Senior Director, Frontier AI Platforms & Operations

Morpheus Talent Solutions; United States; Remote; USD 250,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Morpheus Talent Solutions is seeking a founding leader for a new frontier AI business in the United States. This role reports to the GM and shapes the operating model from day one, with autonomy and authority backed by a global organisation.

You will own the platform and operations stack, drive the build vs buy decision, and partner with engineering, delivery and commercial teams to scale to $100M revenue in 12–18 months.

Qualifications

• Direct experience within a frontier AI data business.
• Clear build vs buy POV with rapid decision making.
• Understanding frontier tasking vs traditional engineering/data labeling.
• Multimodal mindset beyond coding tasks.
• Builder's mentality and drive to innovate.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute a fast, decisive build vs buy strategy across the frontier platform stack.
• Evaluate labeling, content syndication, indexing capabilities and decide what to build or source.
• Stand up operational processes for frontier tasking, training and evaluation as a service.
• Expand the offering beyond coding-centric tasks into multiple modalities and evaluation services.
• Partner with the global delivery organisation to provide structure to the frontier business.
• Work closely with the GM on sourcing, planning and prioritisation.
• Collaborate across engineering, delivery and commercial teams to surface capabilities.

Skills

Frontier AI experience

Build vs buy mindset

Executive presence

Multimodal mindset

Cross-functional leadership

Strategic platform ownership

Job description

$250,000 to $300,000 + benefits

Total Take home inc bonus + RSU ~ $750k

United States: West Coast preferred, New York considered (distributed team)

Morpheus are partnered with a global, publicly listed digital engineering and technology services leader that is building a brand new frontier AI business from the ground up. This is a founding leadership role with a clear commercial goal: help scale the business to $100M in revenue within 12 to 18 months.

The Opportunity

You will own the platform and operational stack that powers the frontier AI business, reporting directly to the GM and working hands-on with him to define how the business runs. This is not a role where you step into an existing structure. You will shape the operating model from day one, with real autonomy, real authority and the backing of an organisation with significant global scale and established client relationships.

Your Mandate

• Buy, build and integrate the frontier platform, including the tasking engine, DataOps, and training and TEV (test, evaluation and validation) infrastructure
• Assess the organisation's existing capabilities, platforms, teams and infrastructure, and bring what fits into the new frontier operating model
• Design and own the operational processes behind the training and extended TEV business

What You'll Do

• Define and execute a fast, decisive build vs buy strategy across the frontier platform stack
• Evaluate existing labeling, content syndication, indexing and related capabilities, deciding what to incorporate and what to build or source fresh
• Stand up operational processes for frontier tasking, training and evaluation as a service
• Expand the offering beyond coding-centric tasking into multiple modalities and broader evaluation services
• Partner with the global delivery organisation to give the frontier business the structure it needs to compete and win
• Work closely with the GM on sourcing, planning and prioritisation
• Collaborate across engineering, delivery and commercial teams to surface and position relevant existing capabilities

What You'll Bring

• Direct experience within a frontier AI data business (e.g. Scale AI, Surge AI or similar) and first-hand knowledge of how the operating model works
• A well-formed point of view on build vs buy, and the ability to act on it quickly
• A clear understanding of why frontier tasking is fundamentally different from traditional engineering or data labeling work
• A multimodal mindset that looks beyond coding tasks to other modalities and evaluation services
• A builder's mentality and the drive to create something new rather than replicate an existing model
• Strong executive presence, balanced with the collaborative skill to bring others with you
• Credibility with both senior stakeholders and deeply technical teams, including researchers, ML engineers and data scientists

Nice to Have

• Experience as an internal buyer of data, annotation or training services at a frontier lab (Meta, DeepMind, Google, OpenAI or similar)
• Familiarity with sovereign AI programmes or enterprise agentic AI integration
• An established network across frontier AI labs, hyperscalers or AI-native services businesses
• Willingness to travel as needed

What's On Offer

• A founding, high-autonomy leadership role building a new business line
• Direct partnership with the GM and senior leadership