Research Lead, Customer Insights

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Job Category

Marketing & Communications

Job Details

About Salesforce

Salesforce is the #1 AI CRM, where humans with agents drive customer success together. Here, ambition meets action. Tech meets trust. And innovation isn’t a buzzword — it’s a way of life. The world of work as we know it is changing and we're looking for Trailblazers who are passionate about bettering business and the world through AI, driving innovation, and keeping Salesforce's core values at the heart of it all.

Ready to level-up your career at the company leading workforce transformation in the agentic era? You’re in the right place! Agentforce is the future of AI, and you are the future of Salesforce.

Join Salesforce's Customer Insights team, a core function within the marketing organization responsible for delivering objective, actionable insights that inform our marketing strategy, positioning, and messaging.

As Research Lead, you will own primary research projects for stakeholders across marketing, from initial scoping through final delivery. Your work will directly shape how Salesforce positions its products and tells its story to the market. Your first project in summer 2026: keynote message testing ahead of Dreamforce.

This is a hands-on role for someone with strong research instincts, genuine curiosity about markets and buyers, and the drive to turn findings into clear recommendations that influence real decisions.

What You'll Do

• Lead and Execute Primary Research: Own individual research projects end to end for marketing stakeholders. Translate business questions into well-designed studies with a clear point of view on what the research will answer and why it matters. Maintain full accountability for quality from brief to final delivery.
• Apply the Right Methods: Choose the right methodology for each question. Draw on quantitative and qualitative approaches as the work requires: survey design, message testing, audience segmentation, qualitative interviews. Work is a mix of supplier-led and in-house execution, and you need to be comfortable with both.
• Synthesize and Deliver Insights: Translate findings into clear, credible recommendations, not summaries of the data. Build deliverables that communicate a "so what" to senior marketing stakeholders. Strong data storytelling, choosing the right visualization, framing the right narrative, and building materials that drive decisions, is as important as the research itself.
• Drive Stakeholder Alignment: Scope studies collaboratively with stakeholders, connecting research to decisions they already care about. Communicate the value of proposed studies, manage expectations throughout the project, and surface findings proactively.
• Leverage AI to Scale Your Impact: Use AI tools across the research lifecycle, from study design and analysis to synthesis and delivery. A willingness to experiment and build new habits here is expected; prior experience with AI in research workflows is a strong plus.
• Manage Your Project Load: Keep track of where each project stands, what's coming next, and what you owe to whom. Deliver on time without losing quality. Flag capacity issues early rather than absorbing them silently.
• Manage Suppliers and Research Partners: Own day-to-day relationships with external research agencies and vendors. Keep projects on track, hold partners to high quality standards, and escalate when needed.

What We're Looking For

• Research Foundation: A solid grounding in both quantitative and qualitative primary research. You know how to design a credible study, interpret results honestly, and recognize the limits of what the data can tell you. Equally important: you know when you need to bring in outside expertise to close gaps in your skillset.
• Organizational Fluency: You understand how research functions inside a fast-moving organization: navigating ambiguous briefs, competing stakeholder priorities, and audiences who did not commission the research. Client-side experience is the most common path to this, but what matters is whether you have genuinely operated in that environment.
• Genuine Curiosity: About buyers, business, technology, and the world. You bring outside context in, not just the data you collected.
• Stakeholder Instincts: You know how to scope a study with a clear business purpose and communicate its value to people who don't think in research terms.
• Communication and Presence: You can present findings clearly to senior audiences, hold a room, and field hard questions. Strong written and verbal communication are both essential.
• Comfort with Ambiguity: You know how to make progress when things are unclear within a project, and when to escalate rather than push through alone.
• Openness to AI: You are curious about how AI can make research faster and sharper. Prior experience building AI-assisted workflows is a strong plus, but the aptitude and desire to learn matters more than a long track record.

Nice to Have

• Background in enterprise software, B2B technology, or CRM

• Familiarity with Salesforce products or the broader ecosystem

Unleash Your Potential

When you join Salesforce, you’ll be limitless in all areas of your life. Our benefits and resources support you to find balance and be your best, and our AI agents accelerate your impact so you can do your best. Together, we’ll bring the power of Agentforce to organizations of all sizes and deliver amazing experiences that customers love. Apply today to not only shape the future — but to redefine what’s possible — for yourself, for AI, and the world.

Accommodations

If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please submit a request via this Accommodations Request Form.

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Posting Statement

Salesforce is an equal opportunity employer and maintains a policy of non-discrimination with all employees and applicants for employment. What does that mean exactly? It means that at Salesforce, we believe in equality for all. And we believe we can lead the path to equality in part by creating a workplace that’s inclusive, and free from discrimination. Know your rights: workplace discrimination is illegal. Any employee or potential employee will be assessed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications – without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, transgender status, age, disability, veteran or marital status, political viewpoint, or other classifications protected by law. This policy applies to current and prospective employees, no matter where they are in their Salesforce employment journey. It also applies to recruiting, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, assessment of job performance, discipline, termination, and everything in between. Recruiting, hiring, and promotion decisions at Salesforce are fair and based on merit. The same goes for compensation, benefits, promotions, transfers, reduction in workforce, recall, training, and education.

In the United States, compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, job level, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Certain roles may be eligible for incentive compensation, equity, and benefits. Salesforce offers a variety of benefits to help you live well including: time off programs, medical, dental, vision, mental health support, paid parental leave, life and disability insurance, 401(k), and an employee stock purchasing program. More details about company benefits can be found at the following link: https://www.salesforcebenefits.com.