--- title: 'Data & Eval Operations Program Manager at Institute of Foundation Models' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/data-eval-operations-program-manager-institute-of-foundation-models-sunnyvale-k1tw3bc2qr86' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-19' --- # Data & Eval Operations Program Manager at Institute of Foundation Models - **Company:** Institute of Foundation Models - **Location:** Sunnyvale, CA - **Compensation:** $250k–$450k - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-10-05 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-19 - **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/ifm-us/11df530d-8aab-4d6a-b408-c0b6cf778cea ## Job description ## About the Institute of Foundation Models We are a dedicated research lab for building, understanding, using, and risk-managing foundation models. Our mandate is to advance research, nurture the next generation of AI builders, and drive transformative contributions to a knowledge-driven economy. As part of our team, you’ll have the opportunity to work on the core of cutting-edge foundation model training, alongside world-class researchers, data scientists, and engineers, tackling the most fundamental and impactful challenges in AI development. You will participate in the development of groundbreaking AI solutions that have the potential to reshape entire industries. Strategic and innovative problem-solving skills will be instrumental in establishing MBZUAI as a global hub for high-performance computing in deep learning, driving impactful discoveries that inspire the next generation of AI pioneers. ## Key Responsibilities Data Operations - Establish Data Ops Program: Establish a complete end-to-end data operations program from scratch, to include program structure, goals, and management. You will be completely responsible for standing up and owning this program. - Understand the Landscape: Analyze and develop an understanding of the constantly evolving landscape of data offerings from new and existing vendors, and assess how this fits the evolving needs of IFM with technical leads. - Vendor Management: Work closely with new and existing vendors on a regular basis. You will serve as the key interface between IFM and our data vendors. - Budget and Performance Management: Perform budget management and tracking, as well as performance management. You will be responsible for the full data budget and will devise a rigorous process to ensure this spend is highly effective, with all spend tied back to actual data performance. - Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with cross-functional teams, including Legal and Procurement, to ensure new data partnerships and acquisitions are completed quickly and in alignment with all organizational procedures. Eval Operations - Establish Eval Ops Program: Establish a complete end-to-end eval operations program from scratch, to include program structure, goals, and management. You will be completely responsible for standing up and owning this program. - Eval Process: Devise a process for how our team regularly completes, documents, organizes, and reviews our evals. - Eval Process Changes: Work with technical leads to understand their evolving eval needs and adjust the eval process to meet these needs. - Streamline Eval Service: Streamline the eval process and internal eval service with our engineering team and with individual eval owners to improve how evals are completed. - Tie Evals to Data: Develop a sense of where our models might be lagging with respect to key evals and use this to inform strategy for the data operations program. - Understand the Landscape: Analyze and develop an understanding of the constantly evolving landscape of benchmarks that may be of interest to IFM. Academic Qualifications A bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, business, or economics. (MBA or advanced technical degree is a plus). Professional Experience - Minimum - 5+ years of relevant industry experience, with at least 3 years in program management with technical teams, including working directly with researchers and engineers. - Budget Management: Budget management experience, managing multi-million-dollar budgets. - Vendor Management: Vendor management experience, working across multiple vendors, and experience with contracts and SOWs. - Complete Program Ownership: Autonomy in fully managing projects with budget, timeline, and quality components. - Technical Fluency: You don’t need to write code or understand nuanced research but must understand relevant technical concepts. Professional Experience - Preferred - Foundation Model Experience: Experience working specifically with LLMs, Generative AI, or ML Infrastructure. - Data Operations Experience: Experience working with data vendors for LLM development. - LLM/Agentic Benchmarks Understanding: Familiarity with key LLM/agentic benchmarks, including an understanding of how LLMs, aagentic capabilties, and benchmarks are evolving over time. ## Benefits Include *Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision benefits *Bonus *401K Plan *Generous paid time off, sick leave and holidays *Paid Parental Leave *Employee Assistance Program *Life insurance and disability ## About Institute of Foundation Models ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: The Institute of Foundation Models (IFM) is a global AI research lab dedicated to the open and independent development of frontier-class foundation models, operating under the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI). - **Entity Type**: Academic Research Institute (part of MBZUAI, a university) - **Headquarters**: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (with labs in Sunnyvale, CA, USA and Paris, France) - **Founded**: 2026 (launched with Silicon Valley lab) - **Founders**: Part of MBZUAI, led by President Eric Xing ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Artificial Intelligence research, foundation model development, open-source AI - **Target customers**: Researchers, academia, industry partners, and the global AI community (B2B/Research/Public sector) - **Mission**: To produce the world’s leading models across modalities while ensuring