What you'll do here:** **Research Community Development & Customer Engagement** + Design, launch, and lead research communities (e.g., customer panels, advisory groups, insight forums) that support ongoing product discovery and validation + Build long-term relationships with customers to cultivate trust, engagement, and sustained participation in research + Actively engage community members to gather feedback across the product lifecycle, including discovery, concept testing, validation, and post-launch learning + Support market development efforts by using research communities to understand customer needs, behaviors, and market dynamics + Surface insights that advise product positioning, messaging, and go-to-market strategies + Collaborate with product, marketing, and strategy teams to align community insights with broader business objectives **Research Consulting & Methodology Guidance** + In consultation with product teams, recommend the most effective research methodologies based on goals, timelines, and strategies + Educate and enable teams on protocols for community-based research and customer engagement + Design and operationalize scalable research frameworks and playbooks tailored to product team needs + Leverage the latest tools and methods to accelerate research workflows, including participant segmentation, thematic analysis, insight synthesis, and reporting + Balance efficiency with human judgment to ensure insights are accurate, ethical, and actionable + Track and report on community health, engagement, and research impact for product teams **Skills you will need here:** + Proven experience in user research, research operations, community management, or related fields + Demonstrated experience building and managing research communities, panels, or customer engagement programs + Strong understanding of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies used in product development + Experience collaborating with teams on research approaches and methodology selection + Familiarity with AI-enabled research or analysis tools to scale insight generation + Excellent communication, facilitation, and stakeholder-management skills **Skills You'll Bring (Preferred)** + Experience supporting product, UX, or market research teams + Background in market development, customer engagement, or go-to-market research + Experience applying AI tools for qualitative synthesis, tagging, sentiment analysis, or insight generation + Excitement working across multiple teams and influencing without direct authority + Experience developing research governance, consent, and data-management practices Cengage is committed to working with broad talent pools to attract and hire strong and most qualified individuals. **About Cengage** Cengage, a global education technology company serving millions of learners, provides affordable, quality digital products and services that equip students with the skills and competencies needed to be job ready.