Research Operations Manager

Responsibilities

The Research Operations Manager will oversee the end-to-end lifecycle of research vendors, manage the research budget, and lead participant recruiting strategies. They will also partner with engineering and design teams to implement AI-powered research tools and build scalable operational infrastructure.

Requirements

Candidates must have 7+ years of experience in research or UX operations with a proven track record in vendor management and budget forecasting. Proficiency with research repositories, recruiting platforms, and familiarity with AI/LLM tools is required.

Skills

• Research operations
• UX operations
• Vendor management
• Procurement
• Budget management
• Participant recruiting
• AI-powered tooling
• Prompt engineering
• LLMs
• Systems thinking
• Project management
• Data analysis
• Stakeholder management
• Process improvement
• Strategic planning

Benefits

• 401(k) plan with employer matching
• Paid parental leave
• Wellness benefits
• Commuter benefits match
• Paid time off
• Paid sick leave
• Medical insurance
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Paid holidays
• Disability insurance
• Life insurance
• Family-forming assistance
• Mental health program
• Equity grants

About this role

About the Team
DoorDash’s mission is to grow and empower local economies. By building intelligent, last-mile delivery technology for local cities, DoorDash connects people with the local businesses they care about — helping grow businesses and the communities that support those businesses. At DoorDash, there are three audiences that are at the core of every decision we make - our Consumers, Merchants, and Couriers. The Research team has a direct link to uncover the unmet needs and pain points of each of these audiences. We bring their voices into the business in order to help set the strategic vision for all of DoorDash’s current and future products.
About the Role
We're looking for a Research Operations Manager to be the operational backbone of our research team, and a driving force behind DoorDash's commitment to customer obsession. Every great product decision starts with a real voice: a Dasher, a merchant, a customer. You'll own the systems, tools, vendors, and AI-powered processes that get those voices in front of the people building for them, faster and at greater scale. You'll also champion a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement, so the research practice keeps getting better along with our understanding of the people we serve. This is a high-impact role at the intersection of research, operations, and technology, built for someone who sees friction before it's surfaced and treats it as theirs to solve.
What You'll Do
Vendor & Procurement Management: Own the end-to-end lifecycle of research vendor relationships — from sourcing and evaluation through contract negotiation, onboarding, and ongoing performance review. You'll manage relationships with research tool providers, recruiting agencies, transcription and analysis services, and other third-party partners. You'll establish clear SLAs, hold vendors accountable, and continuously evaluate the market for better options.
Budget Management: Own the research team's budget: track spend, forecast needs, manage purchase orders, and ensure resources are allocated to the highest-impact work. You'll build visibility and reporting so research leaders can make informed investment decisions, and you'll identify opportunities to optimize spend without sacrificing research quality.
Participant Recruiting Lead the strategy and execution of participant recruiting across studies — managing panels, recruiting vendors, and internal databases to ensure the team has access to the right participants at the right time. You'll develop screeners, coordinate scheduling, manage incentives and compliance, and build systems that make recruiting faster and less effort-intensive for researchers.
AI-Powered Research Tooling: Partner with researchers, engineering, design to evaluate, build, maintain, and scale AI-based tools that accelerate the research process, from automated synthesis and analysis pipelines to intelligent tagging, search, and knowledge management. You'll bring a practical, iterative approach: shipping tools that solve real problems, gathering feedback, and improving them over time.
Culture of Experimentation Be a visible champion for experimentation within the research team. This means creating the conditions (psychological safety, lightweight processes, shared frameworks) that make it easy for researchers to try new methods, tools, and approaches. You'll run retrospectives, document and share learnings, and help the team build an institutional memory around what works.
Operations & Scalability Design and maintain the operational infrastructure that keeps the research practice running smoothly: research repositories, documentation standards, onboarding materials, team rituals, and the tooling stack. As the team and its ambitions grow, you'll proactively identify bottlenecks and build solutions before they become problems. You will also partner across brands/regions to extend research operations infrastructure globally, adapting for local legal and market requirements.
What We're Looking For
7+ years of experience in research operations, UX operations, or a closely related role
Experience managing contractors or full-time employees, including setting priorities, providing feedback, supporting development, and ensuring delivery
Demonstrated experience managing research vendors and procurement processes
Experience owning and forecasting operational or project budgets
Experience with research repositories and recruiting platforms (UserTesting, Qualtrics, etc.)
Familiarity with prompt engineering or working with LLMs in a research or operations context. You don't need to code, but you're excited to build tools using AI and have strong intuitions about what to build and when
A systems thinker who can zoom out to see inefficiencies and zoom in to fix them
Strong communicator who can influence without authority and build trust across research, product, and engineering teams
High degree of self-direction. You spot problems before they're surfaced to you and move quickly to address them
Why This Role
Research Operations is often the difference between a research team that produces insights and one that produces impact. In this role, you'll have real ownership, a team that values your craft, and the opportunity to shape how a research practice operates at scale, including on the frontier of AI-assisted research.
Why You’ll Love Working at DoorDash
We are leaders – Leadership is not limited to our management team. It’s something everyone at DoorDash embraces and embodies.
We are operators – We believe the only way to predict the future is to build it. Creating solutions to lead our company and our industry is what we do on every project, every day.
We are learners – Everyone here is continually learning on the job, no matter if we’ve been in a role for one year or one minute. We are committed to learning and implementing what is best for our customers, merchants, and dashers.
We are one team – The magic of DoorDash is our people, together m...

About DoorDash USA

Software Development · 10,001+ employees · headquartered in San Francisco, California