Head of Data & AI

About Burq

Burq is revolutionizing the delivery industry with a mission to simplify and streamline delivery services into an easy, turnkey solution. Recognized as one of Fast Company's Best Workplaces for Innovators and named a 2025 Inc. Magazine Power Partner, Burq is shaping the future of logistics. Supported by prominent Silicon Valley investors such as Village Global, the company has a strong global team and fosters an environment where individual contributions create massive impact.

Role Overview

The Head of Data & AI will lead the development of an advanced data and machine learning platform. This role involves designing systems that transform raw data into actionable intelligence, enhancing delivery decisions, and automating manual industry processes. You will architect and deploy production-ready models while growing and leading a specialized team, working closely with engineering and AI product leadership to align the platform with business and product objectives.

Key Responsibilities

• Oversee the entire data platform including data warehousing, streaming and batch ingestion pipelines, semantic layering, and business intelligence tools.
• Implement and maintain data governance standards encompassing access controls, data quality, and creation of a reliable and well-structured "gold" data layer.
• Ensure the data warehouse acts as the authoritative source for operational, product, and financial metrics.
• Develop and deploy machine learning models focused on forecasting, prediction, optimization, matching, and scoring to enhance real-time decision-making.
• Build and maintain end-to-end machine learning systems including feature pipelines, model training, serving infrastructure, evaluation metrics, and drift monitoring.
• Design continuous learning loops by instrumenting decision inputs and outcomes for ongoing model improvement.
• Drive the deployment of AI agent solutions, collaborating with product and engineering teams on related workflow integration.
• Expand and manage the data and ML team by hiring data engineers, analytics engineers, data scientists, and machine learning engineers as the platform grows.
• Establish a structured intake process for data requests to ensure the team's productivity aligns with strategic priorities.
• Collaborate with departments such as Sales, Customer Success, and Finance to provide data-backed insights and guide decision-making.

Candidate Requirements

• A minimum of 8 years of experience in data and machine learning disciplines, including at least 2 years in a leadership or senior technical role responsible for a data or ML platform.
• Proven ability as a player-coach, skillfully balancing team leadership with deep technical involvement in architecture design, modeling, and review.
• Expertise in modern data warehouse technologies (e.g., Snowflake, BigQuery), streaming and batch data ingestion, dbt or similar transformation tools, cost/performance optimization, and data governance.
• Experience in building and delivering impactful production ML models, including forecasting, optimization, ranking/matching algorithms, and prediction systems, along with associated ML operational pipelines.
• Understanding of how data products and machine learning models contribute to product innovation and business objectives.
• Familiarity with cutting-edge AI technologies like large language models (LLM) and agentic data workflows is highly desirable.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, able to prioritize requests and provide strategic alternatives.
• Background working within fast-growing startups or scale-ups where platforms were developed from scratch rather than inherited.

Work Environment & Location

This is a fully remote position open to candidates based in the USA or Canada, with occasional in-person offsite meetings expected throughout the year. Burq embraces a fast-paced, agile work culture emphasizing written communication, early deployment to customers, experimentation with AI tools, and continuous improvement.

Compensation and Benefits

• Attractive salary package with stock options and performance bonuses.
• Fully remote work setup.
• Comprehensive health, vision, and dental insurance coverage.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Burq celebrates diversity and is committed to equal employment opportunities without discrimination based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability.