Data Operations Manager, Human Data Operations

Netflix is one of the world's leading entertainment services, with over 300 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, films and games across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can play, pause and resume watching as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, and can change their plans at any time.

Now, as Netflix explores a broader world of entertainment—expanding into Games, Ads, and Live—we are looking for a Human Data Operations Manager to help drive the growth of a new business unit at Netflix focused on how we evaluate and train ML and Generative AI models for use in our work.

About the Role 

High-quality human data is a critical part of AI. As a Human Data Operations Manager, you’ll play a key role in shaping this emerging function from the ground up, helping build a modern, nimble Data Operations function that supports a diverse and fast-moving set of ML initiatives related to innovation in the Netflix member discovery experience.

This role requires both operational excellence and cross-functional influence. You will oversee a diverse team — including a program manager, evaluation project managers, and human raters — ensuring clarity, efficiency, and consistency in how human data powers AI systems and features. You’ll also manage budgets for human annotation work, including vendor sourcing and ongoing annotation budget oversight, while making critical prioritization decisions that balance cost, quality, and throughput against strategic business goals. 

The Human Data Operations Manager role and the Human Data Operations (HDO) team are new. We’re building the infrastructure, workflows, and best practices that deliver high-quality, human-in-the-loop (HITL) data to power the company's development, evaluation, and iteration of AI and machine learning features.

You’ll help design and pilot the systems that make this possible—partnering closely with product, research, engineering, and data science teams to translate early-stage needs into operational workflows—and help create a repeatable foundation we can scale over time. Critically, you’ll help define new ways of working across teams—acting as a trusted guide and influencer as you introduce standards, pilot automation, and help partners build confidence in new model training and evaluation data, tools, and approaches. Your work will serve as the foundation for a nimble, modern Data Operations capability inside Netflix—one that matures with the business, adapts to evolving needs, and delivers clarity in a fast-changing space.
 

The Opportunity

This is a unique opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a fast-growing, strategically critical capability. As a Human Data Operations Manager, you’ll help stand up, shape, and scale a new function—one that connects human insight to machine learning progress in tangible, repeatable ways. You’ll work closely with product, research, and infra teams to design annotation workflows, drive the automation of evaluation and human/automated data collection workflows, improve cost-efficiency, quality, and throughput across a wide range of AI initiatives. If you thrive in ambiguity and operate at the intersection of strategy, systems thinking, and execution, this is your chance to build something from scratch—with real and lasting impact.

The ideal candidate:

• Thrives in ambiguity, enjoys solving complex problems and has a knack for turning chaos into clarity. They are deeply curious, proactive and focused. 

• Proven track record managing and developing teams (program/project managers, and human raters).

• Skilled at prioritizing multiple evaluation initiatives and making effective trade-offs.

• Experienced in managing budgets, sourcing vendors in the GenAI space, and optimizing external partnerships. 

• Strong system thinker who can design scalable, efficient workflows for AI data operations.

• Strategic leader who influences across teams and drives alignment without relying solely on authority. 

• Comfortable balancing hands-on execution with high-level strategic advising. 

• Effective communicator who can distill complex issues into clear, actionable insights. 

• Change agent with experience leading an organization through evolving processes, tools, and operating models. 

• Inspires confidence, fosters collaboration, and builds high-performing, resilient teams. 
   

Responsibilities:

• Team Leadership: Lead, coach, and develop a team of program/project managers and human raters, fostering a collaborative, high-performance culture. 

• Cross-functional Partnership: Build and nurture strong relationships with Product, Research, Engineering, and Data Science partners to ensure human data operations are aligned with strategic priorities. 

• Budget Management: Own the human annotations budget – overseeing vendor sourcing, contracts, and cost optimization to ensure financial sustainability and alignment with business needs. 

• Workflow Design & Execution: Design and manage end-to-end annotation workflows across evolving ML and GenAI use cases, from early pilots to scalable production systems (using available 3P or 1P tools). 

• Prioritization & Trade-offs: Balance competing evaluation needs, making clear prioritization decisions to maximize impact across multiple AI initiatives. 

• Operations Management & Excellence: Manage the human data support requests, handling intake, scoping, and resourcing strategy. Establish and monitor benchmarks for throughput, quality, cost-efficiency, and turnaround time.

• Tooling & Automation: Pilot and partner with platform teams to integrate automated evaluations into HITL workflows to increase speed, scalability and efficiency.

• Best Practices & Governance: Define best practices for tooling, vendor engagement, and human data governance as we grow.

• Strategic Advising: Act as a strategic partner and internal advisor—helping teams  adopt effective human data best practices and methodologies to power product/research insights and decisions 

• Documentation & Scaling: Develop playbooks, workflows, and lightweight documentation to ensure knowledge-sharing, repeatability, and scalability.

• Evaluation of HDO Impact: Partner with Product, Engineering, and Data Science to measure and improve the human data impact on AI product and model development. 

Qualifications 

• 5+ years of experience in human data operations, evaluation frameworks, or related operational leadership roles in AI/ML environments. 

• Demonstrated success managing teams and scaling operations in fast-moving environments. 

• Experience managing budgets, vendor sourcing, and external partnerships. 

• Strong understanding of evaluation design (guidelines and scoring rubrics) and applying these to ML/GenAI use cases.

• Experience evaluating LLMs or GenAI outputs (e.g., text, multi-media outputs, relevance/ranking).

• Strong cross-functional collaboration skills; proven ability to influence senior stakeholders and align diverse teams around shared objectives.

• Comfort working in ambiguous, rapidly evolving environments; skilled at anticipating bottlenecks and making effective trade-offs.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to synthesize complex feedback into clear, actionable insights. 

• Strategic thinker with operational rigor; experience establishing and scaling processes for consistency, quality, and efficiency. 

• Familiarity with responsible AI principles and their application in evaluation design.

• Expertise in change management and leading organizations through evolving workflows, tools, and operating models. Experience using data and metrics to determine and drive business process improvements.

Generally, our compensation structure consists solely of an annual salary; we do not have bonuses. You choose each year how much of your compensation you want in salary versus stock options. To determine your personal top of market compensation, we rely on market indicators and consider your specific job family, background, skills, and experience to determine your compensation in the market range. The range for this role is $70,000 - $370,000.
Netflix provides comprehensive benefits including Health Plans, Mental Health support, a 401(k) Retirement Plan with employer match, Stock Option Program, Disability Programs, Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts, Family-forming benefits, and Life and Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs.  Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off. Full-time salaried employees are immediately entitled to flexible time off.
See more detail about our Benefits here.

Netflix is a unique culture and environment.  Learn more here.

Inclusion is a Netflix value and we strive to host a meaningful interview experience for all candidates. If you want an accommodation/adjustment for a disability or any other reason during the hiring process, please send a request to your recruiting partner.

We are an equal-opportunity employer and celebrate diversity, recognizing that diversity builds stronger teams. We approach diversity and inclusion seriously and thoughtfully. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.

Job is open for no less than 7 days and will be removed when the position is filled.