Forward Deployed Researcher

tl;dr: We're hiring our first Forward Deployed Researcher to deliver the next generation of full-service research. The Forward Deployed Researcher role is designed for researchers who are pushing the boundaries of what it means to work with AI every day. You'll work directly with brands to go from business questions to insights with high efficiency, helping insights teams innovate on how they work to deliver exceptional data to business stakeholders. ABOUT KEPLAR Keplar http://keplar.io is an end-to-end consumer insights platform built around a voice-AI interviewer that conducts real-time, dynamic, 1:1 conversations with consumers at scale. Keplar conversations feel human and get people to open up, free from moderator fatigue and bias. Keplar is built specifically for iconic consumer brands that quite literally shape the world we live in. Founded in 2022 and backed by Kleiner Perkins, SV Angel, Common Metal, and South Park Commons, Keplar serves leading brands including Clorox, Intercom, SC Johnson, Tecovas, and Marzetti. WHY KEPLAR - A role that doesn't exist anywhere else: senior research craft paired with agentic tooling to deliver full-service deep insights. From study design through the final recommendation. A combination of ownership, leverage, and frontier AI exposure isn't found in traditional agency or in-house research roles. - Explosive growth: We're seeing traction across mid-market and enterprise, averaging six-figure deals and high-velocity sales cycles. - Product-market fit: We close at a high rate, and most deals are driven by real customer pain — meaning we rarely compete on price. - High Performance team: Big-tech rigor meets startup speed and ferocity — with experience from Research at Google, Engineering at Meta, and growth at Samsara. We believe great things get built by lean, tight-knit teams chasing big ideas. - Industry recognition: Featured in TechCrunch (Sept 2025), a16z, and Foundation Capital for redefining the future of customer research. - Massive market: The customer understanding market is huge, with growing demand for tools that help run end-to-end workflows and deliver high-quality customer insights with speed and scale. ABOUT THE ROLE As a Forward Deployed Researcher, you will be the human at the center of a Keplar engagement. You’ll partner directly with senior client stakeholders to carry out complex research programs supported by dedicated Keplar agentic tooling that lets one expert get deep insights and run analysis, which previously required an agency team of five, all in under 72 hours. You will design the learning agenda, run the studies, interrogate the data, and deliver the strategic recommendations. You’ll work with world class engineers to help define which automations to build next. This is a role for someone who wants the craft of senior research and the leverage of frontier tooling. You won't be managing fielding logistics or building crosstabs by hand — Keplar agents handles execution within your guardrails. Your judgment, instinct, and ability to turn data into a story and actionable plan will be your most valuable asset in this role. This is a full-time, remote role open to candidates based in the US and Canada. What you'll do - You will own the full arc of every engagement, partnering with the client at each decision point while the Keplar agent suite handles the execution underneath you. - Build relationships with client stakeholders, understand the business question behind the research request, and offer consultative guidance on what's worth learning and why. - With Keplar's autonomous research tools, you'll translate business needs into learning plans, study guides, screeners, analysis plans, etc. - Enable clients to build entirely new ways of working. For example, we recently helped a client convert their multi-month demand-space discovery process to a 2 week sprint built atop voice interviews and agentic data analysis. Mine and interrogate data, working with Keplar Analyst to cut and probe findings, then layer in the interpretation, framing, and "so what" that only an experienced researcher can add. - Help shape the Keplar software suite itself: as a power user at the frontier, your feedback directly influences what the platform and agents do next. Why this role is different Traditional agency researchers spend most of their time on coordination, fielding management, and manual analysis — the work that doesn't require their expertise. At Keplar, our AI agents absorb that load, so your time goes to the things that actually move a client's business: framing the problem, reading the signal, and shaping the decision. Not only that, but you get to build the tooling itself as well. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR - 7+ years in a consumer insights or market research leadership role, with demonstrated experience of shaping the research practice and developing innovative practices. - CPG and/or retail exposure is a big plus — vendor-side, supplier-side, or client-side backgrounds all welcome if the craft is there. - Deep methodological range — fluency across qualitative and quantitative approaches, and hands-on familiarity with the studies our clients run: segmentation, demand space discovery and sizing, jobs-to-be-done, habits and practices, concept and message testing, attitudes and usage, and shopper insights/path-to-purchase work. - A flexible mindset. The "how" of insights is rapidly evolving, and with it, the role of insights in a marketing function itself. To excel, you'll have to think beyond qual and quant, beyond 1-off projects, and help us redefine the industry as a whole. - A consultant's instinct. You can sit with an ambiguous business problem, find the real question, and earn a stakeholder's trust. You're comfortable being the face of the work. - AI-native storytelling and synthesis. LLMs are notoriously bad at creative writing and storytelling, but they are phenomenal tools for cutting, analyzing, and understanding data. You work with AI to turn data into a narrative that drives a decision, and you build assets that land in the room. - A desire to work at the frontier of tooling. You're excited to work alongside AI agents, to let them handle execution while you hold the judgment, and to help make the tools better. - Autonomy and ownership. You can run an engagement end-to-end and be the single point of accountability for its quality. COMPENSATION This is a full-time role with a competitive salary and meaningful early-stage equity. You'll be joining at the ground floor, with the ability to shape both product and culture. We want this to be the most rewarding role of your career. Join us and get a front-row seat in building the platform that's redefining how consumer insights gets done.