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Outset is an AI-powered user research platform used by global brands like HubSpot, Microsoft, Uber, and Nestle to conduct qualitative research at scale. The company recently raised a $30M Series B and is disrupting the $140B+ research industry with AI-moderated interviews.
As Program Manager for Research Operations, you will own the end-to-end participant recruitment system that powers Outset's platform. This is a foundational role that bridges product, engineering, go-to-market, and a global network of recruitment partners.
Key responsibilities include:
- Manage and optimize a global partner network for participant recruitment, assessing quality, reliability, and best-fit use cases for each vendor.
- Negotiate commercial terms and build the feasibility process (incidence rates, targeting, vendor selection) that keeps recruitment predictable as volume scales.
- Design and document the complete recruitment workflow from intake through delivery, including fill-time benchmarks and escalation playbooks.
- Build internal enablement and training for the GTM team on recruitment operations and best practices.
- Partner with Product and Engineering on the recruitment experience—fraud detection, identity verification, quality flagging, refunds—translating operational problems into product roadmap items.
- Identify and specify internal tooling to reduce manual operations work.
- Create documentation and guidance for two audiences: Account Directors/AEs (best-practice playbooks) and customers (explanations of roles and expectations).
You'll be Outset's authority on recruitment, the connective tissue between partners, internal teams, and the product. Rather than managing recruitment study-by-study, you'll build the system that makes it predictable and scalable.
Ideal candidates have 5–10 years in research operations, participant recruitment, or vendor management with deep expertise in digital qualitative recruitment. You understand how recruitment actually works: panels, marketplaces, screeners, incidence, feasibility, quotas, incentives, fraud detection, and quality control. You have a track record managing and negotiating with vendors, genuine program management ability to sequence complex cross-functional problems, and experience at both large organizations and startups. Strong communication skills are essential—you'll distill complex information into training, documentation, and customer-facing content. Comfort with AI tooling and experience building AI dashboards is a plus.