responsible, open, and socially meaningful impact. ## Products & Services For each major offering: - **JAIS Series**: State-of-the-art open-source Arabic LLM covering Modern Standard Arabic and regional dialects, including Moroccan Arabic (Darija). Fully documented training lifecycle. - **Vicuna**: Lightweight open chatbot surpassing 90% of ChatGPT and Bard quality. - **K2 (K2-65B)**: Large language model with advanced reasoning capabilities, focusing on sustainable performance. Updated version soon to be released. - **PAN World Model**: Next-gen foundation model for embodied reasoning and physical-world simulation, integrating multimodal inputs (language, video, spatial data, physical actions). Includes PAN-Agent for multimodal reasoning tasks. - **FM For Bio – GET**: Domain-specific model for biology. - **LLM360**: Open-source framework enhancing transparency and collaboration in LLM research, providing training code, datasets, and model checkpoints. - **Research partnerships**: Collaboration with academia, startups, and enterprises via shared compute, co-publishing, and co-development. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not applicable (non-commercial research institute) - **Key Metric**: Funded by MBZUAI; specific budget not publicly disclosed. Notable open-source model releases (JAIS, Vicuna, K2, PAN). - **Notable Investors/Partners**: MBZUAI, with international advisory boards and peer review processes. Partnerships with industry leaders, academic institutions, and public organizations. - **Growth Signals**: Launch of Silicon Valley lab in Sunnyvale, CA (2026); expansion into Paris and Abu Dhabi nodes; active hiring for research interns, distributed ML engineers, HPC engineers; release of flagship models (PAN, K2 update). ## Competitive Advantages - **Openness & transparency**: Full release of training code, datasets, and model checkpoints through LLM360 – one of the most transparent approaches in AI. - **Global research network**: Three hubs (Abu Dhabi, Silicon Valley, Paris) combining academic rigor with startup agility. - **Access to large-scale compute**: High-performance computing infrastructure for training frontier models. - **Multilingual & cultural focus**: JAIS addresses underrepresentation of Arabic and other languages, preserving cultural authenticity. - **World model innovation**: PAN differentiates from text-only models by predicting comprehensive world states for advanced reasoning and simulation. ## Strategic Focus - Continue building open, powerful foundation models across language, vision, multimodal, and domain-specific systems. - Expand global collaboration and talent acquisition, especially in Silicon Valley. - Advance responsible AI with safety systems and international advisory boards. - Drive real-world impact through partnerships in scientific discovery, human-AI interaction, and public good. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Collaborative, cutting-edge academic research environment with a mission to open-source AI for global benefit. Teams span Abu Dhabi, Paris, and Silicon Valley. - **Remote/hybrid/office**: All listed roles are **on-site** (Sunnyvale, CA or Abu Dhabi). No remote policy indicated. - **Notable perks**: Work with world-class researchers, access to large-scale compute, opportunity to publish and contribute to open-source models. The institute combines the agility of a startup with the resources of an established university. - **Current openings**: AI Research Internship (LLM), Distributed Machine Learning Engineer, Eval360 Error Analysis Engineer, High Performance Computing Software Engineer (Supercomputing) – all on-site in Sunnyvale or Abu Dhabi. ## Sources 1. [ifm.ai](https://ifm.ai/) 2. [ifm.ai/about](https://ifm.ai/about/) 3. [jobs.lever.co/ifm-us](https://jobs.lever.co/ifm-us) 4. [LinkedIn – Institute of Foundation Models](https://www.linkedin.com/company/institute-of-foundation-models) 5. [MBZUAI News – Launch of IFM and Silicon Valley Lab](https://mbzuai.ac.ae/news/mbzuai-launches-institute-of-foundation-models-and-establishes-silicon-valley-ai-lab/) ## Other roles at Institute of Foundation Models - [Machine Learning Engineer — Reinforcement Learning](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-reinforcement-learning-institute-of-foundation-models-tyerejn1ya2d) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Machine Learning Engineer — Pre-training (LLM)](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-pre-training-llm-institute-of-foundation-models-e1a27k3be09e) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Machine Learning Engineer — GPU Kernel](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-gpu-kernel-institute-of-foundation-models-sunnyvale-n5vdznhtxvkq) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Product Marketing Manager, AI Models](https://feeny.ai/job/product-marketing-manager-ai-models-institute-of-foundation-models-sunnyvale-8vzp6h6p8bsf) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Associate, Strategic Projects](https://feeny.ai/job/associate-strategic-projects-institute-of-foundation-models-abu-dhabi-cd5qn6fnzyjk) — Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates - [Developer Relations & Community Manager – Institute of Foundation Models (IFM)](https://feeny.ai/job/developer-relations-community-manager-institute-of-foundation-models-ifm-zr6w0b7wv5e3) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Website Developer & Visual Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/website-developer-visual-designer-institute-of-foundation-models-sunnyvale-ach5wqv8p5z9) — Sunnyvale, CA - [AI Engineer Internship – LLM Data](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-engineer-internship-llm-data-institute-of-foundation-models-abu-dhabi-ryr1w6wpmy2b) — Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates - [Research Scientist – World Modeling, Data](https://feeny.ai/job/research-scientist-world-modeling-data-institute-of-foundation-models-sunnyvale-bch8rt52tddk) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Social Media Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/social-media-manager-institute-of-foundation-models-sunnyvale-nppzja97rfm9) — Sunnyvale, CA