Research Contractor (AI-Moderated Research)

Outset invented a better way to do research: AI-powered user interviews.

Global brands like Hubspot, Microsoft, Uber and Nestle use Outset to achieve deeper, qualitative insights about their users at unprecedented speed and scale.

The research industry is massive (>$140B and growing) and ripe for disruption. Incumbents are outdated, slow, and burdened by high-cost services. That's our opportunity.

Outset is backed by top Silicon Valley investors and raised a $30M Series B in December 2025—less than six months after our Series A—led by Radical Ventures with participation from M12 (Microsoft’s venture arm), 8VC, Y Combinator, and Adverb Ventures.

The raise follows a breakout year, with our business growing 8x as enterprise customers across industries adopt our category, AI‑moderated research, as the new standard for understanding people.

We’re a tight-knit team serving some of the world’s largest enterprises

Outset is growing its network of research contractors to support a rising volume of managed services projects on our AI-moderated platform. This is a flexible, project-based engagement: we'll call on you as capacity demands, for anywhere from about 20 to 40 hours in a given week.
You'll work primarily behind the scenes to help our Customer Experience team execute high-quality research for customers, with some potential for customer-facing communication.

Because we want people who can ramp quickly, prior hands-on experience with AI-moderated or unmoderated research is a strong preference.

Responsibilities

Depending on the project and your strengths, engagements may include any of the following:

• Guide and screener programming — build out discussion guides and screeners in the Outset platform

• Guide refinement and development — sharpen and iterate on research guides, async or live

• Participant recruitment management and fielding — manage recruitment and keep projects fielded and on track

Qualifications

• 3-5+ years of research experience (qualitative and/or mixed methods)

• Hands-on experience with unmoderated research and/or AI-moderated research platforms, including what makes a strong guide and participant experience

• Very strong attention to detail - precise, thorough, and reliable in execution

• Comfortable working independently and flexibly

• Clear communicator who can operate with light oversight and deadlines

Contract Details

• Flexible, on-call project work (~20–40 hrs/week)

• Fully remote/1099

• Non-compete on concurrent work: contractors may not perform overlapping work for Outset competitors during the engagement, and will handle customer data and account access under agreed confidentiality terms.