Sr. Research Associate

About Us

We are a private design studio that builds and supports a portfolio of companies and projects across software, hardware, hospitality, and more. Some of what we build stays in house; some spins out. We also run an early-stage investment fund and an accompanying cohort program for founders. This company is not Expa, but is an affiliate of Expas.

The Role

Were looking for a Senior Research Associate who can find out anything about anything. Leadership will come to you with questions - size this market, map the players in this category, whos funding what, what the landscape looks like for XYZ - and youll come back with an answer thats clear, well-sourced, and actually useful.

Some weeks that means building a competitive matrix across 40 companies. Some weeks it means a deep dive into a single obscure question nobody has written about yet. The projects change, the subject matter changes, and the volume varies week to week.

Youll be exposed to a lot of different projects and ideas, and work directly with a highly accomplished leader and team. If youre the kind of person who reads everything, asks a lot of questions, and wants to be in the room with people operating at a very high level, this is built for you.

What Youll Do

• Run open-ended research projects using the internet as your primary tool: markets, products, companies, funding activity, competitive landscapes, people, technologies, regulation - whatever the question requires.

• Turn messy findings into clean outputs: matrices, comparison tables, briefs, landscape maps, one-pagers.

• Go deep enough to have a point of view, not just a link dump - flag what matters, whats uncertain, and what youd look at next.

• Use AI tools aggressively to move faster and go wider than a person could alone.

• Build lightweight tools, scrapers, or trackers when a project calls for it.

• Juggle several unrelated requests at once and reprioritize when things shift.

What Were Looking For

• 2-5 years of experience and a bachelors degree - you take a task and run with it, but youve got the reps to produce senior-level output: quick turnaround, sharp judgment calls, and less hand-holding needed along the way.

• Brain power: sharp, curious, and able to reason through a question youve never seen before.

• AI-native: You live in AI tools - Claude and Cowork, ChatGPT, Gemini, Hugging Face, whatevers newest. Ideally you can vibe code your way to a working script or prototype without waiting on an engineer. Bonus points if youve hit your usage limit more than once.

• Comfortable in ambiguity: Vague briefs dont paralyze you. You take a first pass, come back with questions, and iterate.

• Self-directed but coachable: You think independently, but you want to learn from people far ahead of you and take direction well.

• Startup-minded: Youre not looking for a corporate ladder. You want interesting problems, smart people, and range.

• A strong writer: Your research is only as good as your ability to communicate it in a page or less.

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary: The anticipated base salary range for this position is $100,000-$130,000. Actual compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, level, and location.

• Benefits: Generous benefits package including medical, dental, and vision, 401(k) matching

• Location: Can be remote in the US, with significant travel to Los Angeles