Senior Manager, Forward Deployed Research

About Snorkel

At Snorkel, we believe meaningful AI doesn’t start with the model, it starts with the data.

We’re on a mission to help enterprises transform expert knowledge into specialized AI at scale. The AI landscape has gone through incredible changes since 2015, when Snorkel started as a research project in the Stanford AI Lab, to the generative AI breakthroughs of today. But one thing has remained constant: the data you use to build AI is the key to achieving differentiation, high performance, and production-ready systems. We work with some of the world’s largest organizations to empower scientists, engineers, financial experts, product creators, journalists, and more to build custom AI with their data faster than ever before. Excited to help us redefine how AI is built? Apply to be the newest Snorkeler!

Senior Manager, Forward Deployed Research

Locations: New York City, NY (Hybrid); Redwood City, CA (Hybrid); San Francisco, CA (Hybrid); US (Remote)

About Snorkel

At Snorkel, we believe meaningful AI doesn't start with the model, it starts with the data.

The AI landscape has gone through incredible changes between 2015, when Snorkel started as a research project in the Stanford AI Lab, to the frontier AI breakthroughs of today. But one thing has remained constant: the data you use to build AI is the key to achieving differentiation, high performance, and production-ready systems. Our Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) organization partners with frontier AI labs to solve some of the hardest data challenges, creating training and evaluation data that power the next generation of models.

About the Role

Snorkel AI is hiring a Senior Manager on the Forward Deployed Research team to own how we show what our data does. You own two related functions: benchmarking the latest frontier models against our data series to expose where they fall short, and tuning customer and open-source models on our data to demonstrate the lift it produces. Both become the evidence behind our data pitch and a signal for what to build next.

This is a player-coach role. You own the system, the standards, and the output: the methodology, the quality bar, and the intelligence we produce, while hiring and developing a small team of engineers and researchers. You define the tooling and automation the function needs and partner with Engineering to build it. You stay hands-on in the technical work and grow the function as demand climbs.

You partner across GTM, where this work opens and advances deals, with Research as a research partner, and with Engineering to build the underlying tooling. The right person is a strong engineer with real evaluation depth, can hold their own on frontier AI, and wants to own a function and grow a team.

Main Responsibilities

• Own the system for measuring what our data does: define how we benchmark and tune models on our data, and the tooling and automation the function needs, partnering with Engineering to build it

• Recruit, hire, and develop a small team of engineers and researchers; a player-coach role, hands-on technical work plus team leadership

• Own the methodology and playbook for benchmarking and tuning: the model panels, the metrics we report, the tuning setups, and the quality bar, so results are consistent, repeatable, and defensible across accounts and data series

• Turn benchmark results into gap intelligence: clear analyses of where models fall short that serve as the evidence behind our data pitch and a primary input to what we build next

• Tune customer and open-source models on our data to demonstrate the lift it produces, and turn that into presales material and intelligence

• Partner cross-functionally with the GTM team where this work opens and advances deals, with

Responsibilities

• Own the system for measuring what our data does: define how we benchmark and tune models on our data, and the tooling and automation the function needs, partnering with Engineering to build it
• Recruit, hire, and develop a small team of engineers and researchers; a player-coach role, hands-on technical work plus team leadership
• Own the methodology and playbook for benchmarking and tuning: the model panels, the metrics we report, the tuning setups, and the quality bar, so results are consistent, repeatable, and defensible across accounts and data series
• Turn benchmark results into gap intelligence: clear analyses of where models fall short that serve as the evidence behind our data pitch and a primary input to what we build next
• Tune customer and open-source models on our data to demonstrate the lift it produces, and turn that into presales material and intelligence
• Partner cross-functionally with the GTM team where this work opens and advances deals, with

Requirements

• Strong engineer with real evaluation depth
• Ability to hold their own on frontier AI
• Desire to own a function and grow a team