Director of Customer Insights

Ultra Pouches•New York City, NY

About The Position

About ULTRA ⚡️ ULTRA is already the #1 brand of nicotine-free pouches in the world and we only launched one year ago —we’re just getting started. Our mission is to build the category-defining brand of functional pouches for people who want enhanced performance without the crash, addiction, or long-term downsides. ULTRA does not just make a pouch that is somewhat “better for you” than Zyn. We make functional performance products that are actively good for you. The market shift is massive: nicotine pouch sales are up 3,000% since 2019 and projected to reach $20B by 2026. Consumers are adopting the pouch form factor at scale, and many are now seeking nicotine-free functional benefits in a pouch. Ultra is positioned to lead that wave. Backed by some of the best investors, founders and athletes in the world, including: CAVU Consumer Partners (Once Upon A Farm, Poppi, Farmer’s Dog, Oatly, Vital Proteins, Whoop, Recess) Left Lane Capital (Blank Street, Olipop, Holy) Sugar Capital (Grüns, Feastables, Lucky Energy) Athletes & Creators: Joe Burrow, Dak Prescott, Henrik Lundqvist, Jakob Chychrun + more Founders & Operators: Chad Janis (Grüns), Harpreet Singh (Oura Ring), Jeff Raider (Harry’s), Vinay Menda (Blank Street) + more The Role 🚀 The Director of Customer Insights will be the internal advocate for the customer, and is responsible for knowing them better than anyone else in the office. This is a high-leverage, high-visibility seat. You’ll be in constant, direct contact with our customers - we expect you to speak to, survey, or pull structured data on at least 200 customers each week - and you’ll translate what you learn into decisions for product, R&D, and operations teams. This is equal parts qualitative and quantitative. One day you may be running customer interviews and synthesizing open-ended feedback; the next you’re designing a MaxDiff survey to rank flavor concepts or building a cohort model from our subscription data. You’ll sit at the intersection of Product, Marketing, and Operations, report directly to the COO, and your work will directly drive how we prioritize the product roadmap, R&D, and brand communication.

Requirements

6+ years of relevant experience in consumer insights, market research, strategy, or growth analytics, ideally at a fast-growing consumer brand.
Genuinely both quantitative and qualitative. You’re as comfortable running a customer interview as you are designing and analyzing a survey or building a cohort model.
Fluent with data. You can pull, clean, and analyze customer data yourself.
Strong analytical skills and comfort with Shopify / Amazon / subscription data is required.
Skilled in customer research methods. Survey design, concept and sensory testing, conjoint/MaxDiff, segmentation, NPS, etc.
Exceptional at making people feel comfortable in the first five minutes of a conversation.
A self-directed builder that thrives in early-stage, low-structure environments and is energized by building a function from nothing.
Deeply curious about people. You have a real bias toward talking to customers directly, not just reading dashboards or metrics.

Nice To Haves

Experience in functional beverages, supplements, energy, or wellness consumer products.
International market experience.
A background in management consulting, strategy, or PE/IB.
Familiarity with sensory science and/or product development.
Hands-on with data tools, survey platforms, and subscription/CRM platforms.

Responsibilities

Build and maintain systems and processes that support tens of thousands of customers, interviews, surveys, product reviews, support tickets, social comments, and panels.
Stay close to the customer: Hit a consistent cadence of at least 200 meaningful customer touchpoints per week through a mix of live conversations, surveys, and structured data.
Run the feedback engine: Design, field, and analyze surveys and research, including but not limited to: NPS, flavor testing, product trials, and sensory studies.
Define who our customers are and what they care about: Build and maintain customer feedback, experience improvements, subscription improvements, etc.
Turn feedback into actionable next steps: Translate customer feedback into a prioritized, decision-ready input for product, R&D, and operations.
Lead flavor and concept prioritization: Run the research (concept testing, sensory, etc.) that tells us what to launch next and who it’s for.
Build the insights infrastructure: Stand up the tools, dashboards, and processes from scratch.
Make data decision-ready: Synthesize complex, messy inputs into clear, one-page recommendations that leadership can act on immediately.
Watch the category: Track competitor moves and consumer trends across oral pouches, functional energy, supplements, and adjacent categories.