[Hiring] Research / Senior Research Manager @Precision Development

Role Description

Precision Development (PxD) is seeking a dynamic, creative, and self-motivated Research / Senior Research Manager to join a high-performing team in India working on our weather initiative - a high-profile, fast-growing area of PxD's work with significant potential for impact and visibility.

In this role, you will help design, test, evaluate, and scale evidence-based weather solutions for smallholder farmers, working closely with researchers, government partners, and cross-functional teams. We're looking for a proactive self-starter with strong research management skills, excellent stakeholder engagement abilities, and a passion for generating actionable evidence to improve program outcomes.

While anchored in research and iterative learning, the role will work fluidly across programmatic, service delivery, and research functions — ensuring insights are embedded into program implementation, operational decision-making, and government-facing engagements.

This is a role for someone as comfortable running a farmer focus group as they are writing up what it means for message design, and who can hold together a fieldwork effort spanning several states and use cases at once.

Responsibilities

• Manage the design and implementation of farmer visits across multiple states, structured around the specific forecast use cases relevant to farmer decision making and forecast message design.
• Plan and run qualitative research with farmers, including interviews, co-design sessions, and message testing, to surface what farmers need to act on a forecast and how they respond to different message formats.
• Synthesize insights from the field into clear, usable findings, and iterate directly with the relevant use case teams so those findings shape message and service design in near real time.
• Share synthesized insights with relevant teams on a regular cadence, not just at the end of a research cycle.
• Develop generalizable protocols, discussion guides, and field materials so that fieldwork can be replicated across states and use cases without being redesigned each time.
• Coordinate across the different weather forecast use case teams to ensure fieldwork priorities reflect what each team actually needs to learn next.
• Provide guidance to Associate and Manager level staff supporting the fieldwork.
• Contribute to internal and external communications on findings, including briefs and presentations.
• Contribute to PxD's institutional knowledge management on farmer-facing forecast design.

Qualifications

• Degree in economics, agricultural economics, public policy, anthropology, or a closely related field.
• Experience designing and leading qualitative field research with rural or agricultural communities, ideally including message testing or user research methods.
• Demonstrated ability to manage fieldwork logistics across multiple locations or teams at once.
• Strong synthesis skills: the ability to turn open-ended qualitative material into clear, generalizable findings that a program or research team can act on.
• Experience developing research protocols or materials meant to be reused across contexts.
• Comfort working closely with quantitative researchers and technical teams, even without being one yourself.
• Strong writing and oral communication skills in English.
• Willingness to travel frequently to field sites across states.

How to Apply

To apply, please visit the PxD website and use the online application form to submit a CV, cover letter, and brief responses to the screening questions. The position will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the application deadline of October 25, 2026, 5pm IST.

In line with our values, we evaluate candidates on merit alone, without regard to gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion, disability, caste, or any other characteristic protected under applicable law. We offer flexible working arrangements to support your wellbeing. Personal data provided is used for recruitment purposes only.