Snorkel AI

Head of Forward Deployed Engineering

Snorkel AI$150K — $200K *
Technical Services
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 10+ years in applied data or ML engineering roles
  • 5+ years leading high-performing technical teams
  • Proven success in customer-facing roles
  • Experience managing technical field teams in delivery-focused environments
  • Ability to thrive in fast-paced, ambiguous settings
  • Strong experience with LLM-based workflows and data tooling
  • Bonus: experience in data annotation workflows

Responsibilities

  • Build and lead the Forward Deployed Engineering DaaS organization
  • Mentor and motivate high-performing teams to deliver exceptional outcomes
  • Own and evolve data pipeline components of the DaaS stack
  • Partner with customers to scope requirements for AI datasets
  • Develop systems for request intake and task orchestration
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to improve internal tools and processes
  • Drive continuous improvement through reusable workflows and operational insights

Benefits

  • Opportunity to influence key strategic decisions
  • Access to robust funding and stability in a high-growth company
  • Environment designed for career growth and learning
  • Impact on real production systems and customer projects
  • Founding member opportunity to define and scale a new function
Full Job Description
About the Role

In this role, you will build and lead our forward-deployed engineering (FDE) team, working directly with leading labs and enterprises to scope, build and deliver high quality datasets to support their most critical AI initiatives.

You'll lead a team that will own quality in the end-to-end data pipeline. This will include working with customers to define what "good" data looks like to implement the relevant workflows in their platform. You will design innovative ML approaches to enhance human-in-the-loop (HITL) techniques and improve the efficiency of data generation and review processes. Your team will own systems and tools that enable consistent, scalable, and high-quality data delivery to our customers.

Sitting at the critical intersection of data engineering, ML engineering, operations, and customer engagement- leading scoping and preselling efforts. You'll also partner closely with the Snorkel delivery team and cross-functional stakeholders to define quality standards, develop measurement frameworks, drive ML-based workflows to improve data pipelines and unblock projects through technical innovation. As the founding member, you'll also roll up your sleeves to define and own the workflows and processes that are needed to deliver exceptional data at scale.
Main Responsibilities
  • Build and lead the Forward Deployed Engineering DaaS organization, setting a clear vision, defining the operating model and scaling its impact across Snorkel's Expert Data-as-a-Service workflows
  • Build, mentor, and motivate high performing teams, including cultivating skills and culture needed to consistently deliver exceptional outcomes and transformative impact.
  • Own and evolve the data pipeline components of the DaaS stack, including model-assisted labeling and data generation, quality estimation, and data-centric feedback loops that guide human input
  • Partner with customers - including research and engineering teams at Frontier AI Labs - to scope requirements for complex, novel AI datasets and translate needs into delivery-ready workflows
  • Develop robust systems for request intake, task orchestration, SLA tracking, and progress monitoring to ensure seamless execution and prevent critical delivery gaps
  • Collaborate cross-functionally with research and engineering teams to innovate, develop, and productionize HITL data generation methods, advanced quality techniques, and improve internal delivery tooling
  • Drive continuous improvement by developing reusable workflows, surfacing operational insights, and enabling the organization to scale faster while maintaining high quality


What We're Looking For
  • 10+ years of experience in applied data or ML engineering roles, including 5+ years leading high-performing technical teams in hands-on management capacity
  • Demonstrated success in customer facing roles, with a strong enthusiasm for data pipelines and LLM-based workflows.
  • Proven track record of managing technical field teams in fast-paced, delivery-focused environments with competing priorities
  • Experience as a player-coach-comfortable being hands-on while supporting and scaling the team
  • Proven ability to thrive in fast-paced, ambiguous environments with cross-functional stakeholders
  • Strong practical experience with LLM-based workflows, Python, SQL, and data tooling (e.g., pandas, Plotly, Streamlit, Dash)
  • Bonus: experience working with data annotation workflows or internal tooling for data delivery orgs


Why Join Snorkel AI?

At Snorkel AI, we're building the future of data-centric AI. Our Expert Data-as-a-Service organization partners with world-class customers to solve some of the hardest data challenges - creating training and evaluation data that power the next generation of LLMs and AI systems. You'll work directly on projects that impact real production systems, while shaping how internal teams deliver faster, better, and more intelligently. This is a rare opportunity to found a function and have a broad, lasting impact across the company.

Be Your Best at Snorkel

Joining Snorkel AI means becoming part of a company that has market proven solutions, robust funding, and is scaling rapidly-offering a unique combination of stability and the excitement of high growth. As a member of our team, you'll have meaningful opportunities to shape priorities and initiatives, influence key strategic decisions, and directly impact our ongoing success. Whether you're looking to deepen your technical expertise, explore leadership opportunities, or learn new skills across multiple functions, you're fully supported in building your career in an environment designed for growth, learning, and shared success.

About Snorkel AI

Snorkel AI is an artificial intelligence company that provides a platform for building and managing machine learning models. The company was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Snorkel AI's platform is designed to make it easier for developers and data scientists to create and manage machine learning models, using a technique called programmatic labeling. The company's platform is used by a number of large enterprises, including Intel, Google, and Microsoft. Snorkel AI has raised over $50 million in funding to date.
Learn more about Snorkel AI
Size
50 employees
Industry
Founded
2019

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