Director of Research, DataLab

Company Overview: We are building Protege to solve the biggest unmet need in AI — getting access to the right training data. The process today is time intensive, incredibly expensive, and often ends in failure. The Protege platform facilitates the secure, efficient, and privacy-centric exchange of AI training data. Solving AI’s data problem is a generational opportunity. We’re backed by world-class investors and already powering partnerships with some of the most ambitious teams in AI. The company that succeeds will be one of the largest in AI — and in tech. We’re a lean, fast-moving, high-trust team of builders who are obsessed with velocity and impact. Our culture is built for people who thrive on ambiguity, own outcomes, and want to shape the future of data and AI. About Protege We are building Protege to solve the biggest unmet need in AI - getting access to the right training data. The process today is time intensive, incredibly expensive, and often ends in failure. The Protege platform facilitates the secure, efficient, and privacy-centric exchange of AI training data. Solving AI's data problem is a generational opportunity. We're backed by world-class investors and already powering partnerships with some of the most ambitious teams in AI. The company that succeeds will be one of the largest in AI - and in tech. We're a lean, fast-moving, high-trust team of builders who are obsessed with velocity and impact. Our culture is built for people who thrive on ambiguity, own outcomes, and want to shape the future of data and AI. DataLab is Protege's research arm - a team of research scientists committed to tackling the fundamental challenges and open questions regarding data for AI. We bridge the gap between research theory and data deployment to push the frontier forward, publishing on the questions that matter: what agentic AI should actually be trained to do, how to quality-control large-scale corpora, and how to build evaluation datasets that reflect the real world rather than the leaderboard. We're a lean, fast-moving, high-trust team of builders who deeply care about scientific rigor and impact. Our culture is built for people who thrive on ambiguity, own outcomes, and want to shape the future of data and AI. The Role The Director of Research will lead Protege's DataLab as a strategic research function focused on answering the hardest questions about data for AI. This person will define the research agenda, build rigorous systems for experimentation and evaluation, and ensure DataLab's work directly informs product direction, customer strategy, and platform capabilities. This is both a leadership and builder role. The right person can set a clear research roadmap, manage and scale a high-performing team, partner across Product, Engineering, GTM, and Leadership, and translate ambiguous technical questions into practical frameworks, measurable experiments, and actionable recommendations. The Director of Research will work closely with GTM across sales, delivery, and partner conversations — bringing technical credibility into the room when it matters and representing Protege’s research perspective externally. What You'll Do - Define and lead the research strategy for Protege's Data Lab, aligning experimentation with company priorities and product direction. - Partner closely with Product, Engineering, and GTM teams to identify high-value research opportunities tied to AI data quality, evaluation, and marketplace performance. - Design and oversee experiments that evaluate dataset quality, model performance, synthetic data workflows, and privacy-preserving methodologies. - Build scalable systems for benchmarking, labeling quality analysis, and training data evaluation across multiple AI modalities. - Serve as a customer-facing research partner to GTM, representing DataLab in sales, technical discovery, delivery, and customer strategy conversations while translating research depth into practical guidance that helps Protege deliver value to our partners and customers. - Translate ambiguous technical questions into clear research frameworks, measurable hypotheses, and actionable recommendations. - Publish internal research findings that directly influence product decisions, customer strategy, and platform capabilities. - Lead, manage, and scale a high-performing team of researchers and data scientists, driving execution, technical excellence, and career development across the Data Lab organization. - Establish operational rigor around experimentation, reproducibility, and research documentation. - Represent Protege externally through technical conversations with customers, partners, and the broader AI ecosystem. - Stay at the forefront of advancements in foundation models, evaluation methodologies, data infrastructure, and AI alignment research. What Success Looks Like 30 Days: Learn and Assess - Build a deep understanding of Protege's platform, customer workflows, and current research priorities. - Meet cross-functional stakeholders across Product, Engineering, GTM, and Leadership to understand strategic goals and existing technical challenges. - Audit current Data Lab workflows, experimentation infrastructure, and evaluation methodologies. - Identify immediate opportunities to improve research velocity, rigor, and cross-functional communication. 60 Days: Establish Direction and Build Momentum - Deliver a clear research roadmap aligned to company priorities and platform differentiation. - Launch initial experiments focused on data quality, evaluation systems, or marketplace optimization. - Introduce standardized processes for experiment tracking, documentation, and reproducibility. - Develop hiring plans and organizational structure for scaling the Data Lab function. 90 Days: Drive Measurable Impact - Deliver research insights that directly influence product roadmap decisions or customer outcomes. - Demonstrate measurable improvements in experimentation speed, evaluation quality, or data performance metrics. - Establish Protege's Data Lab as a trusted strategic partner across Engineering, Product, and GTM. - Recruit, onboard, and effectively lead key technical talent to support long-term research initiatives and company growth. What we're looking for You have: - Led impactful research initiatives in AI, machine learning, data infrastructure, or applied research environments where outcomes influenced product or business strategy. - Built and managed high-performing research teams that operated with autonomy, technical rigor, and fast execution cycles. - Experience partnering directly with customers, GTM teams, or external stakeholders in applied technical settings, with the judgment to represent both the research and business value of complex AI/data work clearly and credibly. - Developed frameworks for evaluating model performance, dataset quality, synthetic data, or large-scale experimentation systems. - Experience operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments where priorities evolved quickly and execution mattered. - Strong ability to communicate complex technical findings to both technical and non-technical audiences. - Demonstrated ownership of cross-functional initiatives spanning research, engineering, product, and go-to-market teams. - Track record of translating research into practical systems, tools, or customer-facing impact. - Experience working with modern AI systems, foundation models, LLM evaluation workflows, or privacy-centric data methodologies. - High judgment, strong prioritization skills, and comfort making decisions with incomplete information. - Motivated by building from first principles and solving foundational problems in AI infrastructure. Protege's Values Pass the Loved Ones' Test We act with integrity and do the right thing - especially when it's hard and no one is watching. Always Find a Way We are resourceful, resilient builders who solve hard problems and push through obstacles. Go Fast and Grow Fast Velocity matters. We move with urgency, learn quickly, and continuously improve as individuals and as a company. Practice Kindness and Candor We communicate directly and respectfully, building trust through honest feedback and genuine care for one another. Deliver Together We win as one team. Collaboration, accountability, and shared ownership drive our success. Own the Outcome. Hone the Craft. We take pride in our work, sweat the details, and continuously raise the bar for excellence.