Data Acquisition Lead

Profound is the fastest-growing AI marketing platform, used by 15% of the Fortune 500 including Comcast, Estée Lauder, and Walmart, and innovators like Ramp, MongoDB, and Figma. It is where marketing teams do the work: research, briefs, content, campaigns, reporting, all in one place, alongside agents that carry the load with them. Built on 2B+ real user prompts and growing, Profound’s data shows you what people ask AI and what the models say back. Profound's AI Marketer joins that data with deep context about our customers to find the opportunities worth acting on, and then puts agents to work: automating reporting, drafting content, auditing pages for readability, running competitive research. It measures what works and gets better every day. As our Data Acquisition Lead, you will own the sourcing, evaluation, and commercial management of our data sources. You will build a reliable supplier and partner portfolio across various data providers. You will partner closely with Engineering, which owns production integrations and data collection infrastructure, as well as Product, Partnerships, Finance, and Legal.

What you'll do

• Find and qualify providers and partners against our coverage, quality, capacity, and cost requirements

• Structure vendor trials, run benchmarks using internal tooling, and analyze results by source, geography, and workload

• Compare effective costs across pricing models, including retries, failures, minimum commitments, and overages

• Negotiate pricing, service commitments, support arrangements, renewals, and exit terms

• Maintain qualified alternatives and identify overlapping infrastructure or correlated failure risks across suppliers

• Lead vendor performance reviews and recommend expansion, replacement, or changes in allocation

• Coordinate onboarding and sourcing documentation with Engineering, Finance, and Legal

• Own vendor contracts and spend, and keep a clear record of vendor status, pricing, and decisions

• Partner cross functionally to resolve provider issues quickly

• Help build and scale the data acquisition team as Profound grows

Who you are

• 5+ years of hands-on experience with external data or web data providers and partners, on either the vendor or customer side (e.g. sourcing and managing providers, solutions engineering, or technical account management)

• Strong commercial judgment, with examples of negotiations and measurable operating improvements

• Familiarity with data contract terms such as DPAs, usage rights, and indemnification

• Ability to use SQL and/or Python to inspect results, run evaluations, and challenge vendor claims

• Practical understanding of various data provider types, web data APIs, various data collection schemes, and common failure modes

• Evidence of introducing a working alternative provider or improving coverage, reliability, or effective cost

• Experience with unique data sets is a plus

• Excited by the opportunity to own and shape a new function at an early stage

• Comfortable in a fast-moving culture with autonomy, trust, and room to grow

• Drawn to competitive compensation and meaningful equity

Location This is an on-site role based in our Union Square, NYC office, designed for builders who thrive on speed, iteration, and meaningful impact. We are happy to support visa sponsorship for qualified international candidates. For this role, the expected base salary range is $200,000 to $275,000. Profound's total compensation package is designed to be competitive and includes base salary, equity, and a full range of benefits and perks. Final compensation will depend on factors such as your skills, experience, qualifications, and location, and will be determined during the interview process. Our recruiting team will share more details about the full compensation package and benefits as you move through hiring. Note: All official communication from Profound will come from a @tryprofound.com email address. If you're contacted by anyone using a different domain, please disregard and report it as spam.