Strategic Projects Lead

San Francisco, CA
· On-site
· Full-time
Compensation: $75,000-$100,000 base (OTE $150,000-$200,000) + equity

Our client is a seed-stage startup building the data infrastructure and reinforcement learning environments that leading AI labs use to train and evaluate their models. Backed by top-tier investors and led by a founding team with deep experience across large-scale data and consumer-tech platforms, they are building a lean, high-ownership team tackling one of the key bottlenecks in frontier model improvement.

Founded 2025
· 1-10 people
· Industry: AI Tools / data infrastructure

This is a hands-on execution role - not strategy or advisory - sitting across engineering, operations, and go-to-market. You'll ramp quickly, own key data pipelines and the end-to-end delivery of reinforcement learning environments for strategic customers, and build operational processes from scratch while reporting progress directly to the founders.

What you'll be doing

• Own end-to-end delivery of RL environments for strategic customers and projects
• Own key data pipelines end-to-end after a short ramp
• Lead cross-functional projects across engineering, operations, and go-to-market
• Stand up operational processes where none exist yet
• Report progress directly to the founders on high-impact work

Tech stack: SQL / Python (for self-serve data analytics)

• 2 to 5 years in investment banking, private equity, or management consulting, or prior experience in a strategic projects / delivery-lead role
• A strong technical foundation - a CS degree is ideal, but at minimum you can run your own data analysis in SQL or Python without routing everything to an engineer
• Proven ability to own ambiguous, cross-functional projects end-to-end and balance speed against quality
• An entrepreneurial, build-from-scratch mindset
• Strong communication skills, a clear bias toward ownership, and availability to work on-site in San Francisco full-time

• 2+ years leading a team
• 2+ years developing product or operational processes
• 2+ years of software engineering experience
• Prior time at a startup or high-growth company
• A consulting background
• A track record of tackling hard operational challenges
• Exposure to human data and applied AI
• Exposure to post-training and reinforcement learning

• Ground-floor ownership reporting directly to the founders, building processes rather than inheriting them
• High-impact work at the center of a fast-growing bottleneck in AI model development
• A pedigreed, well-backed team and meaningful equity

• Location - San Francisco, CA
• Work policy - On-site, full-time
• Compensation - $75,000-$100,000 base (OTE $150,000-$200,000) + equity
• Visa sponsorship - None available
• Employment type - Full-time