About the RoleSnorkel AI is hiring a Director, Forward Deployed Researcher on the Data-as-a-service team. Your team will partner directly with frontier AI labs on their hardest data problems: scoping training data needs, designing RL environments, developing evaluation frameworks, and translating customer research objectives into actionable technical plans.
This is a player-coach role. Roughly half your time goes to people leadership (hiring, coaching, developing your team) and the other half to hands-on technical work on strategic accounts. You set the technical bar for spec quality and build the playbooks and processes that let the team scale. You influence how the function operates, from process and standards to team culture.
You partner closely with AE leadership on pipeline strategy, account coverage, and SE allocation. You also work cross-functionally with Delivery, Research, and Engineering to ensure smooth handoffs. The right person for this role can hold their own with frontier AI researchers, has strong presales instincts, and wants to build a team.
Main 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
Preferred Qualifications- 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
The base salary range for this position is $228,800-$403,200, depending on location, experience, and qualifications. This role is also eligible for variable compensation.
Actual compensation will be determined based on factors including skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location.
Salary range(s) for this role
$228,000-$403,200 USD
