Research Lead (d/f/m)

Sozialwerk Pfarrer Sieber; München; Hybrid; EUR 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive reward package

28 days of paid vacation + annual step

Impact Day

Family leave & mental health support

Weekly catered lunches & snacks

Job summary

Personio is seeking a Research Lead to own the research agenda for its product organization, guiding teams to understand customer needs and measure how well we meet them. You will oversee survey programs, synthesize insights, and enable cross‑functional teams to conduct research with playbooks and AI‑assisted methods.

You will lead foundational and evaluative studies, collaborate with marketing and brand, and ensure a shared view of customers across the company.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in user, product or market research, incl. 3+ years in tech.
• Fluent in English; German is a strong asset.
• Skilled in qualitative methods: interviews, usability and concept testing.
• Design, field and analyze surveys with proper caveats.
• Evidence-based storytelling translating insights to engineers and executives.
• Coaching product managers and designers to run sound research.
• Build scalable processes and tools for research.
• AI across the research workflow: design to analysis.

Responsibilities

• Own the research agenda across all product teams, prioritizing strategic needs with product, design and analytics partners.
• Run key survey measurement programs end to end from questionnaire design through fielding, analysis and reporting.
• Synthesize insights by combining qualitative and quantitative feedback into actionable guidance.
• Enable product teams to run their own research via playbooks, tools and office hours; set quality standards.
• Conduct foundational and evaluative studies on cross-cutting questions beyond a single product team.
• Leverage AI to speed study design, synthesis and analysis, and set guardrails for AI use.
• Partner with Product Marketing, Brand and customer-facing teams to align customer insights across the company.

Skills

User research

Product research

Market research

Qualitative methods

Survey design

AI in research

Stakeholder management

Coaching

Research playbooks

English fluency

Tools

Qualtrics

Job description

Personio's intelligent HR platform helps small and medium-sized organizations unlock the power of people by making complicated, time-consuming tasks simple and efficient. Our team of 1,500 Personios is building user-friendly products that delight our 15,000+ customers and their 1.5 million employees. Ready to make an impact from day one?

This role requires 2 days per week in the office and is based in London, Munich or Berlin.

Join us to shape the future of software in the underserved and high-impact HR technology industry. Your work will have a direct and tangible impact on customers, offering ownership and the chance to make a meaningful difference. As we prepare for significant growth, you'll face exciting challenges and have the opportunity to influence our path toward becoming one of the world's leading tech companies.

As our Research Lead, you will be the single research function for Personio's product organization, helping product teams build lovable products for European HR professionals by understanding their needs and measuring how well we meet them. You will own the research agenda and our survey measurement programs, and enable teams to run research themselves. Your work gives product, brand and customer-facing teams one shared view of our customers.

What You’ll Do

• Research agenda: You own the research agenda across all product teams, identifying and prioritizing strategic research needs with product, design and analytics partners.
• Measurement programs: You run our key survey measurement programs end to end, from questionnaire design through fielding, analysis and reporting.
• Insight synthesis: You combine qualitative and quantitative customer feedback from multiple channels into insights that shape product team strategy.
• Research enablement: You enable product teams to run their own research through playbooks, tools, participant access and office hours, and you set the quality bar for it.
• Hands‑on research: You run foundational and evaluative studies yourself on strategic or cross-cutting questions that go beyond the scope of a single product team.
• AI‑assisted research: You use AI to speed up your own study design, synthesis and analysis, and you set the standards and guardrails for how product teams use AI in their research.
• Cross‑functional partnership: You partner with Product Marketing, Brand and customer-facing teams so that what we learn about our customers is consistent and shared across Personio.

What You Need To Succeed

• Experience and language: You have 10+ years of experience in user, product or market research, including 3+ years in a tech environment, and you are fluent in English (German is a strong asset).
• Qualitative research: You are skilled in qualitative methods, including interviews, usability and concept testing, and structured synthesis.
• Survey research and statistics: You can design, field and analyze surveys (for example in Qualtrics), covering question design, sampling, statistical analysis and reporting results with the right caveats.
• Evidence-based storytelling: You combine qualitative and quantitative evidence into a clear narrative with recommendations that product teams act on, and you tailor it to audiences from engineers to executives.
• Coaching and scalable processes: You coach product managers and designers to run sound research, and you build lightweight processes and tools that scale.
• AI across the research workflow: You use AI from study design to synthesis and analysis, and you know how to check its output before relying on it.
• Prioritizing across stakeholders: As the only researcher, you prioritize across many stakeholders in product, brand and customer-facing teams, and you can speak the language of each.

Why Personio

Personio is an equal opportunities employer, committed to building an integrative culture where everyone feels welcomed and supported. We embrace uniqueness and understand that our diverse, values-driven culture makes us stronger. We are proud to have an inclusive workplace environment that will foster your development no matter your gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, education level, or race.

At Personio, we value in-person collaboration while also offering flexibility. This role is office-based, with 2 days per week required in your contracted office location. The remaining days can be worked from home or in the office if you prefer. In addition, you'll have 20 Flex Days per year to work remotely from other locations.

Aside from our people, culture, and mission, check out some of the other benefits that make Personio a great place to work:

• Receive a competitive reward package – reevaluated each year – that includes salary, benefits, and pre-IPO equity
• Enjoy 28 days of paid vacation, plus an additional day after 2 and 4 years
• Make an impact on the environment and society with 1 (fully paid) Impact Day
• Receive generous family leave, child support, mental health support (including 24 sessions per year with Oli for yourself and 10 sessions for a significant other), and sabbatical opportunities
• We enjoy gathering for meals, cultural initiatives, and events like local Summer Sessions and year-end celebrations. There's also healthy snacks, drinks, and a weekly catered lunch.