[Hiring] Director, Data Acquisition @Datassential

Role Description

The Director, Data Acquisition will lead the sourcing and collection of data to support Datassential applications, research, and insights analysis globally. Reporting to the SVP of Data Strategy, this role will include management of data collection across a variety of forms and collection channels, including data collected directly via internal scraping operations as well as from external third party service and providers.

• Guide and collaborate with Datassential's senior leadership to define strategies for building proprietary data assets in support of company objectives.
• Identify and champion new data sources, managing negotiations of terms with new third party providers.
• Work with Product, Engineering, and Data Operations teams to coordinate data onboarding and ingestion.
• Manage data vendor and partnership relationships, ensuring that requirements for downstream use are met.
• Lead corrective actions and innovation efforts to ensure quality and efficiency of collected data.
• Interact directly with data to assess data relevance, sufficiency, and quality.
• Define and track costs against budget for all Datassential data acquisition.
• Manage an internal team responsible for data scraping operations.
• Coordinate scraping maintenance and execution to support continuous and timely collection of foodservice industry, operator, and menu data.
• Manage the relationship with multiple outsourced data management teams.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in data acquisition, data operations, data vendor management, or a related data management function, including 5+ years directly managing a team.
• Demonstrated experience sourcing, evaluating, and onboarding third-party data providers, including negotiating licensing and usage terms.
• Experience owning or supporting management of a budget or cost center: building forecasts, tracking actuals against plan, and reporting variance to stakeholders.
• Ability to build and apply a make-vs-buy framework such as internal collection vs. third-party sourcing, weighing cost, coverage, quality, and timeliness.
• Experience managing vendor relationships post-contract, including quality issues, corrective action plans, and renewal negotiations.
• Working understanding of data quality concepts (coverage, accuracy, freshness) sufficient to define and track KPIs against them.
• Fluency in hands-on data analysis and working directly with data to evaluate consistency and quality.
• Familiarity with data ingestion/ETL pipelines and how new sources get onboarded technically (APIs, file feeds, scraped data).
• Interest in and awareness of AI/automation tools relevant to data collection, with the judgment to evaluate cost-benefit tradeoffs.
• Track record managing stakeholders across Product, Engineering, Data Operations, Legal, and Finance.
• Strong negotiation skills, with examples of favorable outcomes in vendor or partnership discussions.
• Clear, proactive communicator, able to report on plan variance, escalate risk, and align teams around priorities.

Requirements

• Detail-oriented mind with an eye for continuous improvement and optimizing quality and efficiency.
• Adept communicator and negotiator, able to drive conversations that span the technical, legal, and financial, and recognize and explain the business value of data.
• Energized by the challenge of building data assets that expose new insights to customers and drive new product value.
• Curious and energized at the prospect of working in the food industry and impacting strategic decisions for some of the world’s largest food and beverage brands.
• Actively engaged and curious about AI and LLM applications in day-to-day work as well as in data extraction and process automation.
• Willing to mentor and share knowledge, making the people around you better.

Benefits

• Competitive salary plus eligibility for equity and performance-linked annual bonus plan.
• Affordable Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance, including a no-cost employee-only plan.
• Paid parental leave.
• 401K with dollar-for-dollar company match up to 5%.
• Unlimited PTO, recharge days, and Christmas through New Year break.
• 100% business travel reimbursement.
• Wellness Reimbursement or HQ Gym access.
• Remote stipend for 100% remote roles.