Data Infrastructure Operations Manager

Description:

DATA INFRASTRUCTURE OPERATIONS MANAGER II (STARLINK)

The Infrastructure Operations team is responsible for the end-to-end management of suppliers, costs, and delivery of high-quality human-generated data, including annotations, evaluations, and specialized research datasets that power the training, validation, and continuous improvement of our AI models. We're seeking talented, high-ownership individuals to grow and expand our global supplier network while ensuring the consistent, high-quality delivery of critical datasets. Individuals in this role are creative, fast problem-solvers who seek on challenges outside their comfort zone and can iterate and adapt at the rapid pace of the AI industry. As a Data Infrastructure Operations Manager I/II, you will own end-to-end strategy, sourcing, and delivery for a major data taxonomy category (e.g., agentic tool use, coding, etc.) to drive high-signal datasets that improve model performance. You will be responsible for driving to acquisition and delivery targets for this category.

Responsibilities
 

• Negotiate creative, flexible, and commercially effective deals with key suppliers and partners.
• Align sourcing strategy with engineering, quality, and performance requirements across priority areas.
• Track deal status, approvals, and execution risks while driving suppliers toward timely and reliable delivery.
• Continuously improve, standardize, and scale sourcing processes, workflows, tools, and planning systems.
• Build a strong pipeline of exclusive and proprietary enterprise datasets.
• Provide valuable inputs on upcoming orders based on supplier capacity, quality, and pricing.
• Maintain rigorous spend discipline, committing budget only to datasets that meaningfully improve model performance.
• Set target pricing, analyze supplier spend and trends, and develop metrics for quality, delivery, and performance.
• Manage clear, proactive communication with both internal stakeholders and external partners.
   

Basic Qualifications
 

• 7+ years of experience and a bachelor’s degree, or equivalent experience working in one or more of the following fields:
  • Hardware or product management
  • Engineering
  • Procurement
  • Supply chain management
  • Strategy and operations
  • Technology

Preferred Skills And Experience
 

• Self-starting, able to identify areas for improvement with minimal direction
• Experience in managing technical or construction projects from beginning to end
• Ability to tackle complex and ambiguous problems
• Excellent project management, communication, and organizational skills
• Experience or interest in data analysis, data visualization, and/or financial analysis
• Demonstrates commitment to SpaceX’s goals of reusability, renewability, and sustainability
   

Additional Requirements
 

• Must be willing to work long hours and occasional weekends when necessary to support launch and critical project timelines