About the role
Who we are
Foundation models transformed text and images. Structured data - the largest and most consequential data format in the world - stayed untouched. Tables run every clinical trial, every financial model, every scientific experiment, every business decision, and no one had built a foundation model that truly understood them.
Until now. What LLMs did for language, we're doing for tables. The next modality shift in AI is happening, and we're hiring the team that makes it.
Momentum. We pioneered tabular foundation models and are now the world-leading organization in structured-data ML. Our TabPFN v2 model was published as a Nature cover story and set a new state of the art for tabular machine learning. Since release we've scaled model capabilities 20x+, passed 3.5M+ downloads and 7,500+ GitHub stars, and are seeing accelerating adoption across research and industry - from detecting lung disease with Oxford Cancer Analytics to preventing train failures with Hitachi to improving clinical-trial decisions with BostonGene.
The hardest work is ahead. We're scaling tabular foundation models to millions of rows, thousands of features, real-time inference, and entirely new data modalities, while building the infrastructure to run them in production across some of the most demanding industries on earth. These are open problems no one else is working on at this level.
Our team. We're a small, highly selective team of 30+ engineers, researchers, and GTM specialists, with backgrounds spanning Google, Apple, Amazon, DeepMind, Meta, Microsoft Research, G-Research, Jane Street, Goldman Sachs, and CERN. We're led by Frank Hutter, Noah Hollmann, and Sauraj Gambhir, and advised by world-leading AI researchers including Bernhard Schölkopf and Turing Award winner Yann LeCun. We ship fast, do top-tier research, and hold each other to an extremely high bar.
What's next. In 2025 we raised €9m pre-seed led by Balderton Capital, backed by leaders from Hugging Face, DeepMind, and Black Forest Labs. The next phase of growth is here, which makes this an ideal time to join.
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
We're a small, ambitious team solving one of the hardest problems in AI, and we're just getting started. You'll work closely with world-class researchers and builders who care deeply about the quality of their craft, the impact of their work, and the people they work with.
We move fast, we think rigorously, and we take the time to do things right. If you're excited by hard problems, motivated by real-world impact, and want to be part of building something that matters, we'd love to hear from you.
We're building our teams in Berlin, Freiburg, and New York and we believe that when you're working on something as hard and exciting as TabPFN, being in the same room matters. Most of our roles are based in one of our offices but great people come from everywhere, and in exceptional cases we're open to remote. This usually involves frequent travel to one of our offices and the whole company comes together regularly for offsites to think, build, and celebrate together.
Our Commitments
We believe the best products and teams come from a wide range of perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds. That's why we welcome applications from people of all identities and walks of life, especially anyone who's ever felt discouraged by "not checking every box."
We're committed to creating a safe, inclusive environment and providing 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. Read our Recruiting Privacy Notice to see exactly what we collect, why, and how long we keep it.
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