Research Operations Program Manager

About the Research Team

The Research team at Thumbtack is dedicated to creating experiences that help homeowners and pros feel confident, capable, and connected. Our team of nine researchers partners closely with product, design, and engineering to uncover deep insights into how people find, hire, and work with local professionals — and how pros grow their businesses on our platform.

We’re collaborative, curious, and motivated by impact. Research at Thumbtack is embedded within product teams but operates as a tight-knit community of practice. The Research Operations function plays a central role in ensuring our researchers can focus on insight generation while maintaining consistency, quality, and shared learning across the company.

About the Role

The Research Operations Program Manager will design, scale, and continuously improve the systems that power high-quality, impactful user and market research at Thumbtack — and the culture that sustains the people who do it.

This role owns the operational backbone of the Research team: recruiting and incentives, tooling and data systems, budgets and vendor management, onboarding and L&D, and team culture initiatives. You’ll be both a strategic systems builder and a hands-on partner who ensures researchers have what they need to plan, run, and share their work effectively.

You’ll be the connective tissue between people, process, and technology — helping researchers focus on what they do best: uncovering insights that move our customers and pros forward.

You’ll work closely with researchers, leadership, and Design Operations to ensure our research practice runs smoothly, efficiently, and with a strong sense of team connection.

What you'll do

• Design, scale, and govern the systems and tools that support high-quality, efficient user and market research.
• Maintain and evolve our research repository as a reliable, searchable, well-structured source of insights.
• Lead participant operations, including recruiting, incentives, and vendor management, ensuring ethical, smooth, and privacy-aligned execution.
• Partner with Engineering, Data, Legal, and IT to maintain integrated, compliant, and secure data and tooling environments.
• Drive operational excellence through budget oversight, contracts, procurement, and frameworks that clarify roles and reduce friction.
• Provide hands-on operational support for studies when needed, coordinating logistics and anticipating risks or dependencies.
• Track and report research activities to improve visibility, efficiency, and strategic planning across the team.
• Support research culture and growth through onboarding, L&D, team events, knowledge-sharing, and initiatives that foster belonging and collaboration.

In order to be successful, you must bring

• 5+ years in program management, operations, or research enablement roles; 3+ years dedicated to Research Operations.
• Proven ability to build, scale, and maintain research systems, repositories, and operational processes in a fast-moving tech environment.
• Deep understanding of participant operations, research logistics, compliance, and ethical best practices.
• Skilled at diagnosing and solving complex operational and technical problems, including evaluating and implementing new tools or workflows.
• Strong project management and coordination abilities, with a track record of aligning diverse stakeholders.
• Experience managing budgets, contracts, and vendor relationships with accuracy and accountability.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to build trust across teams and facilitate effective collaboration.
• Demonstrated passion for nurturing team culture, supporting learning, and fostering connection in distributed environments; operates with precision, ownership, and continuous improvement.