Head of Operations Planning

About Mercor

Mercor’s mission is to organize human intelligence for the AI economy. We build the infrastructure that enables frontier AI labs and enterprises to train, evaluate, and improve AI on real-world professional work. More than five million experts have joined our network, and we pay out over $5 million daily for their knowledge and expertise.

We built our training and evaluation infrastructure alongside the world’s leading AI labs. Now, we’re bringing those capabilities to enterprises across industries, enabling them to train, evaluate, and improve AI using their own expertise and standards. Our APEX benchmarks measure how AI performs on economically valuable work, while our enterprise evaluations and post-training capabilities turn those insights into measurable improvements across real-world workflows.

Our work sits at the intersection of frontier AI, human expertise, and real-world application. We’re solving problems few companies have encountered, with the opportunity to influence what the world’s most advanced AI systems become capable of doing. We’re looking for people who bring different perspectives, take ownership, exercise sound judgment, and hold themselves to an exceptionally high standard. You’ll have the opportunity to do consequential work alongside talented colleagues who challenge one another, collaborate openly, and share a commitment to excellence.

Mercor is profitable and recently raised a $750 million Series D at a $20 billion valuation. We work in person five days a week in San Francisco, New York, and London.

About the role

Mercor is building a team to centralize planning and reporting across its rapidly growing Human Data business. This team sits at the intersection of Delivery Operations, Engagement Management, Finance, and Talent Sourcing. As the business scales, this function becomes the single system every team plans against, replacing fragmented, account-by-account approaches with one consistent standard.

The Head of Operations Planning will stand up this function from the ground up: the team, the workflows, and the tools that turn a signed deal into a fully staffed, forecasted, and tracked production plan. That means catching data quality issues as opportunities enter the pipeline, checking staffing plans against actual delivery capacity before commitments are made, and giving leadership a single source of truth on where every project stands.

What you'll own

• Build and lead the function: Design the operating model for Operations Planning — what the team owns, how it's staffed, and how it scales as new accounts and business lines come online.

• Demand and forecast accuracy: Set the standard for how customer demand gets captured, at what granularity, and how it flows into production plans and revenue forecasts. Own the weekly cadence with account and supply teams to catch drift early.

• Staffing and capacity strategy: Own the framework for translating forecasted demand into staffing decisions across accounts. Build models that stress-test headcount scenarios and flag risk before it hits a client conversation. Partner with Finance and account leadership on cost and margin implications.

• Opportunity pipeline integrity: Own the process that governs how new opportunities get scoped, logged, and moved from signal to committed forecast. Set the bar for consistency across accounts so leadership can trust the number without checking the math.

• Systems and reporting infrastructure: Decide what gets tracked, how, and where. Build the dashboards, account playbooks, and planning tools that make account status visible without a meeting.

• Cross-functional operating rhythm: Represent Operations Planning in account reviews, finance syncs, and leadership forecasting sessions.

What we're looking for

• 5+ years in operations, program management, or business operations, with direct experience in demand planning, staffing, or forecasting at a company with complex, multi-account delivery

• Experience building a team or function from scratch, not just operating within one someone else designed

• Direct experience managing people

• Strong command of spreadsheets and reporting tools; comfort building the system rather than waiting for someone to build it for you

• A track record of standardizing messy, inconsistent processes into something repeatable and auditable

• Comfortable being the source of truth in a room full of people who disagree about the numbers

• Experience in AI training data, human data operations, or a comparable high-growth operations environment is a plus, not a requirement

Compensation

• Base cash comp from $200K-$250k

Benefits:

• Generous equity grant vested over 4 years

• Health, dental, and vision insurance

• 401(k) with company match

• Unlimited paid vacation and sick days

• Parental leave for birthing and non-birthing parents

• Free mental health services

• $200 monthly wellness reimbursement

• $1.5K monthly meal stipend

• $200 monthly laundry reimbursement

• Free Equinox membership

• Up to $15K relocation bonus

Mercor is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to providing equal opportunity to all employees and applicants. Mercor does not discriminate based on actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, sex or gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, related medical conditions and lactation), gender identity or gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, military service and veteran status, disability, protected medical condition as defined by California or local law, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, California, or local laws and ordinances. Further, Mercor prohibits discrimination, harassment, and retaliation based on any combination of protected characteristics. This Policy applies to all areas of employment, including recruitment, hiring, training, promotion, compensation, benefits, discipline, termination, and all other privileges, terms, and conditions of employment. This Policy and the law prohibit employment discrimination against any employee or applicant based on any legally protected status.