Head of Data Operations

Maven Robotics
Santa Clara, CA

Who this role is best for

Strong fit for candidates with technical leadership experience in robotics or machine learning who can translate research into scalable data programs.

Best fit for

  • Candidates with technical leadership experience in robotics or machine learning and a track record of scaling data programs
    — “Experience building and scaling data, operations, or technical programs in robotics, autonomous systems, machine learning”
  • Individuals who can bridge research ambiguity with concrete operational strategies
    — “Ability to work closely with researchers and engineers and translate ambiguous research needs into concrete, scalable operational programs”
  • Candidates with expertise in defining data quality metrics and building robust data pipelines
    — “Define data quality standards and build systems for measuring coverage, diversity, throughput, utilization, cost, and dataset effectiveness”

Things to consider

  • The role requires ownership of both internal and external data strategies, which demands broad technical and partnership management capabilities
    — “Own external data partnerships and evaluate opportunities to collect, acquire, license, partner for, or generate data”
  • The position involves managing teams and processes, emphasizing leadership and operational rigor
    — “Lead the teams responsible for data collection and evaluation operations, including staffing, processes, quality standards”

How to stand out

  • Highlight experience in translating model failures into data collection strategies and pipeline improvements
    — “Translate research priorities, evaluation results, and model failures into clear data requirements”
  • Emphasize your ability to define and implement scalable data pipelines from raw data to training datasets
    — “Partner with research and infrastructure teams to build scalable pipelines from raw robot data through validation”
  • Showcase your background in managing data quality standards and dataset effectiveness metrics
    — “Define data quality standards and build systems for measuring coverage, diversity, throughput”
  • Include examples of internal tooling you've built for data collection, QA, or dataset management
    — “Experience building internal tools for data collection, QA, dataset management, evaluation, or operational dashboards”
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · HighDecision Impact · Company

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • Data strategy development
  • Data collection and evaluation
  • Training dataset generation
Typical background
RoboticsAutonomous systemsMachine learning

Skills & requirements

Required

Data OperationsData Pipeline ManagementMachine LearningData QualityTeam Leadership

Preferred

RoboticsAutonomous Systems

Stack & domain

Data StrategyData CollectionData EvaluationData QualityDataset DevelopmentTraining DatasetsRoboticsAutonomous SystemsMachine LearningData PipelinesModel EvaluationFailure AnalysisResearch OutcomesData Collection ProgramsData PartnershipsSynthetic DataSimulation-generated DataThird-party DatasetsHybrid Data StrategiesLeadershipCommunicationTeamworkProblem-solvingAdaptabilityResilienceInfluenceEmpathyCollaborationLearningFeedbackData OperationsData Intensive Technical Environment

About the role

Original posting from Maven Robotics via Greenhouse

About Maven

Maven Robotics designs, builds, and deploys intelligent robotics for logistics and manufacturing. Maven is building the first general-purpose robotics system for industrial work. Our mission is to activate autonomous labor at scale and build toward infinitely elastic industrial capacity. We’re a team of engineers, researchers, and operators who have spent our careers working on the hardest problems in AI, robotics, engineering, and autonomous systems. We work at the intersection of advanced research and real-world engineering, turning ideas into prototypes and deployed systems.

At Maven, we build around the realities of industrial work. The robots are designed from first principles for complex physical environments and rigorous commercial standards. They master real tasks that deliver immediate impact, industrial-grade reliability, and intelligence that compounds at scale. We’re growing an ambitious team of people who think in systems, move quickly, and are builders at heart.

About the Role

As Head of Data Operations at Maven Robotics, you will own the strategy, systems, and teams that turn raw robot experience into high-quality training data. You will lead data collection and evaluation operations, define how research priorities translate into data programs, and ensure our models have the right data to improve reliability, generalization, and performance.

You will work closely with robot learning, evaluation, infrastructure, hardware, and data teams to translate model failures and research priorities into scalable collection programs, robust data pipelines, and training-ready datasets. You will also own Maven’s external data strategy, helping determine when we should collect, acquire, license, partner for, or generate data.

What You’ll Do

Own Maven’s end-to-end data strategy and operations, spanning data collection, evaluation operations, data quality, dataset development, and delivery of training-ready datasets

Lead the teams responsible for data collection and evaluation operations, including staffing, processes, quality standards, throughput, and performance

Translate research priorities, evaluation results, and model failures into clear data requirements, collection strategies, and dataset roadmaps

Partner with research and infrastructure teams to build scalable pipelines from raw robot data through validation, processing, curation, and training dataset generation

Define data quality standards and build systems for measuring coverage, diversity, throughput, utilization, cost, and dataset effectiveness

Own external data partnerships and evaluate opportunities to collect, acquire, license, partner for, or generate data that accelerates model development

Build operational processes and tooling that make data programs reproducible, measurable, and scalable as Maven’s fleet and research organization grow

What We’re Looking For

Experience building and scaling data, operations, or technical programs in robotics, autonomous systems, machine learning, or another data-intensive technical environment

Experience leading teams and cross-functional programs spanning data collection, evaluation, or dataset development

Strong technical fluency with machine learning data pipelines, including ingestion, processing, validation, curation, and training dataset generation

Experience using model evaluation, failure analysis, or research outcomes to inform data collection and dataset priorities

Strong analytical ability to reason about data quality, coverage, throughput, cost, utilization, and operational bottlenecks

Ability to work closely with researchers and engineers and translate ambiguous research needs into concrete, scalable operational programs

Strong ownership and a track record of independently defining and executing strategy in a fast-moving environment

Nice to Have

Experience negotiating or managing external data, technology, or research partnerships

Experience designing dataset versioning, lineage, governance, or provenance systems for machine learning

Experience building internal tools for data collection, QA, dataset management, evaluation, or operational dashboards

Familiarity with imitation learning, reinforcement learning, multimodal models, world models, or robot foundation models

Experience with synthetic data, simulation-generated data, third-party datasets, or hybrid data strategies

Equal Opportunity

Maven Robotics is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

Source: Maven Robotics careers (Greenhouse)

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