Senior Vendor Manager for AIML Data Ops

Apple; Cupertino (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Apple is seeking a Senior Vendor Manager to own the end-to-end vendor lifecycle, from sourcing and contracting through quality, delivery, and compliance, leading a team that supports Data Annotations for Apple's AI initiatives.

You will manage Demand Planners, Vendor Engagement Specialists, and Crowd Managers across time zones, ensuring scalable pipelines, capacity planning, and robust SLAs while driving efficiency and quality across global vendor partners.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience managing and developing teams in operational or vendor-facing roles.
• 5+ years in program/project management, production operations, or vendor management in data operations or related fields.
• BS degree required.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Prepare executive reports detailing production status and vendor health.
• Communicate operational risks and mitigation strategies directly to senior leadership.

Education

Bachelor's degree

Team leadership

Program management

Vendor management

Production operations

Communication

Global team leadership

Job description

Apple is seeking a Senior Vendor Manager to own the end-to-end vendor lifecycle, from sourcing and contracting through quality, delivery, and compliance, leading a team that supports Data Annotations for Apple's AI initiatives.

You will manage Demand Planners, Vendor Engagement Specialists, and Crowd Managers across time zones, ensuring scalable pipelines, capacity planning, and robust SLAs while driving efficiency and quality across global vendor partners.