Strategic Projects Lead — Audio Data

About Besimple AI

Besimple AI is building the data and benchmark infrastructure for the next generation of voice AI. We help AI understand people from all languages and accents. The founders are ex‑Meta product and engineering leaders from MIT and Brown University. We are a small, high‑ownership team working directly with frontier AI labs to push state‑of‑the‑art on audio models.

This is an extremely high‑ownership role at the intersection of strategic operations, audio data, AI data delivery, product, and customer execution. You will own complex audio collection and annotation projects from customer requirement to final delivery. You will translate ambiguous customer needs into executable workflows inside our platform, run pilots, manage contributors and reviewers, track quality and throughput, identify bottlenecks, and ensure the final dataset meets customer expectations.

Because our platform is still evolving, you will also identify gaps in the platform, define product requirements, and work with engineering to build or improve features needed to deliver projects successfully. This is not a generic project‑management role; we are looking for someone who has personally driven messy, cross‑functional projects from zero to completion, ideally in AI data, data labeling, annotation, localization, or crowdsourced operations.

• Own audio data collection and annotation projects from kickoff through final customer delivery.
• Translate customer requirements into project specs, contributor workflows, annotation guidelines, QA rubrics, acceptance criteria, and delivery plans.
• Configure and operate projects through Besimple’s internal platform.
• Design and run pilots to validate task design, contributor fit, audio quality, tooling, throughput, cost, and QA process before scaling.
• Manage day‑to‑day execution across contributors, annotators, reviewers, QA leads, and internal tools.
• Monitor project health across volume, quality, rejection rate, rework rate, cost, margin, and timeline risk.
• Identify platform gaps that prevent projects from scaling, then write clear product requirements or feature requests.
• Partner with engineering/product to build or improve tools for project setup, contributor workflows, QA, review, payments, reporting, and delivery.
• Partner with contributor growth to ensure we have the right supply by language, accent, demographic, device, skill set, or task type.
• Build dashboards, trackers, and operating cadences for project execution.
• Communicate project status, risks, tradeoffs, and blockers clearly to founders, internal teams, and customers.
• Create repeatable playbooks for future audio collection, transcription, annotation, and QA projects.
• Drive root‑cause analysis when projects miss quality, cost, or timeline expectations.

• 3‑7+ years of experience in data operations, AI data delivery, annotation operations, localization project management, marketplace operations, program management, or similar roles.
• Proven experience owning projects end to end, from ambiguous requirements to final delivery.
• Strong operator mindset: you can break down vague goals, create a plan, execute quickly, and unblock yourself.
• Experience managing complex workflows involving distributed contributors, reviewers, contractors, vendors, or large‑scale data operations.
• Strong product sense; able to identify when tooling or platform features are needed and translate operational pain points into clear product requirements.
• Strong analytical ability; comfortable with spreadsheets, dashboards, funnel metrics, QA metrics, and operational KPIs.
• Excellent written communication; able to write clear instructions, guidelines, SOPs, customer updates, and internal product specs.
• Strong quality judgment and attention to detail.
• Comfortable balancing quality, speed, cost, customer requirements, contributor experience, and platform constraints.
• Comfortable working in ambiguity and building processes from scratch.
• High ownership, low ego, and willingness to get hands‑on with messy operational details.

• Experience at a data labeling, AI data, localization, or…