Senior Vendor Manager, AIML Data Ops

Apple Inc.; Austin, Northern (TX, KY); Hybrid; USD 251,000 - 376,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical and dental coverage

Employee stock programs

Relocation assistance

Educational reimbursement

Discounted products

Job summary

Apple Inc. is seeking a Senior Vendor Manager to own end-to-end vendor lifecycle, from sourcing and contracting through quality, delivery, and compliance, while guiding a team that supports Data Annotations on a global scale.

You will oversee Demand Planners, Vendor Engagement Specialists, and Crowd Managers, coordinating with engineering and data requestors to deploy scalable data pipelines through a worldwide vendor workforce.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience managing and developing teams in operational or vendor-facing roles.
• 5+ years of experience in program/project management, production operations, or vendor management in data operations or related fields.
• Strong understanding of production operations including capacity planning, quality assurance frameworks, and delivery management.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate complex concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Proven ability to manage multiple concurrent programs with competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Self-motivated and proactive leader who thrives in ambiguous environments and is able to establish diligent processes for global teams.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate ambiguity and rapidly shifting priorities, crafting creative, pragmatic near-term vendor support solutions that keep programs on track while maintaining focus on longer-term vendor strategy and scalable operational goals.
• Experience leading a dispersed global team

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a distributed team of Vendor Managers and Crowd Managers across multiple time zones.
• Foster professional growth in vendor management, production operations, and stakeholder communication.
• Set strategic direction for vendor-facing production operations.
• Establish scalable frameworks and implement industry best practices.
• Foster a collaborative culture that proactively tackles production problems.
• Build strong trust with engineering partners, procurement and vendor organizations.
• Source and onboard global annotation vendors, crowdsourced networks, and specialized subject-matter BPOs.
• Scale global pipelines to meet fluctuating dataset demands.
• Drive capacity planning and resource management across all vendor partners.
• Execute volume forecasting and strategic workforce allocation.
• Build strong relationships directly with vendor leadership teams.
• Ensure alignment on organizational quality and operational standards.
• Budget, Contracts & SLA Ownership
• Partner with Procurement on high-value contract negotiations with major data labeling providers.
• Optimize price-per-task costs to maximize budget efficiency.
• Secure robust SLAs to protect data timelines and quality.
• Manage budget allocation, financial forecasting, and ongoing vendor cost optimization.
• Oversee vendor performance to guarantee SLAs are met across concurrent programs.
• Track production throughput against delivery timelines.
• Quality Assurance
• Build and enforce comprehensive quality control pipelines.
• Track vendor performance across accuracy, alignment, and throughput metrics.
• Establish key performance metrics for all vendor operations.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives based on operational data.
• Partner with QA, training, spec/process engineering, and data analytics teams.
• Maintain dataset quality at a massive operational scale.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
• Bridge the gap between internal engineering teams and external vendor operations.
• Translate complex annotation requirements into actionable production plans.
• Maintain strict compliance with global data privacy frameworks (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA).
• Enforce secure handling protocols for all sensitive datasets.
• Reporting & Executive Communication
• Prepare executive reports detailing production status and vendor health.
• Communicate operational risks and mitigation strategies directly to senior leadership.

Skills

Vendor management

Program management

Production operations

Capacity planning

Quality assurance

Delivery management

Communication skills

Global team leadership

Education

Advanced degree

Job description

Apple Inc. is seeking a Senior Vendor Manager to own end-to-end vendor lifecycle, from sourcing and contracting through quality, delivery, and compliance, while guiding a team that supports Data Annotations on a global scale.

You will oversee Demand Planners, Vendor Engagement Specialists, and Crowd Managers, coordinating with engineering and data requestors to deploy scalable data pipelines through a worldwide vendor workforce.