Who We Are:
Datassential is a leading global intelligence platform for the food and beverage
industry. Leveraging billions of data points and cutting-edge AI, we provide a
suite of innovative solutions that empower more than 90% of the world’s largest
food and beverage brands to develop, market, and sell their products more
effectively.
Based in Chicago, USA, Datassential has expanded its global reach through
strategic acquisitions of CHD Expert (France) in 2022 and Brizo Data, Inc.
(Canada) in 2025. In 2024, we secured investment from top-tier private equity
firms New Mountain Capital and Endicott Capital—a milestone that fuels our
accelerated product roadmap and strengthens our research and development,
enabling us to deliver even greater value to our clients.
Our remote-first, globally distributed team thrives on diverse perspectives and
deep expertise in the food and beverage space. Food brings people together—and
at Datassential’s table, there’s room for everyone.
Why You Should Join Us:
Data is the foundation for everything we deliver at Datassential, and expanding
and improving our data sources is of central strategic importance to our company
and the customers we serve, who include some of the biggest brands in the food
industry. Foodservice is a complex and nuanced data landscape, and you will have
the opportunity to think creatively about how to expand the insights we can
deliver on a global basis. We are passionate about data, committed to doing the
work well, and have a ‘we can do anything’ attitude. We value work-life balance,
and you will be joining a team and company that wants you to grow.
Who You Are:
An experienced data management professional and team leader who is equally
comfortable in multiple modes of work: guiding a data acquisition roadmap,
managing vendor relationships, and ensuring operational rigor in a
multi-faceted data-centric business
A detail-oriented mind with an eye for continuous improvement and optimizing
quality and efficiency
An adept communicator and negotiator, able to drive conversations that span
the technical, legal, and financial, and recognize and explain the business
value of data
Energised by the challenge of building data assets that expose new insights
to customers and drive new product value
Curious and energized at the prospect of working in the food industry and
impacting strategic decisions for some of the world’s largest food and
beverage brands
Actively engaged and curious about AI and LLM applications in day-to-day work
as well as in data extraction and process automation
Willing to mentor and share knowledge — you make the people around you better
What You Will Do:
The Senior Manager, Data Acquisition will lead the sourcing and collection of
data to support Datassential applications, research, and insights analysis
globally. Reporting to the SVP of Data Strategy, this role will include
management of data collection across a variety of forms and collection channels,
including data collected directly via internal scraping operations as well as
from external third party service and providers.
You will work with Datassential senior leadership to identify strategies for
building proprietary data assets in support of company objectives. You will
follow through on these strategies by identifying new data sources, managing
negotiations of terms with new third party providers, and working with Product,
Engineering, and Data Operations teams to coordinate data onboarding and
ingestion. You will manage data vendor and partnership relationships, ensuring
that requirements for downstream use are met, and lead corrective actions as
well as innovation efforts to ensure quality and efficiency of collected data.
As a hands-on data leader, you will interact directly with data to assess data
relevance, sufficiency, and quality. This role will have responsibility for
defining and tracking costs against budget for data acquisition, and working
with data operations and finance and accounting teams to ensure cost efficiency
and predictability. The Senior Manager, Data Acquisition will also manage an
internal team responsible for data scraping operations, coordinating scraping
maintenance and execution to support continuous and timely collection of
foodservice industry, operator and menu data.
Key Responsibilities:
Coordinate and work with the Data and Product teams as well as other global
stakeholders to identify and evaluate sources for new data elements and
improved sources for existing data elements
Own the determination of the best source or process for data collection,
presenting options to stakeholders and promoting the correct balance of cost,
quality, coverage, and timeliness to meet the needs of the business. As part
of this function, manage decisions on the use of internal scraping vs
third-party sourcing
Lead the onboarding of new third-party data sources, negotiating terms
favorable to Datassential and aligned with business, financial, legal, and
data usage objectives
Work with Engineering and other Data Team members to set up data collection
and ingestion processes for new data sources
Determine the most appropriate, advantageous and cost-effective use of AI and
other technologies in data collection to deliver expanded and improved data
Manage the budget determination for data collection, track and report actuals
against budget, and take action to ensure budget alignment
Ensure successful achievement of expected data collection cycles, and manage
internal stakeholder communication on variance to plan
Manage a team providing scraping script creation and maintenance,
coordinating their work, and ensuring responsiveness and communication
regarding issues in data scraping that will impact customers
Collaborate with the Product team and other key stakeholders to align data
collection projects and timing with the product roadmap
Collaborate with senior leadership on strategic planning for data asset
growth
Identify and track KPI’s on the coverage, quality, cost, and speed of data
collection. Communicate progress in improvement these metrics
What You Bring:
5-8 years of experience in data acquisition, data operations, data vendor
management, or a related data management function, including 3+ years
directly managing a team
Demonstrated experience sourcing, evaluating, and onboarding third-party data
providers, including negotiating licensing and usage terms
Experience owning or supporting management of a budget or cost center:
building forecasts, tracking actuals against plan, and reporting variance to
stakeholders
Ability to build and apply a make-vs-buy framework — internal collection vs.
third-party sourcing — weighing cost, coverage, quality, and timeliness
Experience managing vendor relationships post-contract, including quality
issues, corrective action plans, and renewal negotiations
Working understanding of data quality concepts (coverage, accuracy,
freshness) sufficient to define and track KPIs against them
Fluency in hands-on data analysis and working directly with data to evaluate
consistency and quality
Familiarity with data ingestion/ETL pipelines and how new sources get
onboarded technically (APIs, file feeds, scraped data)
Interest in and awareness of AI/automation tools relevant to data collection,
with the judgment to evaluate cost-benefit tradeoffs
Track record managing stakeholders across Product, Engineering, Data
Operations, Legal, and Finance
Strong negotiation skills, with examples of favorable outcomes in vendor or
partnership discussions
Clear, proactive communicator — able to report on plan variance, escalate
risk, and align teams around priorities
Nice to have:
Domain experience in foodservice, food & beverage, hospitality, or adjacent
consumer industries
Familiarity with Alteryx or other low-code ETL environments
Proficiency in SQL across one or more environments
Familiarity with web scraping as a data collection method
Familiarity with project management tools such as Jira/Confluence
This role is open to candidates currently residing in and authorized to work in
the United States. Final offer will be determined by several factors including
experience, skills, interview performance, location etc. Salary base range for
this role will be $110,000-$115,000 USD/year.
US Benefits
Competitive salary plus eligibility for equity and performance-linked annual
bonus plan.
Affordable Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance, including a no cost
employee-only plan
Paid parental leave
401K with dollar-for-dollar company match up to 5%
Unlimited PTO, recharge days, and Christmas through New Year break
100% business travel reimbursement
Wellness Reimbursement or HQ Gym access
Remote stipend for 100% remote roles.
Our Table Welcomes All. We embrace diversity of both background and thought and
foster an inclusive environment that extends an open landscape of opportunities
to everyone. We invite each of us to simply be ourselves. We operate with
respect and without judgment, celebrating both the power of the individual as
well as our shared humanity.
Datassential is an E-Verify employer.
If you require reasonable accommodation to complete a job application,
pre-employment testing, or a job interview or to otherwise participate in the
hiring process, please contact careers@datassential.com
[careers@datassential.com].