Strategic Projects Lead

**About us** We're solving AI's hardest problem: alignment.   Encord is the data layer for Physical AI and enterprise, serving as core infrastructure for 300+ of the world's leading AI teams, including Woven by Toyota, Hitachi, Skydio, AbbVie and Dyna, Walden and Agility Robotics. From autonomous vehicles and robotics to sports and healthcare, we're solving AI's hardest problem: turning complex, real-world data into production-ready intelligent systems.   We're a team of founders, scientists, quants, researchers, and former Olympians, who’ve helped build some of the most successful companies in Silicon Valley, and alumni of MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Oxford, Cambridge, and Imperial. We’ve raised $110M from legendary technology investors, early backers of companies like Databricks, ElevenLabs and Vercel, and we’re growing at an extraordinary pace.   We're looking for exceptional people who want to help build a category-defining company, operating with high urgency and taking real ownership to help shape the future of AI.   **The role** As a Strategic Projects Lead, you'll fully own and optimize the data annotation and machine learning workflows behind Encord's largest client relationships. You'll work directly with clients, annotation specialists, ML engineers, Account Managers, and Forward Deployed Engineers to ensure the data powering their models is fast, accurate, and scalable. This is a hands-on, high visibility role. You have direct influence on whether Encord's highest-value customers renew and expand. **What you'll do** - Own data annotation projects end-to-end, translating complex AI/ML requirements into clear workflows and instructions for annotation teams - Design and refine annotation processes, audit results, and build feedback loops that raise data quality - Act as a trusted advisor to clients — designing and implementing the human-annotation workflow that gets them to production fastest - Partner with product and engineering to drive improvements in AI training data tools and methodology - Directly influence account health: your workflow design and execution are a primary driver of whether strategic accounts renew, expand, or churn **Who we're looking for** - A sharp, execution-oriented operator with a consulting or AI-company pedigree . A structured thinker, strong PM instincts, bias for getting things done - Analytically rigorous and comfortable with ambiguity. You break down operational problems from first principles - Technically fluent: comfortable querying a database, auditing annotation outputs, or automating a workflow in Python - A natural translator between ML engineers and non-technical clients on multi-stakeholder projects - Entrepreneurial — you take ownership without waiting to be told what to do **Experience requirements** - 3–7 years of professional experience, with a strong preference for backgrounds in top-tier strategy consulting and/or operations or data roles at leading AI or technology companies - Proven ownership of complex, multi-stakeholder workflows end-to-end: scoping, execution, QA, iteration - Experience designing/optimizing data operations with an eye for quality, consistency, and scalability, ideally human-in-the-loop or structured labeling work - Demonstrated ability to engage effectively with both technical stakeholders (ML engineers, data scientists) and non-technical clients, translating requirements clearly in both directions - Bonus: hands-on experience with computer vision, generative AI, or multimodal data workflows; prior exposure to data annotation platforms or quality management frameworks; experience coaching or managing operational teams - Bonus: Working proficiency in Python or SQL, with the ability to query data, automate workflows, or audit annotation outputs; broader familiarity with relational databases or data annotation tooling equally valued **Why Encord** - Competitive salary, commission, and meaningful equity in a high-growth startup - Clear, accelerated growth opportunities as the company scales rapidly - Strong in-person culture: 4 days/week - Daily team lunches & dinners - Annual learning & development budget - Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage - US employees: 18 paid vacation days plus US public holidays - UK employees: 25 paid vacation days plus UK public holidays - Frequent travel opportunities across the U.S., London, and Europe - Bi-annual company offsites & monthly socials ### Operating principles   _ **High agency** _ You see something broken, you fix it or find the person who can. We celebrate the people who solve 90% of a problem before anyone asks. _ **Build with care & urgency** _ We bear-hug the customer. Former founders and people from fast-moving, high-stakes environments thrive here. _ **Self-aware & hungry** _ We stay warm, self-aware, and genuinely hungry. We elevate our peers, and ego doesn't last long. _ **Invent in real time** _ We move toward the ambiguity. We’re pragmatic, resourceful, energized by the fact that there's no playbook.   **If you're looking to do the most meaningful work of your career alongside people who push you to be better, we'd love to meet you.** Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.