Strategic Projects Associate - Coding San Francisco

AfterQuery; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

AfterQuery, an applied research lab curating data solutions for foundation model development, is seeking a senior leader to own and architect core infrastructure systems that power our platform.

You will manage expert teams across finance, software engineering, law, and more, shaping dataset specifications, driving revenue, and delivering end-to-end projects in a fast-moving, high-stakes environment.

Qualifications

• CS degree, engineering background, or equivalent demonstrated ability to ship technical projects.
• Strong leadership and communication skills; able to work in ambiguity with minimal direction.
• Passion for AI and entrepreneurship; willingness to experiment with new tools such as Claude Code.
• Competitive nature with a track record of past success.
• Ability to drive projects in fast-moving, high-impact environments.

Responsibilities

• Project and client management with world-leading AI organizations and revenue impact.
• Lead and coordinate expert teams across software engineering, data science, and ML.
• Design dataset specifications to influence training and evaluation of frontier models.
• Own critical projects end-to-end from scoping to delivery in a fast-moving setting.
• Gain top-tier operational experience across multiple business areas.

Skills

Strong technical background

High agency

Leadership experience

Excellent communication

Ambiguity tolerance

Passion for AI

Claude Code experience

Python proficiency

Bias towards action

Education

CS degree

Job description

About AfterQuery

AfterQuery is an applied research lab curating data solutions for foundation model development.

We serve every frontier AI lab with the mission of delivering the best data to power the best models. In doing so, we can make expertise that once took a lifetime to build available to anyone who needs it. Our customers are the ones building the foundation models themselves and our work sits directly in the loop of how those systems improve.

This is a rare opportunity to join a company at a defining moment in AI. Since raising our $30M Series A at a $300M valuation, AfterQuery has grown well over a $100M revenue run rate.

We're based in San Francisco and backed by leading investors including Altos Ventures, BoxGroup, and Y Combinator and angels from Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta Superintelligence Labs, and Microsoft AI.

Why Apply

Massive Opportunity

We are one of the fastest-growing YC companies in our batch, and we believe we can become one of the fastest-growing YC companies of all time.

Founding Impact

You will own and architect core infrastructure systems that power our platform from the ground up.

Equity & Growth

Competitive salary and meaningful equity. As we scale, you’ll have the opportunity to shape the engineering organization and lead major technical initiatives.

Strong Team

Our founding team has experience from Citadel Securities, Meta, Google, Silver Lake, and Morgan Stanley — work alongside world-class engineers and researchers.

Overview

You'll work with the world's leading AI organizations to build next-generation data solutions, managing expert teams across finance, software engineering, law, and more to deliver high-quality outputs at scale. You'll shape the dataset specifications that directly influence how frontier models are trained and evaluated, owning projects end-to-end from scoping through delivery in a fast-moving, high-stakes environment. Along the way, you'll pick up broad operational experience, moving fluidly across building, analyzing, coordinating, and executing wherever the business needs it most.

Responsibilities

Project and client management: Work with the world’s leading AI organizations to build next-generation data solutions that push the limits of model capability, while directly driving revenue.

Manage expert teams across domains: Lead and coordinate highly specialized contributors across fields like software engineering, data science, and machine learning.

Shape how AI systems are trained: Design dataset specifications that directly influence how frontier models are evaluated and improved. Your taste and judgement will shape what foundation models become.

Drive high-impact execution end-to-end: Own critical projects from idea to delivery. From scoping, executing, iterating, and shipping in a fast-moving, high-stakes environment, you will touch it all.

Gain top tier operational experience: Support the team across a range of operational initiatives that will directly contribute to the future of AfterQuery. You will work across multiple parts of the business in the same week, ranging from building, analyzing, coordinating, and executing where needed most.

Required Qualifications

Strong technical background: CS degree, engineering experience, or equivalent demonstrated ability to ship technical projects

High agency, drive, and a strong work ethic; thrive in ambiguity and execute with minimal direction

Passion for AI and interest in entrepreneurship; enjoy experimenting with new tools (experience with Claude Code is a plus)

Competitive nature and demonstrated past success

Strong leadership experience and excellent written and verbal communication skills

Thrive in fast-moving, high-impact environments with bias towards action, while balancing attention to detail

Proficiency in Python and comfort writing production-quality code

Preferred Qualifications

Technical skills (coding, scripting, or working with data) or experience using AI tools to automate workflows, conduct research, or build products