Field Operations Specialist

About the Role

Appen is looking for motivated, people-oriented Field Operations Specialists to support a time-sensitive AI data collection program. In this role, you will operate as an on-the-ground representative for Appen, signing up commercial businesses to paid AI data programs, and guiding them through onboarding and setup. This is a hands-on, field-based role that combines sales skills, relationship management, training, and reporting.

What You’ll Do

Business Outreach & Onboarding

  • Canvas assigned commercial areas, visiting businesses across hospitality, retail, manufacturing, cleaning, construction, and other workplace settings.

  • Pitch the opportunity to business owners and managers, explaining the program clearly and answering questions.

  • Sign up business to the paid AI data program and acquire consent and coordinate employer approval for on-site filming.

  • Distribute required equipment (head-mounted camera straps) and ensure businesses have everything needed to participate.

Training & Quality

  • Train business participants on filming requirements, including camera setup, approved task types, technical specifications, and upload procedures.

  • Review initial test clips with participants to confirm compliance before they begin full sessions.

  • Provide ongoing guidance and troubleshooting support to active participants.

  • Ensure all participants understand and comply with privacy, consent, and safety guidelines.

Tracking & Reporting

  • Maintain accurate daily logs of businesses visited, outcomes (onboarded, declined, follow-up needed), and feedback received from declines.

  • Submit daily reports to the Appen project team covering outreach volume, conversion rates, and a rolling forecast of expected active participants.

  • Flag issues, blockers, or patterns proactively so the project team can respond quickly.

  • Use Appen-provided tracking tools and templates to ensure consistent, reliable reporting.

Required Qualifications

  • 1+ year of experience in field sales, door-to-door canvassing, business development, or a related outreach role.

  • Demonstrated ability to pitch and persuade in face-to-face settings; comfortable approaching businesses cold.

  • Reliable transportation or ability to cover an assigned urban territory on foot or by public transit.

  • Strong verbal communication skills; able to explain technical concepts simply and clearly.

  • Organized and self-directed; able to manage your own daily schedule and hit outreach targets without close supervision.

  • Comfortable with basic digital tools for logging, reporting, and communication (smartphone required).

  • Ability to work independently in a field-based role with limited in-person management presence.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience in a gig economy, field operations, community outreach, or ambassador/brand rep role.

  • Prior experience training or onboarding non-technical users to a new process or tool.

  • Bilingual or multilingual; comfort communicating in languages common to the assigned city is a strong plus (specific language preferences will vary by location).

  • Familiarity with AI, data collection, or technology programs; able to speak credibly about how the data will be used.

  • Experience using CRM tools, Google Sheets, or similar tools for tracking and reporting.

  • Comfort working across diverse business environments including warehouses, kitchens, retail floors, and construction sites.

  • Strong local knowledge of the assigned city and its commercial districts.

Working Conditions

  • This is a field-based role; the majority of working hours are spent outside visiting businesses.

  • Must be comfortable working in varied commercial environments including warehouses, kitchens, retail settings, and outdoor worksites.

  • Part-time hours; specific schedule will be confirmed at hire based on project needs.

  • Reports to the Appen project team. Day-to-day direction provided remotely.

  • This is a part-time, fixed-term W-2 position. Duration is approximately 6 months, subject to project needs. Compensation is $20/hr.

Why You’ll Love Working Here

At Appen, we foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and excellence. We value curiosity, accountability, and a commitment to delivering the highest-quality AI solutions for frontier models.

You’ll work on complex challenges that shape the future of AI across industries and geographies, alongside talented people in a culture that values humility over ego. You’ll have the flexibility to deliver in a way that works for you and your team, supported by tools, resources and development opportunities to continue to build your capability over time.

About Appen

Appen has been a leader in AI training data for over 30 years. We specialise in human generated data to train, fine tune, and evaluate models across generative AI, large language models, computer vision, and speech recognition. Our AI assisted data annotation platform and global crowd of more than 1 million contributors in over 200 countries support model pre-training, supervised fine tuning, evaluation and benchmarking, safety and red teaming, and multilingual global expansion.