Data Collection Operations Manager

Were ALTEN Technology USA an engineering company helping clients bring groundbreaking ideas to lifefrom advancing space exploration and life-saving medical devices to building autonomous electric vehicles. With 3000 experts across North America we partner with leading companies in aerospace medical devices robotics automotive commercial vehicles EVs rail and more.

As part of the global ALTEN Group57000 engineers in 30 countrieswe deliver across the entire product development cycle from consulting to full project outsourcing.

When you join ALTEN Technology USA youll collaborate on some of the worlds toughest engineering challenges supported by mentorship career growth opportunities and comprehensive benefits. We take pride in fostering a culture where employees feel valued supported and inspired to grow.

Our team is looking for an experienced operations people leader to manage a team of 40 data collectors for physical data generation. This person will be responsible for delivering data output while ensuring efficient operations maintaining quality standards and optimizing workflow processes. They will be the primary point of contact between the annotation and data collection staff and the customer team within our organization.

RESPONSIBILITIES
Leadership
Manage daily operations of Data Collection and Annotation teams
Serve as main interface point between data collection and research teams
Manage team headcount needs and coordinate hiring when needed
Own and refine the job profiles for the data collection and annotation teams
Create and maintain team schedules and rotation plans
Conduct regular team meetings to relay team updates
Develop and implement onboarding and training materials
Set and monitor productivity goals and KPIs
Manage team member performance and provide coaching
Ensure compliance with safety protocols and procedures
Create and maintain standard operating procedures
Contribute to the improvement of data collection methodology

Software
Manage project tracking systems (e.g. Jira/Asana) for team task assignment
Create data reports and dashboards for management to understand program performance
Maintain detailed documentation of data collection processes and outcomes
Triage software issues and route them to the correct partner team to resolve
Monitor ongoing software skillset needs on the team
Track software updates and maintenance schedules with software engineering partners

Hardware
Triage hardware issues and route them to the correct partner team to resolve
Monitor ongoing hardware skillset needs on the team
Supervise workspace organization and safety standards
Ensure proper equipment handling and storage protocols across the teams
Track and implement hardware upgrades alongside hardware engineering partners
Manage equipment training programs

Organizational Design & Career Architecture
Design and maintain formal career progression frameworks including role definitions promotion criteria and lateral-track eligibility
Design compensation and recognition programs (incentive tiers bonus structures recognition budgets) in partnership with staffing agency and client leadership
Define minimum tenure and readiness standards for internal promotions

Program & Process Architecture
Design frameworks that formally separate research readiness from operational readiness for cross-team handoffs
Define authority boundaries between operations and research/engineering partners (what floor leadership can resolve independently vs. what requires escalation)
Build structured onboarding systems including phased training curricula and skill/task complexity libraries

Internal Tooling & Systems Development
Design and build internal operations software (from the ground up) to solve visibility gaps that off-the-shelf tools dont cover
Design data/status workflows (e.g. ticket routing downtime attribution logic) in partnership with engineering
Own analytics and reporting infrastructure end-to-end from data model to stakeholder-facing dashboards

Cross-Functional Program Ownership
Serve as the structural interface that turns ambiguous research needs into operational processes
Diagnose and document hardware/performance issues in technical partnership with engineering beyond simple ticket triage
Own the connective processes (not just meetings) that keep research engineering and floor teams aligned

REQUIRED SKILLS:
5 years people management experience
10 years of professional experience
Proven team leadership experience managing 20 operations associates or similar
Experience in a business operations leadership role with responsibility for hitting KPIs
Experience performing or managing data collection / annotation especially in a robotics or autonomous vehicle context
Strong interpersonal and communication skills
Strong organizational skills
Experience defining metrics pulling data (e.g. SQL) and building dashboards with that data from the ground up
Sufficient technical ability to interface with software and hardware engineering for support
Experience designing and building internal tooling from scratch to solve operational visibility gaps (not just using existing software)
Experience designing structured career ladders and incentive/compensation frameworks
Experience diagnosing hardware/robot performance issues in direct partnership with engineering teams
Experience building and presenting data-driven reporting to leadership stakeholders

PREFERRED SKILLS:
Experience operating robots
Experience with physical world simulation
Experience running basic commands on a terminal
Experience with virtual reality devices
Strong understanding of 6S methodology and processes to improve and maintain workspace organization

SALARY RANGE:
$80000 - 100000 per year
The actual salary offered is dependent on various factors including but not limited to location the candidates combination of job-related knowledge qualifications skills education training and experience.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race color religion sex sexual orientation gender identity national origin disability protected veteran status age genetic information or pregnancy.

Please beware of job seeker scams and see this important notice on our careers page for more information about our recruiting process.

Compliance Notice: Alten USA is a federal contractor subject to the requirements of the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA) and Executive Order 11246. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and consider all qualified applicants without regard to race color religion sex sexual orientation gender identity national origin disability or veteran status.

Drug Screening Requirement: As a federal contractor Alten USA maintains a drug-free workplace. All candidates selected for employment will be required to successfully complete a pre-employment drug screening as a condition of hire.