OVERVIEW

Every year, people across the world spend nearly one trillion dollars on groceries. It’s an industry that’s been around for centuries. Food itself, however, has been a constant in people’s lives since the beginning of time. Yes, sustenance is essential, but it’s also much more than that. Food can be a part of a daily ritual or a special moment that resonates with people on a meaningful and emotional level. It can be a much-needed break in a long day, a taste that brings back memories, a creative experiment, a shared meal with loved ones, or even comfort during a hard time. Whether it’s a special occasion or an everyday occurrence, it should always be easy for people to get the ingredients they need.

The Instacart Research team is dedicated to understanding the future of online grocery shopping and how current behaviors and needs may be rapidly evolving. We generate insights that drive product strategy and innovation. We are a collaborative and tight-knit team, and we partner with product, design, data science, and engineering to help build products that solve real problems for people and support Instacart’s mission.

As a Sr. Manager Research Operations, you’ll manage a team of Research Operations practitioners, who will ensure that our research tools and processes enable researchers to do their most impactful work, while fostering a customer and user feedback mechanism that is efficient, fair, transparent and safe. You will lead this team in continuing to build, optimize and scale research programs to strengthen the impact of our growing UX Research Team. You’ll be responsible for shaping and executing research programs and events that create customer and user empathy throughout the organization and foster team trust & cohesiveness, as well as design and implement innovative processes and systems that support researcher and stakeholder collaboration and access to knowledge. Your leadership and expertise will ensure the Research Organization shines as the voice of the user.

ABOUT THE JOB

• Manager and grow a team of Research Operations professionals (Program Managers, Research Ops Specialists and Coordinators) - including hiring, onboarding, and performance management.
• Be the operations and strategy partner to the Head of Research and Research Management team, ensuring that the ResOps team’s priorities are aligned with those of the broader research team.
• Source, develop and optimize innovative tools and complex processes that enable research activities that help UX Researchers better understand our key user groups - customers, personal shoppers retailers, and brand partners.
• Own the overall strategy of the UX Research team’s participant recruitment process, ensuring that our tools and processes are efficient and compliant, while providing a delightful end-to-end experience.
• Direct strategic initiatives (i.e. facilitating user panels; socializing insights; increasing stakeholder access to research) that increase the Research team’s impact and create customer and user empathy throughout the organization.
• Oversee research vendor management program, ensuring that all engagements meet organizational procurement, legal, security & privacy requirements.
• Guide best practices in data and document management, including templates, dashboards, knowledge storage, retention and archiving, and data sharing, ensuring it aligns with broader company information architecture and data storage/privacy guidelines.
• Partner and collaborate with UX Researchers, leadership and cross-functional collaborators to proactively identify best practices and opportunities to improve the effectiveness of research processes and programs.
• Manager the Research budget, in collaboration with finance and the broader Design Operations team.
• Communicate regularly and transparently with the Research team on the status of participant recruitment, program management, and evaluative & democratized research projects.

ABOUT YOU

• 4+ years experience working in Research Ops and Program Management, ideally at marketplace tech company and/or late-stage start-up
• 2+ years of experience hiring, building and mentoring high performing Research Operations teams
• Demonstrated ability to design, implement and scale research programs and best practices that drive business impact, while managing multiple concurrent work streams
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and leading the team towards solutions that strike the balance between creativity, pragmatism, iteration and scalability
• Strong roadmapping and prioritization skills; understands how to strategically execute against conflicting priorities, while mobilizing the team to do their highest quality work
• Experience in data privacy policies (CCPA, GDPR, etc.), onboarding and managing contracts & relationships with vendors (including participation in vendor sourcing & selection, drafting SOWs, negotiating scope, cost), procurement, and expense management systems 
• In-depth experience with UX research tools, including Qualtrics, Ethnio, User Interviews, Optimal Workshop, insights repositories, etc. and effectively onboarding stakeholders to the platforms
• Nurtures strong partnerships with stakeholders from business teams (finance, IT, procurement, legal, security) and cross functional teams, to drive forward the Research Team’s initiatives.
• Familiarity with mixed UX Research methodologies and can advise on the optimal participant personas and recruitment approaches to support the study needs
• Leads with and encourages growth and owner mindsets within the team
• Emotionally intelligent—the ability to truly understand what each individual on your team needs to thrive and feel fulfilled
• Systems thinker with strong organizational skills and follow-through; effectively executed on the details while understanding the big picture

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