Director, Forward Deployed Researcher - Data as a Service

Snorkel AI•Redwood City, CA

25d

About The Position

Snorkel AI is hiring a Director, Forward Deployed Researcher on the Data-as-a-service team. This role involves partnering directly with frontier AI labs on their hardest data problems, including scoping training data needs, designing RL environments, developing evaluation frameworks, and translating customer research objectives into actionable technical plans. It is a player-coach role, with approximately half the time dedicated to people leadership (hiring, coaching, developing the team) and the other half to hands-on technical work on strategic accounts. The individual will set the technical bar for spec quality and build playbooks and processes for team scalability. They will influence the function's operations, including process, standards, and team culture. This role also involves partnering closely with AE leadership on pipeline strategy, account coverage, and SE allocation, as well as cross-functional collaboration with Delivery, Research, and Engineering for smooth handoffs. The ideal candidate can engage effectively with frontier AI researchers, possesses strong presales instincts, and is motivated to build and lead a team.

Requirements

8+ years of experience in applied ML, AI solutions engineering, technical presales, or research-intensive customer-facing roles
5+ years managing or leading technical individual contributors, ideally in a presales or solutions engineering org
Strong expertise in frontier AI concepts including LLMs, training data pipelines, evaluation methodologies, post-training techniques (RLHF, DPO, RLAIF), and domain areas such as coding agents, reasoning, multimodal models, or RL environments
Track record of hiring and developing technical talent
Experience operating against revenue or pipeline goals in a GTM organization
Excellent communication skills, able to coach a team, partner with sales leadership, and engage credibly with frontier AI researchers
Ability to work in a fast-moving environment, comfortable with ambiguity and rapid iteration
B.S. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or related field

Responsibilities

Recruit, hire, and develop the forward deployed research team, coaching the team on technical quality, customer engagement, and career growth
Set and maintain the technical bar for specifications, evaluation frameworks, and customer deliverables
Own SE capacity planning and account coverage; partner with AE leadership on deal strategy, engagement prioritization, and pipeline forecasting
Establish team processes and playbooks for discovery, spec development, and knowledge sharing
Lead technical conversations on select strategic accounts, including scoping, solution design, and partnership with frontier AI research teams
Serve as escalation point for technically complex or high-stakes customer situations