Senior Research Director

What we're looking for Role: Senior Research Director Team: Research Reports To: Managing Director, Research Supervisory Responsibility: This role will have 2-4 direct reports and oversee teams of 6-8 Research Directors and Research Managers. Location: We have a remote working policy, so we are looking for teammates anywhere in the US! However, we do have pods in NYC, Chicago, and D.C., where we would love for you to work any time you d like. Our standard operating hours are Monday - Friday 9am - 5pm EST. Actual work schedules will be based on the candidate's time zone and client requirements. Travel: This role will occasionally be expected to travel for ad hoc in-person customer requests, in-person internal working sessions, and our once per year US All Team Summit. A little about us Knit is the AI-native consumer research platform helping brands automate and accelerate primary research. With our Researcher-Driven AI, we ve condensed the entire quant + qual research process from weeks into days (sometimes hours!) for 50+ enterprise brands - including Amazon, T-Mobile, Mars, NASCAR, and more. We re on a mission to scale and democratize world-class research. From survey generation to stakeholder-ready reports, our platform is redefining how insights teams operate - and we need your help to push the limits of what s possible. Overview The purpose of the Senior Research Director role is to to lead a pod of researchers to deliver exceptional client outcomes while directly owning and executing high-impact, complex research engagements. As both a people leader and a hands-on research leader, this role is responsible for ensuring successful delivery across their pod s portfolio of accounts, while serving as the first point of escalation for client and project challenges. The Senior Research Director s impact is ultimately measured by customer satisfaction, growth, and retention, as well as successfully helping the GTM team land new clients to Knit. You will own The research function is a primary contributor to Knit's shared business objective of growing Contracted Annual Recurring Revenue (CARR) - through both customer retention and upsells, measured by Net Revenue Retention (NRR), and through successful Pilot to Subscription Conversions that convert new logos into recurring revenue. The levers the Senior Director - Research owns to influence these key business objectives are: • Research Pod Leadership Structuring and optimizing pod operations to drive high performance, accountability, and quality, while contributing to the evolution of broader research processes and operating models across Knit. Leads, develops, and motivates team members, setting the standard through hands-on, high-impact client leadership. • Driving Research Success Ensuring the research pod works effectively with Customers to successfully achieve their desired research outcomes through their projects with Knit, measured by successfully achieving Research Objectives and delivering on Knit s Quality & Speed service-level agreements (SLA s). Primary responsibilities: • Serving as the person ultimately accountable for research project success across their pod of RDs and RMs - acting as the primary point of escalation for Research Directors when research needs exceed what they can own independently • Successful & effective people management, ensuring they are successfully fulfilling their role s responsibilities and growing in impact (People Management at Knit includes driving performance, driving clarity and accountability, hiring, onboarding, upskilling competencies, performance management, conflict resolution, and morale building.) • Driving and documenting in-depth project scoping to uncover a deep understanding of research objectives and project context to set up project success, including building out the client's Research Context Library (RCL) - capturing norms, standards, and preferences to align Knit's outputs to client-ready deliverables • Driving as the strategic problem solver, research subject matter expert, and solutions architect for for our highest potential prospects and customers, working with Sales to educate them on Knit s research capabilities, consulting with them to adjust for fringe requirements, and proposing solutions to maximize project success • Participating in continuous product innovation by driving a tight feedback loop between customer delivery and Knit's product team - surfacing gaps between Knit's AI output and human-researcher quality, documenting "last mile" needs (what happens after delivery to get a project truly "stakeholder ready"), and ensuring that feedback is shared back with the team and acted upon to close those gaps • Partnering with the sales team on new business conversations - including scoping calls, capabilities presentations, and proposal input - to support successful Pilot to Subscription Conversions and new logo acquisition • Helping drive research team adoption of Knit s...