Strategic Projects Lead - Audio Data

About the Company Our client is building the foundational data and benchmark infrastructure for next-generation Voice AI, helping frontier AI labs train models to understand humanity across every language, dialect, and accent. Backed by Y Combinator and over $3.5M in seed funding from top-tier Silicon Valley investors (including surgepoint, Amino Capital, and co-founders of Twitch and Cruise), they operate as a lean, elite team of ~10 scaling rapidly in the Bay Area. About the Role As the Strategic Projects Lead - Audio Data , you will own and deliver high-priority audio data collection projects end-to-end. In this high-ownership, ground-floor role, you will be the single-threaded owner of large-scale, six-figure+ contracts, driving messy and complex projects from customer kickoff through to final, high-quality delivery. What You Will Do Project Delivery: Manage complex audio data collection projects, overseeing contributor sourcing, engagement, quality assurance, and client communication. Quantitative Operations: Track project progress and KPIs quantitatively. You will build dashboards, analyze throughput/quality data, and proactively solve operational bottlenecks. Client Interface: Work directly with leading frontier AI labs to clarify requirements, deliver progress updates, and iterate based on their feedback. Product Collaboration: Propose and drive technical and product changes with the engineering team to improve platform capabilities, contributor workflows, and QA tooling. Resource Management: Hire and manage external QA resources as needed, collaborating directly with the co-founders and engineers to unblock delivery. What You Bring Experience: 2 to 7 years of data operations experience specifically on the supply side at a data annotation/labeling vendor company (e.g., Scale AI, Surge AI, Appen, Micro1, TELUS Digital, DataAnnotation, or a similar AI data startup). Track Record: Proven success delivering six-figure+ data collection or annotation contracts end-to-end. Technical Domain: Direct experience managing audio, speech, voice, or multimodal data projects. Analytical Chops: Strong analytical skills with the ability to build dashboards and use data to solve quantitative operational problems. QA Design: Quality workflow design experience, including creating annotation guidelines, QA rubrics, and quality control systems. Mindset: Extreme ownership, resilience in the face of ambiguity, and a habit of pushing through obstacles to deliver results. Presence: Ability to work full-time on-site (5 days/week) in the San Mateo/Redwood City, CA area.