Job description

WHO WE ARE Foundation models transformed text and images. Structured data - the largest and most consequential data format in the world - stayed untouched, until now. What LLMs did for language, we're doing for tables. We pioneered tabular foundation models: TabPFN v2 was a Nature nature.com cover story, has passed 3.5M+ downloads and 7,500+ GitHub stars, and runs in production from detecting lung disease with Oxford Cancer Analytics oxcan.org to preventing train failures with Hitachi siliconangle.com. The hardest problems - millions of rows, real-time inference, entirely new modalities - are still open, and no one else is working on them at this level. We're a small, highly selective team of 40+ priorlabs.ai with backgrounds from Google, DeepMind, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Jane Street, and CERN, led by Frank Hutter linkedin.com, Noah Hollmann linkedin.com, and Sauraj Gambhir linkedin.com, and advised by Bernhard Schölkopf and Turing Award winner Yann LeCun. In July 2026, less than 18 months after our €9M pre-seed, we joined SAP priorlabs.ai as an independent frontier AI lab - same team, mission, and open-weights models, now backed by more than €1 billion over four years. The Role The Head of Operations reports to Sauraj (Co-CEO, GTM and Operations) and take ownership of operational excellence company-wide. As Finance, Legal, People, IT and InfoSec, and Compliance grow into their own functions, this person partners with each lead on the operational side of their work and holds the whole together as one system. They lead the operations team and grow it into one fit for a company many times our current size. - Builds the operating engine for growth and scale. Owns how the company runs operationally and designs the processes that hold up as headcount, revenue, and complexity grow fast. Everything breaks at each new stage of growth; this person sees it coming and rebuilds ahead of the curve so operations never becomes the ceiling on how fast we can move. - Drives operational excellence across every function. Accountable for the operational side of finance, people, legal, and the wider back office, with IT, InfoSec, and compliance covered through the relevant leads. You will set the standard and makes sure nothing important falls between functions. - Brings order to ambiguity. Takes the most complex, cross-functional problems and drives them to resolution bringing all the right stakeholder to the table, motivating and inspiring them to come together and deliver the project for everyone’s benefit. - Is a decision partner. Frames trade-offs, surfaces risk early, and turns decisions into action, so the leadership team works from reliable data and sound judgment. - Builds and inspires the operations team. Hires, develops, and leads an operations team people want to be part of, and sets a standard of execution that raises the bar for everyone who works with them. Who we're looking for Essential: - High-growth experience above all. Has operated inside a company through rapid scaling, seen what breaks at each stage, and built the processes and structures that scaled through it. This is the most important thing we are looking for. - Global operating experience. Has run operations across multiple countries and regions, comfortable holding a company together across time zones and jurisdictions, not just in a single market. - Broad operations ownership. Has driven operational excellence across two or more of finance, people, legal, and business operations as a senior generalist, partnering with specialist leads rather than owning their decisions. - A leader operators want to follow. Builds and develops strong teams and is the kind of person other excellent operators want to come and work with. A big plus: - Experience in the data, developer tools, or AI market, and comfort working credibly with a technical, research-led team - Has built an operations function that grew with a company from startup into real scale What makes someone thrive here: - Energized by building the systems that unlock the next stage of growth, not by maintaining the status quo - Radical ownership: runs at the most difficult problems and resolves them rather than passing them up - Practical and pragmatic: builds processes that scale without bloat, using as much structure as the moment needs - Calm and decisive under ambiguity and competing priorities, and sets that standard for the team Location Ideally this person will be located at one of our hubs in New York or Berlin. In exceptional circumstances, we will be able to consider remote/hybrid applications. LIFE AT PRIOR LABS You'll work alongside researchers and builders who hold themselves to a very high bar - in the quality of their work and in how they work with each other. We move fast and still take the time to do things right. Our teams are based in Berlin, Freiburg, and New York - when you're working on something as hard as TabPFN, being in the same room matters. But great people come from everywhere, and in exceptional cases we're open to remote, which usually means frequent travel to one of our offices. Wherever you're based, the whole company comes together regularly for offsites to build and celebrate together. OUR COMMITMENTS The best products and teams are built by people with a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds. We welcome applications from all identities and walks of life - especially if you've ever felt discouraged by "not checking every box" - and provide equal opportunities regardless of gender, sexual orientation, origin, disability, or any other trait that makes you who you are. We care about how your data is handled - see our Recruiting Data Privacy priorlabs.ai page

Requirements

Must-haves

Is a decision partner. Frames trade-offs, surfaces risk early, and turns decisions into action, so the leadership team works from reliable data and sound judgment.
Builds and inspires the operations team. Hires, develops, and leads an operations team people want to be part of, and sets a standard of execution that raises the bar for everyone who works with them.
Who we're looking for
Global operating experience. Has run operations across multiple countries and regions, comfortable holding a company together across time zones and jurisdictions, not just in a single market.
A leader operators want to follow. Builds and develops strong teams and is the kind of person other excellent operators want to come and work with.
Experience in the data, developer tools, or AI market, and comfort working credibly with a technical, research-led team
Has built an operations function that grew with a company from startup into real scale
Energized by building the systems that unlock the next stage of growth, not by maintaining the status quo
Radical ownership: runs at the most difficult problems and resolves them rather than passing them up
Practical and pragmatic: builds processes that scale without bloat, using as much structure as the moment needs
Calm and decisive under ambiguity and competing priorities, and sets that standard for the team
Ideally this person will be located at one of our hubs in New York or Berlin. In exceptional circumstances, we will be able to consider remote/hybrid applications.
You'll work alongside researchers and builders who hold themselves to a very high bar - in the quality of their work and in how they work with each other. We move fast and still take the time to do things right.
We care about how your data is handled - see our Recruiting Data Privacy https://priorlabs.ai/recruiting-data-privacy page

Nice-to-haves

None flagged.

Application prep

Use the role’s language and application details while tailoring your materials.

Keywords to mirror

Platform: ashby
Effort: quick