Data Acquisition Lead (AI)

Location: San Francisco, United States. On-site role.

Salary: $150,000–$275,000 per year, plus equity and bonus. Total cash compensation regularly exceeds base salary by 2–3x on average and by 4–5x for top performers.

Company

hirify.global is an applied research lab that curates data solutions for foundation model development and serves frontier AI labs.

What you will do

• Develop and refine the enterprise data-acquisition strategy, identifying proprietary data that can improve foundation model training.
• Source, vet, negotiate, and acquire large real-world data assets from enterprise partners.
• Personally lead complex, high-value data-purchase agreements from term sheet through signature.
• Build and manage relationships with data vendors and content owners, including pricing, licensing, renewals, and expansions.
• Partner with Engineering, Operations, Legal, and Research to make acquired data technically usable and compliant.
• Own the acquisition budget, pipeline, forecasting, and ROI reporting for executive leadership.

Requirements

• 3+ years of experience in enterprise data acquisition, strategic partnerships, corporate development, or data/vendor licensing negotiation, including people leadership.
• Track record of personally negotiating and closing complex data-purchase agreements worth seven figures or more.
• Deep understanding of data licensing, data rights, intellectual property, governance, and compliance frameworks.
• Excellent executive-level negotiation, communication, and relationship-building skills.
• High agency, strong work ethic, and comfort operating with minimal direction in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
• Passion for AI, entrepreneurial inclination, and demonstrated competitive success.

Nice to have

• Leadership experience in an AI training-data, data-licensing, data-marketplace, or data-brokerage organization.
• Existing enterprise data and content-owner relationships across target industries.
• Financial modeling and deal-economics expertise.
• Legal or compliance background in data rights and licensing.
• Experience scaling a data-acquisition function within a hypergrowth startup.

Culture & Benefits

• Meaningful equity and the opportunity to shape the engineering and acquisition organization.
• Medical, vision, and dental insurance.
• 401(k) with employer match.
• Daily UberEats meal stipend and monthly wellness stipend.
• Commute costs covered.