Strategic Projects Lead

Encord; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Growth opportunities

4 days/week in-person

Flexible PTO

Learning budget

Health/dental/vision

Travel opportunities

Offsites and socials

Job summary

Encord is seeking a Strategic Projects Lead to own the data annotation and ML workflows behind our largest client relationships. You’ll work directly with clients, annotation specialists, ML engineers, Account Managers, and Forward Deployed Engineers to ensure the data powering their models is fast, accurate, and scalable.

This is a hands-on, high-visibility role with direct influence on renewals and expansions, requiring ownership of multi-stakeholder projects from scoping through QA and

Qualifications

• 3–7 years of professional experience in strategy consulting, operations, or data roles at leading AI/tech companies.
• Proven ownership of multi-stakeholder workflows end-to-end: scoping, execution, QA, iteration.
• Experience designing/optimizing data operations with quality, consistency, and scalability.

Responsibilities

• Own data annotation projects end-to-end, translating AI/ML requirements into clear workflows for annotation teams.
• Design and refine annotation processes, audit results, and build feedback loops to raise data quality.
• Act as trusted advisor to clients, designing production-ready human-annotation workflows.
• Partner with product and engineering to improve AI training data tools and methodology.
• Influence account health and renewal/expansion through workflow design and execution.

Skills

Strategic thinking

PM instincts

Analytical rigor

Technical fluency

Python

SQL

Client management

Multi-stakeholder coordination

Tools

Python

SQL

Job description

About us

Encord is the universal data layer for AI that helps 300+ AI teams train and run models on the right data. Our platform indexes, curates, annotates, and evaluates data across the full AI lifecycle, from development through production.

Trusted by Woven by Toyota, AXA, UiPath, Zipline, and more. We're an ambitious team of 100+ working at the frontier of AI and have raised $60M in Series C funding from Wellington Management, CRV, Next47 and Y Combinator.

The role

As a Strategic Projects Lead, you'll fully own and optimize the data annotation and machine learning workflows behind Encord's largest client relationships. You'll work directly with clients, annotation specialists, ML engineers, Account Managers, and Forward Deployed Engineers to ensure the data powering their models is fast, accurate, and scalable.

This is a hands-on, high visibility role. You have direct influence on whether Encord's highest-value customers renew and expand.

What you'll do

• Own data annotation projects end-to-end, translating complex AI/ML requirements into clear workflows and instructions for annotation teams

• Design and refine annotation processes, audit results, and build feedback loops that raise data quality

• Act as a trusted advisor to clients — designing and implementing the human-annotation workflow that gets them to production fastest

• Partner with product and engineering to drive improvements in AI training data tools and methodology

• Directly influence account health: your workflow design and execution are a primary driver of whether strategic accounts renew, expand, or churn

Who we're looking for

• A sharp, execution-oriented operator with a consulting or AI-company pedigree . A structured thinker, strong PM instincts, bias for getting things done

• Analytically rigorous and comfortable with ambiguity. You break down operational problems from first principles

• Technically fluent: comfortable querying a database, auditing annotation outputs, or automating a workflow in Python

• A natural translator between ML engineers and non-technical clients on multi-stakeholder projects

• Entrepreneurial — you take ownership without waiting to be told what to do

Experience requirements

• 3–7 years of professional experience, with a strong preference for backgrounds in top-tier strategy consulting and/or operations or data roles at leading AI or technology companies

• Proven ownership of complex, multi-stakeholder workflows end-to-end: scoping, execution, QA, iteration

• Experience designing/optimizing data operations with an eye for quality, consistency, and scalability, ideally human-in-the-loop or structured labeling work

• Demonstrated ability to engage effectively with both technical stakeholders (ML engineers, data scientists) and non-technical clients, translating requirements clearly in both directions

• Bonus: hands-on experience with computer vision, generative AI, or multimodal data workflows; prior exposure to data annotation platforms or quality management frameworks; experience coaching or managing operational teams

• Bonus: Working proficiency in Python or SQL, with the ability to query data, automate workflows, or audit annotation outputs; broader familiarity with relational databases or data annotation tooling equally valued

Why Encord

• Competitive salary, commission, and meaningful equity in a high-growth start-up

• Clear, accelerated growth opportunities as the company scales rapidly

• Strong in-person culture: 4 days/week

• Flexible PTO to fully recharge

• Annual learning & development budget

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage

• Frequent travel opportunities across the U.S., London, and Europe

• Bi-annual company offsites, twice-weekly team lunches, and monthly socials