Director – AI Data Acquisition and Operations

We are on a mission to train the world's most capable, human-centered AI frontier models, advancing scale, performance, and product deployment for Microsoft AI models to benefit everyone.

We are seeking an experienced AI Data Strategy & Acquisition Lead to own data acquisition programs for a portfolio of post-training research efforts. You will work directly with researchers to translate evolving model needs into actionable data requirements, identify and evaluate suppliers, and drive programs from initial scoping through delivery and acceptance.

This role combines research partnership, commercial judgment, and operational execution. You will balance quality, cost, speed, and responsible data use; resolve cross-functional dependencies; and build repeatable processes that help the organization scale. Relevant programs may include human evaluation and preference data, expert annotations, multimodal collections, and agentic or reinforcement-learning tasks and environments.

Responsibilities

• Own a portfolio of data acquisition programs, from research requirements and supplier discovery through contracting, delivery, acceptance, and follow-up.

• Partner with researchers to define data specifications, sample-evaluation plans, quality standards, acceptance criteria, and delivery milestones.

• Evaluate supplier capabilities and proposals, including sourcing methods, execution feasibility, pricing, quality controls, and scalability.

• Develop sourcing recommendations and negotiate commercial outcomes in partnership with Procurement and Business Development.

• Drive contracting and review workflows with Legal, Privacy, Compliance, and other partners; make dependencies visible and escalate blockers with clear options and recommendations.

• Manage forecasts, purchase-order capacity, delivery commitments, and spend against accepted work; surface risks early and recommend corrective actions.

• Establish supplier-performance measures and feedback loops across quality, delivery speed, and cost, using researcher feedback to inform repeat purchases and supplier selection.

• Advance the AI frontier responsibly and embody Microsoft’s culture and values.

Required Qualifications

Bachelor's Degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Computer Science, or related field AND 4+ years strategy or finance, data operations, program/technical program management, procurement, or finance integration,

OR equivalent experience.

• Experience independently owning complex data, technical program, or supplier-delivery programs involving multiple stakeholders.

• Ability to translate ambiguous customer or research needs into clear requirements, measurable acceptance criteria, and executable plans.

• Demonstrated judgment in evaluating supplier proposals and balancing quality, cost, delivery timelines, and risk.

• Experience driving cross-functional decisions and resolving blockers without relying on formal authority.

• Strong analytical and written communication skills, including building forecasts and presenting concise recommendations.

Preferred Qualifications

Bachelor’s Degree AND 6+ years' experience in technical data operations, procurement program management, or finance systems integration

OR equivalent experience.

• Experience acquiring training or evaluation data for machine-learning research.

• Familiarity with human annotation, preference collection, multimodal data, or agentic/RL tasks and environments.

• Experience establishing supplier scorecards, delivery-quality processes, or acquisition tooling.

• Experience partnering with researchers, engineers, procurement, and legal teams in a fast-changing environment.

Business Strategy IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $130,900 - $251,900 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $165,600 - $272,300 per year.