Principal, Crowd Operations and Research Partnerships

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Directly lead the onsite SPL team as the senior expert and point of accountability.

• Serve as the primary internal stakeholder for the Program Director organization.

• Ensure organizational separation to maintain independent quality oversight from delivery accountability.

• Develop and sustain direct, ongoing relationships with Research stakeholders, acting as a trusted planning partner.

• Assist researchers in scoping and planning projects, converting research objectives into crowd data collection or annotation requirements.

• Initiate new crowd projects, transitioning from research discussions to launch.

• Collaborate with Program Directors to identify, evaluate, and cultivate SPL candidates without managing their teams.

• Oversee capacity and utilization planning, including workload distribution, portfolio coverage, and staffing needs.

• Act as a visible, client-facing expert, engaging senior client stakeholders.

• Establish and maintain escalation protocols and role boundaries between SPLs and program-level delivery leads.

• Represent the SPL function in account planning and governance discussions.

⛳️ Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in business, operations, data/engineering, or a related field.

• Over 10 years of experience in operations or quality leadership within a crowd/gig-based or BPO delivery setting.

• Proven depth as a subject-matter expert, rather than solely in people management.

• Demonstrated experience in operating (or building) a function that is structurally independent from the team it evaluates or oversees.

• Experience collaborating directly with technical or research stakeholders on project planning.

• Comfortable partnering cross-functionally with peer directors on talent identification without direct management authority.

• Strong skills in capacity planning and workforce analytics.

• Direct, client-facing communication style; adept at building trust with senior client stakeholders, including researchers.

• Proven track record of initiating new projects from early-stage planning conversations.

• History of establishing clear role definitions and escalation protocols within ambiguous or overlapping organizational structures.

• Comfortable working with global, distributed teams.

• Advanced proficiency in English.

• Comfortable in a senior individual contributor role; leads a small team but is not focused on building or scaling a larger management organization.

🏝️ Benefits

• Competitive salary package.

• Opportunities for professional development and growth.

• Flexible working arrangements.

• Collaborative and inclusive work environment.