Lead Researcher

About the role

About us

Responsibilities

• Set the standard. Write down what good research looks like here: what counts as a source, how deep each segment has to go, and what an original finding is.
• Train the team. Teach researchers to go deep, using our strongest existing research documents as the reference, and make those the standard for everything that follows.
• Build the case outline. Once a researcher finishes the research, they turn it into an outline of the case in chronological order, showing how the story unfolds and where each segment sits. Researchers do not hand over a pile of notes.
• Review before writing. Every segment passes you before it reaches a writer. Approve it, send it back, or reject it, and say why every time. When you approve, say what the researcher did well and why the segment works. When you send it back, say what specifically needs to change and how to avoid the same gap next time. When you reject it, say why it failed and what would have made it pass. The goal is to maintain research quality and help researchers learn to produce better segments independently.
• Check the angle. Before approving, confirm the segment fits the pre-production angle. A segment that is well sourced but off-angle goes back, with a note on how to realign it.
• Track performance. Keep records of each researcher’s work and progress, measured against the standard. If someone keeps underperforming after clear feedback and support, raise it early instead of carrying them.
• Fix the process. Spot broken or outdated parts of the research workflow before they cause bigger problems, test better methods, and bring the COO practical recommendations without waiting to be asked.
• Keep it true and keep it new. Every claim traces to a real source. Every segment has something a viewer cannot find in another video on the same topic.

Requirements

• You care about the material. Dark, true crime, and obscure topics are something you would read about anyway.
• You are a real researcher, not a sourcer. This is the whole job. You know where to look, what to pull, and how to reach the material other people cannot find or only scratch the surface of. You can show us original research where you found something that was not already assembled online.
• Your research serves the story. You start from the brief, idealization, and angle, find the anchor of each segment, and go deep on that. You keep what moves the story forward and cut what does not. Every major claim has a source, and a writer should be able to script directly from your document without more research. If you find a stronger angle, or something that breaks the brief, you flag it early with sources and discuss it with the team.
• You have trained people. You have taught others how to research and given notes on their work, and they got better because of it.
• You keep your methods current. New tools, sources, and search methods appear constantly. You follow them, test them, and update how you and the team work. What was good research two years ago is not good enough now.
• You are comfortable in the hard places: court records, archives, deleted uploads, old forums, and press in other languages.

Nice to have

• A writing background. You know what a writer actually uses and needs, and you cut any unnecessary filler from the research document, keeping only what is valuable.

What success looks like

• Every video carries findings viewers cannot get elsewhere.
• Nothing false is published as fact. Every claim can be traced to a source.
• The researchers get better. Less of their work comes back to them over time.
• A written research standard exists, and new researchers are trained on it.
• Nothing downstream waits on your review.

What's in it for you

• You build the system. No research standard exists here yet. You write it.
• Real authority. You can stop weak research from becoming a video.
• A full team. Researchers, writers, editors, and producers already work at scale, so you can focus on the research.