, speed, and economics.

You will lead and develop the organization, partnering with technical teams to evolve data operations with the autonomy stack. You will drive end-to-end programs across operations, engineering, ML, and autonomy,

Qualifications

• Experience leading and scaling operational or technical teams.
• Experience owning technically complex operational systems and improving their performance at scale.
• Strong systems thinking and technical judgment across people, process, hardware, software, and infrastructure.
• Experience leading ambiguous, cross-functional work from problem definition through sustained operation.
• Strong judgment in balancing quality, throughput, cost, and reliability.
• A track record of using metrics, tooling, and automation to drive measurable operational improvements.
• Clear communication and the ability to drive alignment and decisions across technical and operational teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead the organization and end-to-end operations that collect, annotate, validate, and deliver high-quality real-world data at the scale, speed, and cost required for ML and autonomy development.
• Partner with ML and autonomy teams to translate model needs into data requirements, collection strategies, and operational priorities.
• Design and improve annotation, validation, and quality-control workflows, using tooling, automation, and metrics to optimize quality, coverage, speed, and cost.
• Develop managers and teams, establish clear ownership, and build a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
• Lead cross-functional programs and drive decisions across operations, engineering, ML, and autonomy.
• Use operational data and feedback to identify bottlenecks and drive automation or engineering improvements that increase scale without proportional growth in manual effort or cost.

Skills

Team leadership

Data operations

Program management

Cross-functional collaboration

Measurement & automation

Communication

Job description

Zipline is hiring to lead the team responsible for turning real-world data into high-quality datasets for ML and autonomy teams. You will shape data collection, annotation, and validation strategies, while building an operation that improves quality, coverage, speed, and economics.

You will lead and develop the organization, partnering with technical teams to evolve data operations with the autonomy stack. You will drive end-to-end programs across operations, engineering, ML, and autonomy,