Director, Research - Evaluation & Training

Snorkel AI • San Francisco, CA

5h

About The Position

Snorkel AI is seeking a Director of Research to lead a team focused on data evaluation, error analysis, and data valuation methods to predict model performance. This team will be responsible for demonstrating the value and quality of Snorkel’s data for model training and evaluation, identifying shortcomings in current frontier models, and translating this understanding into recommendations for benchmarks and datasets. The role involves analyzing model failures, identifying capability gaps, suggesting new benchmarks, and proving the value of data for customers, thereby driving Snorkel’s data design flywheel. The company, originating from the Stanford AI Lab, pioneers data-centric methods for AI development and works with top enterprises and AI labs.

Requirements

• 7+ years in applied AI, ML, or research roles.
• 4+ years managing technical teams.
• A leader who has repeatedly turned research and analysis into business outcomes, and who instinctively connects technical findings to market and customer needs.
• Strong business and market judgment in the AI/ML space — you understand the competitive and frontier-lab landscape and can prioritize accordingly.
• Technically conversant and credible: enough depth in LLM evaluation, benchmarking, and model behavior analysis to set direction, judge experimental quality, and pressure-test results — without needing to be the deepest technical expert in the room.
• A nose for trends: able to look across many evaluation results and failure cases and extract the signal that should drive what gets built next.
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to make technical results legible and persuasive to non-research audiences.

Nice To Haves

• Familiarity with data valuation or data attribution research is a strong plus.
• Experience working with frontier labs, public benchmarks, or commercial AI data/eval products.

Responsibilities

• Own a multi-quarter roadmap centered on novel evaluation, error analysis, and data valuation techniques.
• Synthesize and share trends from model-failure analysis and benchmarking into recommendations on the datasets the community should focus on and the ones Snorkel should invest in — making this team a primary input to the company's data strategy.
• Focus on data valuation techniques that quantify how Snorkel data meaningfully improves model performance.
• Lead and grow a team of researchers, setting a high bar for quality, rigor and speed of execution.
• Act as the primary bridge between the team's findings and Product, GTM, and our customers.

Benefits

• Meaningful opportunities to shape priorities and initiatives.
• Influence key strategic decisions.
• Directly impact ongoing success.
• Support for deepening technical expertise, exploring leadership opportunities, or learning new skills.
• Environment designed for growth, learning, and shared success.
• Equal employment opportunities.
• Reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed