Research Program Manager

At WHOOP, we’re on a mission to unlock human performance and healthspan. WHOOP empowers members to perform at a higher level through a deeper understanding of their bodies and daily lives.

WHOOP Labs - the heartbeat of product development research at WHOOP - is a cross-functional research group conducting diverse projects at a high volume. Our work leverages an Agile model to optimize the planning and resourcing of research initiatives to balance support for stakeholders across the organization. As the Research Program Manager, you’ll work with the WHOOP Labs execution and operations teams to build the study roadmap, manage new study requests from stakeholders, and monitor risks to projects.

This role is based in the WHOOP office located in Boston, MA. The successful candidate must be prepared to relocate if necessary to work out of the Boston, MA office five days a week.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Own the study roadmap for WHOOP Labs, partnering with researchers to translate stakeholder needs into a realistic timeline, aligning priorities with leadership, and ensuring appropriate trade-offs between cross-functional initiatives to balance available resources.
• Facilitate Agile planning processes end to end, including Jira management, sprint planning, and backlog grooming, while helping define and optimize workflows across the lab.
• Anticipate risks and simplify execution, proactively identifying logistical and technical challenges, communicating them with evidence, and proposing mitigation paths.
• Build strong cross-functional relationships with hardware, software, product, and research teams; ensure WHOOP Labs’ needs are accurately represented in planning conversations and dependencies are surfaced early.
• Collaborate cross-functionally to identify potential conflicts or unknowns where other teams’ goals may lead to last-minute requests for research, anticipating potential risks and driving early resolution of potential issues.
• Use data and customer empathy to inform decisions, tracking study metrics and lab KPIs, and applying them to measure impact, guide prioritization, and refine processes.
• Promote a culture of continuous improvement, contribute beyond your immediate projects, engaging in retrospectives, driving improvements to research operations, and supporting department-level initiatives that elevate WHOOP’s research capabilities.
• Contribute to defining success measures and track outcomes for lab initiatives and coach other members of the team on how their work contributes to lab KPIs.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• 4+ years of experience in a Project or Program Manager role, preferably within a health, research, or hardware product environment.
• Strong ability to collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders to understand project needs and fit them together into a prioritized backlog
• Familiarity with agile methodologies, sprint planning, and backlog grooming processes.
• Data-driven approach to strategic planning, comfortable reviewing metrics and identifying ways to measure program success
• Experience collaborating across multiple functions including engineering, privacy/legal, research, recruitment, and product.
• Experience with project execution relying on internal tooling systems and/or hardware prototypes is a strong plus.
• Knowledge of human subjects research, including ethical and regulatory guidance, is a strong plus.
• Strong organizational, communication, and documentation skills.
• Passion for health, wellness, and WHOOP’s mission.

Interested in the role but don’t meet every qualification? We encourage you to apply! At WHOOP, we believe there’s more to a candidate than what’s on paper, and we value character as much as experience. As we continue to build a diverse and inclusive environment, we welcome all applicants.

WHOOP is an Equal Opportunity Employer and participates in E-verify to determine employment eligibility. It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.