Founding Strategic Projects Lead

Job Description

Job Description

San Francisco, CA · On-site · Full-time Compensation: $120,000–$200,000 base + 5% commission on project margin (uncapped) + 0.5%–1.5% founding-tier equity

About the Company

Our client provides voice data and enterprise data to frontier AI labs. The voice side runs a network across 15 countries with the highest-quality data in Japanese and Arabic; the enterprise side partners with products and buys company data to build rich, real-world RL environments rather than synthetic ones. It's well-backed, at roughly $80K MRR (~$1M ARR annualized), working with top voice labs and frontier labs. The team today is the two co-founders plus an active first engineering hire — this is the first operations hire.

Founded 2025 · 1–10 people (Seed) · Industry: AI training data

The Role

The client is hiring its first Strategic Projects Lead to own delivery for frontier-lab projects end to end — working directly with labs, managing contributors, building delivery ops from the ground up, and sourcing rare data through creative channels when standard playbooks won't work.

Requirements

• 0–5 years, high slope, with some human-data experience
• Detail-oriented, an ops-from-zero executor
• Creative sourcing: rare languages, niche audio
• On-site in SF, an intense in-person week
• Relocation supported from NY or LA

Nice to Haves

• Prior experience at a human-data company (e.g., Mercor, Surge, Scale, Turing, Micro1, Scalar AI Labs)
• A statistics, data science, or technical major
• A creative-sourcing track record (unconventional pipelines — group recruiting, partner negotiation, niche language networks)
• An equity-first mindset
• Personable and fun

Why Join

• Founding-tier ownership: the first operations hire — you represent a large share of the company on day one and shape the culture directly
• A fast trajectory: a clear path to Senior SPL or GM if delivery goes well
• Uncapped upside: 5% commission on project margin (uncapped) plus 0.5–1.5% founding equity, on top of base
• Real traction: well-backed with live revenue (~$1M ARR) and frontier-lab customers
• Genuinely creative work: sourcing rare-language audio and novel data through unconventional channels

Details

• Location — San Francisco, CA
• Work policy — On-site (intense in-person week); relocation supported from NY or LA
• Compensation — $120,000–$200,000 base + 5% commission (uncapped) + 0.5%–1.5% equity
• Visa sponsorship — Not available
• Employment type — Full-time