Country Launch Ops Lead

About the role

We're hiring a Shenzhen Operations Lead as our first hire in China. You'll own Sieve's Shenzhen launch end-to-end: structured market and regulatory assessment, navigating data privacy and consent requirements with local and outside counsel, setting up the entity, banking, and physical infrastructure, and deploying the field teams that capture data for frontier labs. This is a builder role, not a handoff. You'll be the single point of accountability across legal, operational, financial, and commercial workstreams. Once Shenzhen is live, you'll stay on as the local lead, running and scaling the operation and codifying what you learn into the playbook for future markets.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Shenzhen launch: Own the legal, operational, financial, and commercial workstreams from day zero; set launch milestones and hit them.
• Assess the market: Run pre-launch feasibility and regulatory evaluations with counsel, covering China data privacy (PIPL), cross-border data transfer, consent frameworks, import/export, and local employment law.
• Stand up local infrastructure: Drive entity setup (WFOE or EOR), bank accounts, local payment rails, office/warehouse space, and compliance workflows; procure capture hardware by leveraging Shenzhen's supply chain.
• Build the local team: Recruit, onboard, train, and manage Sieve's founding Shenzhen team, field supervisors, and contributor network for data capture; manage vendors and partners.
• Run the operation: Set operating cadences, SOPs, and KPI scorecards from day one so collection stays on track on quality, throughput, and compliance.
• Partner with SF and build the playbook: Translate project requirements into field plans with SF product and ops; turn the Shenzhen launch into modular playbooks covering budget models, timelines, regulatory checklists, and vendor toolkits.

Requirements

• 5–8+ years in operational leadership, expansion ops, strategy, or GM roles, including at least one international market launched end-to-end at a high-growth, ops-intensive company
• Hands-on experience building local ops from concept to stabilization: legal setup, financial rails, commercial partners, vendor contracts, and early local hiring
• Working knowledge of doing business in mainland China, including entity setup, local hiring, and regulatory processes
• Fluent in Mandarin and English; clear communicator across time zones and cultures
• Strong problem-solving, autonomy, and resilience in ambiguous environments; comfortable building systems where none exist yet
• Based in Shenzhen or willing to relocate; able to travel, including to SF, as needed

Qualifications

• Experience working with external law firms and government authorities on regulatory hurdles, cross-border data transfer, or local labor law
• Experience in data collection, media production, field research, marketplace ops, or hardware sourcing in Shenzhen
• Familiarity with physical AI, robotics, world modeling, or AI training data workflows
• Prior work standing up ops in multiple countries