AI Data Operation Lead, Autonomy

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As a company, we constantly challenge what’s possible, never simply accepting what has always been done. We reframe old problems, seek new solutions and operate comfortably in areas that are unknown. Our backgrounds are diverse, but our team shares a love of the outdoors and a desire to protect it for future generations.

Role Summary

Rivian Autonomy is seeking an AI Data Operation Lead to lead the people and processes that turn vehicle data into reliable training and evaluation datasets. Within the AI Platform organization, you will bring together labeling delivery, data quality, curation, and human review to support the development of our autonomous driving models.

You will lead internal teams and external partners, with accountability for delivery, quality, and cost. This includes making sure the data we send for annotation is usable, that accepted labels meet the model teams' requirements, and that reviewers can turn difficult driving events into actionable feedback for engineering.

You will work closely with Perception, Planning, Data Infrastructure, Eval Infrastructure, and Product to translate model-development priorities into operational plans and provide evidence for release decisions. We are looking for a leader who can develop managers and specialists, make clear tradeoffs when demand exceeds capacity, and build an operation that improves as our models, tools, and vehicle fleet evolve.

Responsibilities

• Lead the organization. Set the operating plan for AI data operations, develop team leaders, and define responsibilities across employees, contractors, and vendors. Build capacity plans that account for annotation, quality review, and rework across concurrent programs.
• Deliver data that model teams can use. Translate training and evaluation needs into labeling specifications, reviewer guidance, delivery milestones, and acceptance criteria. Work with model teams on taxonomy changes and keep delivery aligned with their development cycles.
• Improve data quality and yield. Own the operational checks that determine whether collected vehicle data is ready for curation and labeling. Partner with collection and engineering teams to resolve sensor, calibration, and data-quality issues before they consume downstream annotation capacity.
• Own vendor performance and spend. Set service levels and quality expectations, evaluate suppliers, and manage capacity, pricing, and budgets with Finance and Procurement. Reconcile accepted work with invoices and address delivery or quality shortfalls through clear corrective actions.
• Develop human evaluation and triage operations. Build review workflows with autonomy and systems engineers to investigate driving events, classify recurring failures, and assemble the evidence needed for root-cause analysis. Feed those findings into scenario selection, evaluation datasets, and targeted data requests.
• Run the operation with consistent metrics. Establish a shared view of accepted-data volume, quality, turnaround time, backlog, rework, collection yield, and cost. Use these measures to identify constraints, allocate review capacity, and make delivery commitments teams can plan around.
• Improve tools and automation. Partner with Data Infrastructure, Eval Infrastructure, and Applied General AI on labeling tools, prelabels, automated quality checks, and assisted triage. Define operational requirements and validate improvements against measured quality and reviewer effort before scaling them.

Qualifications

• 10+ years leading operations, including at least 5 years supporting autonomous vehicles, robotics, or complex machine-learning programs, with responsibility for budgets or a P&L.
• Experience managing annotation partners across domestic and international locations, including commercial negotiations, staffing plans, and service delivery.
• Enough technical depth in AI development to discuss data requirements and failure analysis with engineers and turn those discussions into clear work for operations teams.
• A record of developing managers and specialists, establishing ownership, and adapting team structures as priorities change.
• Strong analytical judgment: you can separate a quality problem from a capacity or tooling problem, test the cause, and follow through on the fix.
• Clear communication across engineering, product, finance, and operations, with the ability to make prioritization decisions and explain their impact on delivery.

Bonus Points

• Direct experience supporting autonomous driving or other physical AI systems through data production and evaluation.
• Experience applying large language models, multimodal models, or generative AI to annotation and human-review workflows.

Pay Disclosure

The salary range for this role is $213,000-266,300 for San Francisco Bay Area based applicants. This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, specific competencies, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, shift, and organizational needs.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits for full-time and part-time employees, their spouse or domestic partner, and children up to age 26, including but not limited to paid vacation, paid sick leave, and a competitive portfolio of insurance benefits including life, medical, dental, vision, short-term disability insurance, and long-term disability insurance to eligible employees. You may also have the opportunity to participate in Rivian’s 401(k) Plan and Employee Stock Purchase Program if you meet certain eligibility requirements. Full-time employee coverage is effective on their first day of employment. Part-time employee coverage is effective the first of the month following 90 days of employment. More information about benefits is available at rivianbenefits.com.

Equal Opportunity

Rivian is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information or characteristics, physical or mental disability, marital/domestic partner status, age, military/veteran status, medical condition, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Rivian is committed to ensuring that our hiring process is accessible for persons with disabilities. If you have a disability or limitation, such as those covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, that requires accommodations to assist you in the search and application process, please email us at [email protected].

Candidate Data Privacy and Technology

Rivian may collect, use and disclose your personal information or personal data (within the meaning of the applicable data protection laws) when you apply for employment and/or participate in our recruitment processes (“Candidate Personal Data”). This data includes contact, demographic, communications, educational, professional, employment, social media/website, network/device, recruiting system usage/interaction, security and preference information. Rivian may use your Candidate Personal Data for the purposes of (i) tracking interactions with our recruiting system; (ii) carrying out, analyzing and improving our application and recruitment process, including assessing you and your application and conducting employment, background and reference checks; (iii) establishing an employment relationship or entering into an employment contract with you; (iv) complying with our legal, regulatory and corporate governance obligations; (v) recordkeeping; (vi) ensuring network and information security and preventing fraud; and (vii) as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law.

Rivian may share your Candidate Personal Data with (i) internal personnel who have a need to know such information in order to perform their duties, including individuals on our People Team, Finance, Legal, and the team(s) with the position(s) for which you are applying; (ii) Rivian affiliates; and (iii) Rivian’s service providers, including providers of background checks, staffing services, and cloud services.

Rivian may transfer or store internationally your Candidate Personal Data, including to or in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union and in the cloud, and this data may be subject to the laws and accessible to the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities of such jurisdictions.

How We Use AI in Our Hiring Process: To ensure transparency, we want candidates to know that Rivian uses iCIMS Talent Cloud Artificial Intelligence (TCAI) and AI-enabled tools to assist with screening, reviewing, organizing and highlighting profiles and applications that match the key requirements for each role.

AI does not make hiring decisions: Qualified candidate applications are reviewed by a member of our team, and all decisions throughout the process are made by humans. We use AI to support efficiency and consistency, not to replace human judgment. We are committed to a fair, thoughtful, and equitable experience for every candidate.

Participation in AI profile matching is entirely voluntary. If you prefer that your profile not be used in this process, you can opt out at any time. Opting out means your profile will be excluded from automated matching and will not be surfaced for additional roles through this system. Your current application remains active and will not be affected in any way.

Please note that we are currently not accepting applications from third party application services.