Lead Researcher - Contractor - Remote (Mexico)

About Us: The Launch Box, LLC is the engine of the fastest growing and most successful new professional services firms. The Launch Box provides investment capital, strategic advice, comprehensive services, and turnkey systems to accelerate the launch-to-scale-to-exit timeline and reduce risk for founders. With an expert team and variable cost structure, we increase the probability of success while building valuable, sustainable, and marketable professional services firms.

About Our Client: 

We're hiring on behalf of one of our clients, a leading digital strategy, design, and engineering firm. Their team of 300+ people has designed and built hundreds of digital products and experiences for some of the most recognized brands in tech, media, retail, hospitality, and consumer services. The team is intentionally remote and distributed globally, with a culture that values flexibility, creativity, and modern technology.

The Opportunity:

This is a contractor role for a Lead Researcher based in Mexico. You won't just run research. You'll shape how research thinks about itself inside the firm and with the clients it serves. You'll lead a team, set the bar for great research, and make sure insights actually move business and product strategy.

You bring a human-centered lens to everything. You mentor generously, push for rigor without being rigid, and know how to turn a mountain of data into the one insight that changes a roadmap. You're as comfortable in a client strategy session as you are in a session with a user.

If you love untangling tricky problems, working with sharp people from all kinds of backgrounds, and watching your work change how products get built, we want to meet you.

What You'll Do:

• Design and run research that matters. Mix qualitative and quantitative methods to answer the questions that move strategy forward, not just the easy ones. Know when a quick pulse-check will do and when a rigorous mixed-methods study is needed, and challenge a flawed research ask when you see one.
• Make the complex feel simple. Turn research into a story executives, designers, and engineers remember and act on. Compress a month of work into one sharp sentence when someone asks "so what did we learn?"
• Get hands-on in the design process. Work alongside designers from early sketches onward, testing hypotheses through iterative prototyping and catching usability problems before they get expensive.
• Turn messy data into clear direction. Work through primary and secondary sources fast and surface the insights that matter, not a 40-page report nobody reads.
• Build systems that make research stick. Grow knowledge frameworks that turn one-off findings into institutional memory, so teammates can find past answers instead of re-running studies.
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• Bring people together. Lead workshops that turn five conflicting opinions into one aligned plan grounded in what users need.

What We're Looking For:

• 5+ years working on digital products or services, with research that shaped real decisions

• A portfolio or work sample showing your process and impact (a PDF, deck, or a few case studies is fine)

• Ability to explain why research matters to people who don't live it, from designers to executives

• Comfort juggling multiple projects or clients and adapting as context changes

• Strong instincts for scoping and prioritizing, especially on tight timelines

• Experience getting buy-in for findings, even when there's resistance in the room

• Familiarity with a range of methods: qual, quant, generative, evaluative (you don't need to be an expert in all of them)

• A solid grasp of the digital product lifecycle and how to turn "here's what we learned" into "here's what we should build"

• Curiosity about AI and how it's changing design (hands-on experience is a bonus, an open mind counts for a lot)

• Professional English proficiency, written and spoken, for work with US-based teams and clients

• Based in Mexico and able to work as an independent contractor

• Only resumes in English will be considered
• Authorized to work in Mexico

Why The Launch Box? We are committed to creating an inclusive environment for our team. If you have a special need that requires accommodation, please let your recruiter know.

We value a diverse workforce and a culture of inclusivity and belonging. All employment decisions shall be made without regard to age, race, creed, color, religion, gender, national origin, ancestry, disability status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, citizenship status, or any other basis as protected by federal, state, or local law. The Launch Box is an Equal Opportunity Employer.