Strategic Project Lead

Crossing Hurdles; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 185,000 - 205,000; Full time

Job summary

Crossing Hurdles is seeking a Strategic Projects Lead to own multi-lab project delivery, ensuring deliverables ship on time with high quality and measurable impact.

You will recruit and manage pools of expert contributors, align researchers with milestones, and work hands-on with engineers to shape internal tools while rigorously verifying trajectories and evals before client delivery.

Qualifications

• 1+ year of experience in consulting, IB, or fast-paced ops at a startup.
• Experience as a Strategic Projects Lead or Deployment Strategist in AI/data labs or tech firms.

Responsibilities

• Own multi-project delivery from start to finish and ensure on-time, high-quality ship.
• Find, hire, and manage pools of expert contributors and lead them through influence.
• Collaborate with researchers to prioritize milestones amid changing requirements.
• Perform hands-on product work with engineers to shape internal tools and workflows.
• Check trajectories, verifiers, and evals before customers and distinguish truly useful work.

Skills

Project management

Stakeholder management

Recruiting

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

Crossing Hurdles is a global recruitment firm partnering with a fast-growing, AI startup collaborating with leading research teams to build reinforcement learning environments and trajectory datasets that push the capabilities of frontier AI models.

Quick Snapshot

Role: Strategic Projects Lead

Compensation: 185K - 205K base + 0.05% 0.15% equity + annual performance bonus

Location: Hybrid - Seattle (3+ days/week in-office)

Experience: 1+ years of experience in consulting, IB, or fast- paced ops role at a startup, Experience as a Strategic Projects Lead or Deployment Strategist at AI data labs or technology firms

Focus: Customer project delivery, expert contributor management, research collaboration, and AI data quality

What You Will Be Doing

• Owning multi-project delivery from start to finish tracking what each lab customer needs and making sure deliverables ship on time and meet a high quality bar
• Finding, hiring, and managing pools of expert contributors who build gyms and trajectories, and leading them through influence rather than authority
• Working with researchers to understand what matters most and to prioritize milestones when requirements change overnight
• Doing hands-on product work with engineers to shape the internal tools and workflows behind each deliverable
• Checking trajectories, verifiers, and evals before they reach customers, and telling apart work that is truly useful from work that only looks complete

Why You Should Consider

• High ownership Own customer projects end-to-end, turning open-ended research goals into high-quality datasets trusted by frontier AI labs.
• Cross-functional exposure Work directly with researchers, engineers, and expert contributors to deliver complex, deadline-driven projects.
• Hands-on building Partner with engineers to shape internal tools and workflows while managing project execution and quality.
• Frontier AI opportunity Help advance AI capabilities by building and validating reinforcement learning environments, trajectories, verifiers, and evaluations.