Strategic Projects Lead

Overview Location: San Francisco, CA (Hybrid - 3/4 days on-site) Morpheus are partnered with a leading AI infrastructure company at the forefront of frontier model development to find a Strategic Project Lead to join their growing operations team. This is a high-impact, senior operations role sitting at the intersection of project delivery, finance, and workforce coordination. You will own the day-to-day execution of complex data projects, running them from kickoff through to final delivery while keeping quality, throughput, and margin on track throughout. You will work closely with engineering and research teams, freeing them to focus on technical and customer-facing work while you hold the operational core together. A central part of the role is orchestrating large contingent workforces through team leads, rather than managing individuals directly, so the ability to coordinate at scale is key. Responsibilities Running assigned projects end-to-end, owning throughput, quality, and delivery against committed timelines. Guiding projects through structured gates including calibration, staged ramp, and delivery acceptance to ensure quality is enforced throughout, not just at the end. Setting up projects on platform tooling and onboarding data trainers at the right pace. Maintaining Airtable as a live, accurate system of record across all projects. Owning project-level financials including margin tracking, payment tiers, billing, and AR. Coordinating engineering and research stakeholders at project kickoff to ensure technical inputs are embedded early. Identifying delivery risks early and putting mitigations in place before they become issues. What we are looking for Proven experience running complex operational projects or programmes with many moving parts and people. Strong tracking and organisational discipline, comfortable owning dashboards and systems of record. Operational and financial literacy, with comfort around throughput metrics, margin, and billing. The ability to coordinate across engineers, researchers, and contingent workforces simultaneously. A bias toward action, calm under pressure, and a proactive approach to risk. Comfort in fast-scaling, ambiguous environments where processes are still being built. Nice to have Familiarity with AI, RLHF, or data labelling operations. Experience managing contractor workforces. Airtable or similar tooling experience. Prior ownership of billing or margin tracking. The opportunity ahead This role sits on a senior operating track with clear progression. High performers can grow into an SPL Manager role, a customer-facing Deployment Lead position, and in time toward a General Manager path. #J-18808-Ljbffr