Project Manager, Launch

About the Role

Sama is seeking a talented and agile Launch Manager (Gen AI Specialist) to specialize in qualifying, scoping, winning, and launching Generative AI projects for its technology customers. This exciting and innovative role will stand on the front lines of Sama’s expanded service offerings in a dynamic market sector. 

The right candidate has experience in the GenAI or NLP field and possesses a blend of expert project management and customer management skills. You bring a strong desire to innovate and iterate their way to successful outcomes. 

The ideal candidate is one who can navigate subjectivity, and can develop and implement new methodologies and processes - one who can “build as they go”, solving new challenges on the fly but also helping to build scalable processes and methods. They can expertly navigate subjective content with customers and internal teams and then align on objective measurements to evaluate the quality of work completed. They are proactively “hands-on” to gain an expert understanding of the project content and use that knowledge to solve problems and influence customers’ and internal teams’ decisions. 

This highly cross-functional role sits between Sama’s delivery teams and its customers. It requires very strong written and verbal communication skills and an ability to interact with and demonstrate expertise to a wide variety of stakeholders across a range of cultures.

This role is only open to Candidates in India.

Responsibilities: 

• Collaborate with Sales, Solutions and Global Service Delivery teams on the solution development for new projects. 
• Complete tests and recommend creative solutions to enable the successful execution of new projects. 
• Develop and manage project plans, including project-specific training, staffing, quality management, and reporting strategies to ensure profitable and successful project execution. 
• Manage partner vendors’ including monitoring and ensuring high-quality output, tracking the progress of deliverables, and overall compliance with vendor contracts.
• Collaborate with Clients to define and implement a Quality Management Strategy.
• Build client relationships, and effectively navigate calibration discussions on highly subjective content. 
• Monitor project quality, identify gaps and implement solutions. Ensure that Sama delivers >SLA quality in all work completed.
• Proactively analyze project performance data, make critical decisions based on data, and escalate effectively. 
• Manage changes effectively, including identification and treatment of risks.  
• Manage on-time completion of all trial, pilot, and project-launch activities and deliverables.  
• Effectively engage Sama and Client stakeholders, building strong relationships and managing expectations.
• Demonstrate subject matter expertise, provide a consultative approach, and ensure customers are successful. 
• Document and share learnings to guide Sama and Clients toward improved outcomes. 
• Effectively onboard internal project stakeholders, create necessary documentation and facilitate effective handovers. 
• Own, from development to implementation, initiatives and innovations designed to improve the Launch Team’s execution against departmental and organizational goals.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in any field from a tier 1 college in India; in Computer Science or related technical degree
• Experience in GenAI or NLP field
• 2+ years project management experience
• Strong written and verbal communication skills (English speaker with C2 language proficiency)
• Strong planning & organizational skills - ability to navigate a matrix of time-sensitive projects with competing priorities
• Experience navigating a global organization and a global customer base. 
• Prior experience working within a globally dispersed team
• Prior experience working remotely and/or managing remote teams

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Experience in the BPO sector
• Extensive working knowledge of Microsoft Excel
• Extensive working knowledge of Google Workspace (Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms)
• Data Analytics tool knowledge 
• PMP and/or PRINCE 2 Certification
• Conflict prevention and resolution skills
• Prior experience working in a startup environment

About Sama 

Sama provides high-quality training data that powers AI technology for Fortune 2000 companies such as Google, Walmart, Ford, Microsoft, and Marriott. We’re experts in data curation and data annotation for 2D and 3D image, video, and sensor data for machine learning algorithms.. Sama offers the highest quality SLAs in the industry, along with cutting-edge ML-assisted annotation tools, QA processes, and security and compliance standards. 

Founded in 2008 on the belief that “talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not”, Sama is driven by the mission to expand opportunities for those who are underprivileged. As a certified B-corp, Sama has provided worker training programs to increase economic opportunity for more than 13,000 people from underserved communities. By connecting our customers with amazing talent in East Africa, we've impacted more than 59,000 workers and their dependents.

Today, our vision is to provide data scientists, ML engineers, and data operations teams with an indispensable, integrated platform for AI data preparation, labeling, and collection. 

For more information, visit www.sama.com.

More information can be found at:

• Featured in Forbes: How Ethical Is Your AI?
• Sama Honored on Inc. Magazine’s Annual List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies — the Inc. 5000
• Reversing Poverty - Ted Talk by our founder Leila Janah

Our Culture:

Sama is quite unique. We are a technology company with a social mission. People that thrive in a high-growth environment, love working on the bleeding edge of technology, and really care about having a positive impact on the world are a great fit for the Sama culture. Our core values are One Team, One Goal - Deliver. Period. - Trust & Transparency - Customer First - Humanity.

Our Benefits:

Sama is proud to offer competitive compensation corresponding to market data & level of experience. Sama also offers benefits packages based on country of employment, including but not limited to medical, dental, vision, and life insurance, holiday and vacation policies, professional development stipends and a paid sabbatical program. Our Talent Acquisition team would be happy to discuss our benefits packages with you in more detail during the interview process.

At Sama, we pride ourselves in being a diverse and equal opportunity employer.