Product Research Lead

Rippling; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 171,000 - 285,000; Full time

Job summary

Rippling seeks a Product Research Lead to shape the product direction across new products, categories, customer segments, and AI-native workflows. You will lead research, write a grounded point of view, and partner with product, design, engineering, and data teams to guide decisions.

This senior, lead-level IC role focuses on foundational HR systems and hourly/complex workforces, balancing uncertain direction with evidence.

Qualifications

• Applied research on complex products, services, or organizations, with influence on product direction.
• Strong qualitative research skills and judgment on when to use quantitative, behavioral, market, or competitive evidence.
• Inductive and systems thinking to explain observations in context of roles, rules, and dependencies.
• Product and business judgment to identify meaningful opportunities without overstating evidence.
• Exceptional writing and storytelling to lead with the point and illustrate it for teams and leaders.
• Ability to build trust with demanding partners and disagree clearly to help a team decide.
• Independence in ambiguous environments with plan creation and participant recruitment.
• Curiosity about where AI might change business operations with prudent judgement.
• Habit of learning unfamiliar domains and using the tools needed to explore a product, including prototyping or AI tools.

Responsibilities

• Frame important questions before a solution or roadmap is defined and design research to influence decisions.
• Learn how companies actually operate, including people, systems, rules, incentives, and workarounds.
• Find and recruit participants and learn about the market through sourcing and screening.
• Conduct rigorous qualitative research and combine with behavioral data, market evidence, and product knowledge.
• Identify patterns in evidence, test interpretations, and explain what is known and what remains uncertain.
• Identify which jobs matter enough for customers to change behavior or adopt a product and translate that into opportunities.
• Write and present a clear main judgment for audiences and decision-makers with concrete evidence.
• Build trust with partners, challenge assumptions, and stay involved as research becomes product direction.
• Strengthen the team’s research practice through mentorship, critique, and hiring.

Skills

Applied research

Qualitative research

Inductive reasoning

Product judgment

Business judgment

Writing and storytelling

Stakeholder collaboration

Independence

AI in business

Learning new domains

Job description

About this position

About Rippling

Rippling gives businesses one place to run HR, IT, and Finance. It brings together all of the workforce systems that are normally scattered across a company, like payroll, expenses, benefits, and computers. For the first time ever, you can manage and automate every part of the employee lifecycle in a single system.

Take onboarding, for example. With Rippling, you can hire a new employee anywhere in the world and set up their payroll, corporate card, computer, benefits, and even third-party apps like Slack and Microsoft 365—all within 90 seconds.

Based in San Francisco, CA, Rippling has raised $1.4B+ from the world’s top investors—including Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Sequoia, Greenoaks, and Bedrock—and was named one of America's best startup employers by Forbes.

We prioritize candidate safety. Please be aware that all official communication will only be sent from @ Rippling.com addresses.

About the role

Running a company changes with scale. At a small business, one person may handle payroll, onboarding, and IT. In the mid-market, those jobs become handoffs across teams and systems. At enterprise scale, policies, entities, and exceptions multiply. AI raises a new question across all three: which parts of the work can software take on, and where do people need to stay in control?

Product Research works before decisions are made. As Product Research Lead, you will help shape Rippling’s point of view on where the product should go next, across new products, categories, customer segments, and AI-native ways of working.

Your scope will include foundational HR systems and the realities of hourly and complex workforces. The questions will often be broad, the product direction unresolved, and the implications larger than a single feature or team.

This is a lead-level individual contributor role. You will personally lead research, develop a grounded point of view, and write for product and company leaders. You will work with product, design, engineering, and data partners to help teams choose a direction and understand the evidence behind it. This is a strategic role for someone who wants to influence company direction, define emerging product opportunities, and help determine how AI will reshape the way businesses operate.

What you will do

• Frame important questions before a solution or roadmap is defined, then design research that can change the decision.
• Learn how companies actually operate: the people, systems, rules, incentives, and workarounds behind a customer need.
• Find and recruit the people best positioned to answer or challenge the question, including participants who are hard to reach. Use sourcing and screening to learn about the market.
• Conduct rigorous qualitative research and combine it with behavioral data, market evidence, competitive context, and product knowledge when the question calls for it.
• Find patterns in messy evidence, test your interpretation against exceptions, and explain what you know, what remains uncertain, and why it matters.
• Identify which jobs matter enough for customers to change their behavior or adopt a new product. Translate that understanding into choices about which customer to serve, what opportunity to pursue, and what must be true for a solution to work.
• Write and present a clear main judgment for the audience and decision at hand. Show what you mean through concrete customer behavior, with deeper evidence ready when needed.
• Build trust with partners, challenge assumptions constructively, and stay involved as research becomes product direction.
• Strengthen the team's research practice through mentorship, critique, hiring, and your own work.

What you will need

• A record of applied research on complex products, services, or organizations, including work that influenced product direction before the solution was settled. Experience with B2B software or business operations is especially relevant.
• Strong qualitative research skills and sound judgment about when quantitative, behavioral, market, or competitive evidence would strengthen the answer.
• Inductive and systems thinking: you can move from specific observations to a useful explanation while accounting for the roles, rules, and dependencies around them.
• Product and business judgment: you can identify the question that matters, recognize a meaningful opportunity, and recommend a direction without overstating the evidence.
• Exceptional writing and storytelling: you can lead with the point, make it tangible through examples, and adjust the level of detail for product teams and senior leaders.
• The ability to build trust with demanding partners, disagree clearly, and help a team make a decision.
• Independence in an environment with limited established process. You can create a plan, recruit participants, and carry the work from an ambiguous question through a useful conclusion.
• Curiosity about where AI might change business operations, paired with judgment about where customers will trust it to act.
• A habit of learning unfamiliar domains and a willingness to make the tools you need, whether that means exploring a product hands-on, using data, prototyping, or working with AI tools.

If you don’t meet every requirement but are excited about the role, we encourage you to apply. Skills transfer in unexpected ways, and diverse perspectives often lead to the most innovative solutions.

About the team

Product Research is part of Rippling’s Product Design organization. We study questions across HR, IT, and Finance that can materially change what Rippling builds. We're a small, hands-on team working on questions that do not arrive neatly scoped. Researchers follow those questions into customer operations, product details, and data; recruit the people they need; and build tools or prototypes when useful. We challenge each other's interpretations and write clear points of view that leaders can use to make decisions.

Additional Information

Rippling is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce and do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, or any other legally protected characteristics, Rippling is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities who need assistance during the hiring process. To request a reasonable accommodation, please email [e-mail]

Rippling highly values having employees working in-office to foster a collaborative work environment and company culture. For office-based employees (employees who live within a defined radius of a Rippling office), Rippling considers working in the office, at least three days a week under current policy, to be an essential function of the employee's role.

This role will receive a competitive salary + benefits + equity. The salary for US-based employees will be aligned with one of the ranges below based on location; see which tier applies to your location here.

A variety of factors are considered when determining someone’s compensation–including a candidate’s professional background, experience, and location. Final offer amounts may vary from the amounts listed below.

The pay range for this role is:
171,000 - 285,000 USD per year(US Tier 1)
153,900 - 256,500 USD per year(US Tier 2)
145,350 - 242,250 USD per year(US Tier 3)

Salary Information

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