# Program Manager - Research Operations at Outset

- Company: Outset
- What the company does: Get the depth of qualitative interviews at the speed and scale of a survey with the power of AI-moderated research. Make better, faster decisions for your business. Backed by Y Combinator.
- Company website: https://outset.ai/
- Type: Startups (AI role)
- Level: Senior
- Location: San Francisco
- Work setup: Remote
- Pay: $150K to $200K base salary per year (USD)
- Posted: 2026-09-01
- Apply by: 2026-10-16
- Apply: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/outset/bfbc9270-a47e-4b0b-b177-67ec84823e62
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/outset-program-manager-research-operations/

## About the role

Own partner performance and communication, with a system to assess and continually optimize each partner's quality, reliability, and best-fit use cases. Negotiate preferred rates and commercial terms, and build the feasibility process (incidence rates, targeting, which vendor for which use case) that keeps recruitment predictable as volume grows.

## What they're looking for

- 5–10 years in research operations , participant recruitment, or panel/vendor management, with deep expertise in digital qualitative recruitment, experience with quantitative recruitment is a plus
- Hands-on understanding of how participant recruitment actually works: panels and marketplaces, screeners, incidence and feasibility, soft launches, quotas, incentives, fraud, and quality control
- Track record managing vendors and partners — selecting, negotiating, holding accountable, managing spend
- Genuine program management ability — you can hold a messy, cross-functional problem in your head, sequence it, and drive it to a working system
- Experience at both a large organization and a startup . We want the enterprise process instincts and the scrappiness to build fast without waiting for permission
- Strong communicator — able to distill complex, cross-functional information into clear training, documentation, playbooks, and customer-facing content

Tags: Customer Success