Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Head of Research

🎯 Role Definition

As the Head of Research, you are the chief advocate for our users and the guiding force behind our insights strategy. This is a senior leadership role responsible for building, leading, and scaling a high-impact research function that acts as a strategic partner to Product, Design, Engineering, and the Executive team. You will be instrumental in defining the "why" behind our work, translating complex human behaviors and market dynamics into clear, actionable guidance that shapes our long-term vision and near-term execution. Your leadership will ensure that research is not just a service, but a core driver of innovation and business growth.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Director of User Research
Principal Researcher / Research Scientist
Senior Research Manager

Advancement To:

Vice President (VP) of Research & Insights
Chief Product Officer (CPO)
Chief Strategy Officer (CSO)

Lateral Moves:

Head of Product Strategy
Director of Data Science

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Define, own, and execute the company's overarching research vision and strategic roadmap, ensuring tight alignment with business objectives and long-term goals.
Lead, mentor, and scale a multi-disciplinary team of qualitative and quantitative researchers, fostering a culture of high performance, curiosity, and continuous learning.
Establish and champion rigorous mixed-method research methodologies, frameworks, and ethical best practices to ensure the quality and impact of all research outputs.
Act as the primary research-focused thought partner to the executive leadership team, providing data-driven perspectives to inform high-stakes business and product decisions.
Synthesize complex, disparate data from multiple sources (e.g., user research, market analysis, data analytics) into a cohesive and compelling narrative with actionable insights.
Drive the entire product and design lifecycle with a full spectrum of research, including foundational, generative, and evaluative studies that uncover unmet needs and validate solutions.
Develop and manage the departmental budget, oversee resource allocation, and cultivate strategic relationships with external vendors, agencies, and research platforms.
Design and implement a scalable operational framework for the research function (ResearchOps) to enhance efficiency, collaboration, and knowledge management.
Pioneer and experiment with new research methods, tools, and technologies to keep the company at the forefront of user understanding and industry innovation.
Present critical research findings, strategic recommendations, and future-looking insights with clarity and influence to the C-suite, Board of Directors, and all-company forums.
Cultivate a deep, empathetic understanding of our diverse users, customers, and market landscape, and evangelize this understanding across the entire organization.
Build and maintain strong, collaborative relationships with leaders in Product, Engineering, Design, Marketing, and Data Science to ensure research is deeply integrated into their workflows.
Oversee the entire research project lifecycle, from identifying and scoping key business questions to planning methodologies, executing studies, and measuring long-term impact.
Champion a pervasive culture of data-informed decision-making and continuous inquiry, empowering teams to ask the right questions and seek out evidence.
Proactively identify and articulate key strategic questions and knowledge gaps across the business that can be addressed through rigorous research initiatives.
Guide the strategic direction of foundational research artifacts such as user personas, customer journey maps, and market segmentation models to ensure they remain relevant and impactful.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis to quickly answer pressing business questions from stakeholders.
Contribute to the organization's overarching data strategy and roadmap, ensuring research data is integrated and leveraged effectively.
Collaborate with business units to translate their strategic needs into well-defined research questions and engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies to ensure the voice of the user is consistently represented in the development process.
Oversee the creation and maintenance of a centralized research repository or knowledge management system to democratize insights.
Represent the company's research function and thought leadership at industry conferences, publications, and other external events.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Mastery of a wide range of qualitative research methods, including ethnography, contextual inquiry, in-depth interviews, diary studies, and focus groups.
Deep expertise in quantitative research methodologies, including large-scale surveys, statistical analysis, A/B testing, conjoint analysis, and experimental design.
Proficiency with statistical software packages (e.g., R, SPSS, Stata) and data analysis languages (e.g., Python, SQL) for sophisticated data manipulation and modeling.
Strong experience with data visualization and business intelligence tools (e.g., Tableau, Looker, Power BI) to communicate complex findings effectively.
Deep understanding of modern product development cycles and experience integrating research seamlessly into agile, lean, and dual-track workflows.
Expertise in Research Operations (ResearchOps) principles, including participant recruitment management, knowledge repositories, and process scaling.
Familiarity with survey and research platforms such as Qualtrics, UserTesting.com, dscout, and Medallia.

Soft Skills

Exceptional leadership and team management skills with a proven ability to attract, develop, and retain top-tier research talent.
World-class communication, presentation, and storytelling ability, capable of influencing and inspiring diverse audiences from engineers to executive boards.
Advanced strategic thinking and business acumen, with a demonstrated ability to connect research insights directly to company objectives and financial outcomes.
Superior stakeholder management, negotiation, and influencing skills, with the ability to build consensus and drive action across all levels and functions of an organization.
An innate and boundless curiosity, deep-seated empathy, and a genuine passion for understanding human behavior, motivations, and needs.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's Degree in a relevant field.

Preferred Education:

Master's Degree or PhD.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
Cognitive or Experimental Psychology
Sociology / Anthropology
Data Science / Statistics
Business Administration (MBA)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

12+ years of relevant experience in a user research, market research, or data science setting.

Preferred:

A minimum of 5-7 years of experience in a direct leadership capacity, responsible for managing and scaling research teams.
A proven track record of significantly influencing product and business strategy with research insights within a fast-paced technology or product-led organization.
Experience building a research function or practice from the ground up is highly desirable.