Research Lead, Customer Insights

Salesforce•Indianapolis, IN

About The Position

Join Salesforce's Customer Insights team, a core function within the marketing organization responsible for delivering objective, actionable insights that help inform our marketing strategy and external narrative. As Research Lead you will lead research projects within two of the team's most visible programs: Buyer Insights, which informs how Salesforce goes to market, and Thought Leadership, which shapes our external narrative through major public-facing reports. This is a hands-on role for someone with strong research instincts, a curiosity about buyers and the broader market landscape, and the drive to turn findings into stories that influence real decisions. Experience using AI to accelerate and enhance research work is a must.

Requirements

Genuine Curiosity — About buyers, business, technology, and the world. The best researchers bring outside context in, not just the data they collected.
Research Experience — A strong foundation in primary research, quant crucial, qual a plus. You know how to design a credible study, interpret the results honestly, and know the limits of what the data can tell you.
AI Fluency — You've built workflows around AI tools and have a point of view on what works. You'd never let AI distort a finding in the name of a cleaner story.
Comfort with Ambiguity — You know how to make progress when things are unclear, and when to escalate rather than push through alone.

Responsibilities

Lead and Execute Primary Research
Lead Buyer Insights Research: Design and execute research that builds a deep understanding of Salesforce's buyers (e.g., CIO, CDO studies), their motivations, pain points, and decision-making dynamics to deeply inform internal decision-making and strategic marketing for key products like Agentforce. Translate findings into recommendations that inform go-to-market strategy, product marketing, and competitive positioning.
Drive Thought Leadership Research Studies: Lead your portion of the team's major public-facing research projects, including large-scale annual "State of" reports (e.g., State of Service, State of IT). Manage the full lifecycle from study design through external publication, working closely with PR and Marketing to ensure findings are accurate, compelling, and ready for the world.
Design and Execute Mixed-Method Studies: Translate business questions into research plans that draw on the right mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. Work with external suppliers for most studies, and get hands-on when speed demands it, whether that means programming a survey or pulling a crosstab yourself.
Synthesize Across Studies: Connect dots across buyer insights, thought leadership findings, and other team research to surface integrated conclusions. The most valuable insights often live at the intersection of multiple studies.
Drive Stakeholder Alignment and Research Strategy: Scope studies with a clear point of view on what they'll answer and why it's worth the investment. Communicate the value of proposed studies to stakeholders, connecting research to decisions they already care about and outcomes they're already on the hook for. Proactively engage stakeholders to ensure research is scoped, prioritized, and positioned to drive real decisions.
Bring in the Bigger Picture: Complement primary findings with broader context, including competitive dynamics, industry trends, and what buyers are saying across media and social. Use AI to stay on top of the space and surface signals that make your research richer and more actionable.
Data Visualization & Storytelling: Translate quantitative findings into clear, compelling visuals that communicate a "so what" to any audience. Strong data storytelling — choosing the right chart, framing the right narrative, and building slides that drive decisions — is as critical in this role as strong writing.
Leverage AI to Scale Your Impact: Use AI tools across the research lifecycle, from study design and analysis to synthesis and storytelling. Bring a curious, experimental mindset to finding where AI accelerates your work, and share what you learn with the broader team.
Manage Suppliers and Research Partners: Own day-to-day relationships with external research agencies and vendors, holding them to high standards of quality and keeping projects on track.