Research Operations Manager

DoorDash•San Francisco, NY

About The Position

DoorDash is seeking a Research Operations Manager to serve as the operational backbone of its research team and advance customer-focused research. The role owns the systems, tools, vendors, and AI-powered processes that bring the voices of Dashers, merchants, and customers to the teams building DoorDash products. It combines research, operations, and technology, with an emphasis on identifying and solving operational friction and continuously improving research practices. The manager oversees research vendor relationships and procurement, budget planning and reporting, participant recruiting, and the evaluation, development, maintenance, and scaling of AI-enabled research tools. The role also promotes experimentation through supportive processes and shared learning, and builds scalable research infrastructure such as repositories, documentation standards, onboarding materials, team rituals, and tooling. The position partners across brands and regions to extend research operations globally while accounting for local legal and market requirements.

Requirements

At least 7 years of experience in research operations, UX operations, or a closely related role.
Experience managing contractors or full-time employees, including setting priorities, providing feedback, supporting development, and ensuring delivery.
Demonstrated experience managing research vendors and procurement processes.
Experience owning and forecasting operational or project budgets.
Experience with research repositories and recruiting platforms, such as UserTesting and Qualtrics.
Familiarity with prompt engineering or working with LLMs in a research or operations context; coding is not required.
Systems-thinking ability to identify inefficiencies at a broad level and address them in detail.
Strong communication skills and ability to influence without authority and build trust across research, product, and engineering teams.
High degree of self-direction, with the ability to anticipate problems and address them quickly.

Responsibilities

Manage the end-to-end lifecycle of research vendor relationships, including sourcing, evaluation, contract negotiation, onboarding, performance reviews, service-level agreements, and ongoing market evaluation.
Own the research team's budget by tracking spending, forecasting needs, managing purchase orders, allocating resources, reporting to research leaders, and identifying opportunities to optimize costs.
Lead participant recruiting strategy and execution across studies, including managing panels, recruiting vendors, and internal databases; developing screeners; coordinating schedules; managing incentives and compliance; and streamlining recruiting systems.
Partner with research, engineering, and design teams to evaluate, build, maintain, and scale AI-based research tools and workflows, including synthesis, analysis, tagging, search, and knowledge management.
Champion experimentation by establishing supportive conditions and lightweight processes, running retrospectives, documenting and sharing lessons, and helping build institutional knowledge about effective practices.
Design and maintain research operations infrastructure, including repositories, documentation standards, onboarding materials, team rituals, and the tooling stack.
Identify operational bottlenecks proactively and develop scalable solutions as the research team and its ambitions grow.
Partner across brands and regions to extend research operations infrastructure globally, adapting it to local legal and market requirements.
Manage contractors or full-time employees by setting priorities, providing feedback, supporting development, and ensuring delivery.