Head of Research

Asana•San Francisco, CA

16h•$350,000 - $425,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Our work informs teams at every level of the company and drives key roadmap decisions. We partner with Product Design, Product Management, Data Science, and Engineering, as well as business and marketing teams, to get deep insights about our customer's behaviors and attitudes, translating them into actionable recommendations across the company. We think big about new areas, test developing concepts, and evaluate products and services once they’ve rolled out. We are looking for a Head of Product Research to lead a high-impact, mixed-method research practice spanning UX Research and Quantitative Market Research (QMR) at a pivotal moment in the company's evolution. In this role, you will build and lead a research function that generates actionable understanding of our users and their unmet needs, partnering across Product, Design, Engineering, and go-to-market teams to ensure insights are heard, applied, and reflected in strategic decisions. This role is based in our San Francisco office with an office-centric hybrid schedule. The standard in-office days are Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Most Asanas have the option to work from home on Wednesdays. Working from home on Fridays depends on the type of work you do and the teams with which you partner. If you're interviewing for this role, your recruiter will share more about the in-office requirements.

Requirements

Demonstrates curiosity about AI tools and emerging technologies, with a willingness to learn and leverage them to enhance productivity, collaboration, or decision-making.
Proven experience leading and scaling user research teams in a complex product environment, with deep expertise in qualitative and quantitative mixed-method research.
Demonstrated track record of connecting user and market insights directly to product strategy, roadmap decisions, and business outcomes.
Background navigating complex B2B or B2B2C contexts with multiple user types and cross-functional stakeholder audiences.
Strong executive presence with an ability to distill complex findings into clear, compelling narratives for cross-functional leadership.
Proven ability to build operational infrastructure, recruitment frameworks, and team structures from the ground up.
Familiarity with AI tools and their evolving role within product landscapes and research methodologies.

Nice To Haves

At Asana, we're committed to building teams that include a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills, as this is critical to helping us achieve our mission. If you're interested in this role and don't meet every listed requirement, we still encourage you to apply.

Responsibilities

Define and own the research agenda mapped to our highest-priority product and business questions, setting the standard for how insights translate into decisions from framing through synthesis, storytelling, and follow-through.
Champion a mixed-method approach—selecting qualitative, quantitative, or combined methods based on the strategic question—and serve as a thought partner to Design, Product, Data Science, and Engineering leadership.
Lead and unify a combined UX Research and Quantitative Market Research (QMR) function, ensuring coordinated methodology and a holistic view of user and market insight.
Hire, develop, and retain a high-performing team across experience levels, cultivating a culture of craft, curiosity, accountability, and mentorship.
Lead the adoption and operational guidelines of modern AI tools to increase research velocity and coverage without sacrificing rigor.
Own the strategy and facilitation of our Beta program to build structured design partnerships with key customers that foster actionable feedback and co-development.
Define and maintain a company-wide usability framework embedded into the development process to ensure quality is continuously assessed.
Build scalable research operations across tooling, panel management, knowledge management, and recruitment infrastructure to prioritize resources effectively.