About us:
At Pencil, we are driving innovation in advertising technology through our state-of-the-art SaaS product, which harnesses Generative AI to redefine content creation. Our mission is to make AI the default in advertising without replacing creative people. To achieve this, we need to make sure that our technology isn’t just in the hands of big brands - we need to try to help small businesses and creative individuals too.
As a Product Researcher at Pencil, your mission is to be the bridge between Generative AI and the humans who use it to scale their brands. You will live in the trenches with our clients, translating messy, real-world feedback into clear, actionable insights that shape the future of creative automation. You don't just ask users what they want; you figure out what they need before they do. Beyond just extracting insights, you will nurture a community of 'power users,' ensuring they feel like partners in our innovation rather than just a data source.
Key responsibilities:
User Discovery & Advocacy: Lead end-to-end research cycles, from recruiting participants to conducting deep dive interviews and usability tests to uncover the "why" behind user behavior.
Continuous Feedback Loop: Manage day to day interactions with clients to capture granular feedback on new GenAI features, ensuring the product team is solving real pain points, not just shipping tech.
Methodological Excellence: Select and apply the right research methods (e.g., diary studies, surveys, RITE testing) to provide high-quality insights for both routine updates and complex new assignments.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with Product Managers and Engineers to turn research findings into creative solutions and product requirements.
Process Evolution: Identify bottlenecks in how we gather feedback and suggest improvements to our research operations to help the team scale.
Closed Loop Communication: Own the relationship with our most engaged superusers; proactively present "You Told Us, We Listened" updates to show how their feedback directly influenced the Pencil roadmap.
Value Exchange Management: Design and execute ways to deliver value back to research participants - whether through early access to features, exclusive roadmap previews, or expert deep-dives into GenAI trends.
Your background:
3 - 5+ years in Product Research, UX Research, or a similar client-facing insight role, ideally within a SaaS or high-growth tech environment.
AI Literacy: Strong experience with Generative AI and a deep understanding of how it impacts creative workflows.
Independent Execution: Proven ability to manage multiple medium projects simultaneously with minimal oversight.
Communication: Exceptional storytelling skills - you can take complex data and make it resonate with stakeholders across the company.
Strategic Judgment: Ability to distinguish between one off feature requests, and systemic product opportunities.
Technical Familiarity: Comfortable using modern research tools.
You’ll Thrive Here If You…
You are an Owner: You don’t wait for a ticket to be assigned. You see a gap in our understanding of the user and you proactively go fill it.
You keep it Simple: You can take the complex nature of GenAI and explain it to users in plain, fluff-free language.
You move Fast: In the world of AI, a week is a lifetime. You prefer "good and quick" over "perfect and late," iterating on the fly.
You are Human: You build genuine, productive relationships with clients. You’re not just a data-gatherer; you’re an empathetic listener.
You love the Surprising: You get excited when a user does something unexpected with our tool. You’re curious about the edge cases that lead to the next big breakthrough.
KPIs & Success Measures
Insight Velocity: Average time from "User Conversation" to "Actionable Brief" delivered to the product team.
Feature Adoption Rate: The percentage of users engaging with features that were built or refined based on your research.
Research Impact Score: Stakeholder feedback on how effectively your insights influenced the product roadmap and reduced development rework.
Client Satisfaction (NPS/CSAT): Qualitative feedback from interviewed clients regarding their feeling of being "heard" and seeing their input reflected in the tool.
Superuser Retention/Engagement: Measuring the ongoing participation rate of our core feedback group.
Benefits:
25 days PTO plus public holidays, although we operate a Flexible Time Off scheme
Health insurance / private medical cover
Monthly stipend towards wellness, fitness, and learning and development
Remote - work from anywhere in your home country
Enhanced parental leave policies, whether you become a parent through birth, adoption or surrogacy
Access to our Pencil office in The Shard, London for UK employees
Flexible working hours
Deep Dive About Pencil
Pencil uses AI to make ads. Our mission is to make marketing effective and effortless. We want to become the default way ads get made - because AI ads are 10x faster and cheaper to make, and 2x better performing, than making them without AI.
We’re called Pencil because we believe AI will be a tool for creative people, not a replacement - it may even be as fundamental a tool in the future as the pencil was in the past.
Pencil was founded in 2018 with a team from Google, Facebook and Uber with backing from Sequoia and Entrepreneur First. We were acquired by The Brandtech Group in 2023 to pursue a shared vision of bringing GenAI to the Fortune 500.
https://www.trypencil.com
About The Brandtech Group
The Brandtech Group’s mission is to be the best company in the world at helping leading global brands drive growth by connecting content, data and media using technology.
It was founded in June 2015 (as You & Mr Jones) by former Havas Global CEO David Jones, with a simple mission to help brands do their marketing better, faster and cheaper using technology. It was renamed The Brandtech Group in January 2022.
Today it generates more than $1BN in revenue and is the largest global digital content partner for many of the world's biggest brands and companies, often using its unique in-housing model. It works with eight of the world's top 10 global advertisers and 49 of the world's top 100. Clients include Banco Itaú, Danone, Google, Intuit, LVMH, Microsoft, Morgan-Stanley, Netflix, Reckitt, Renault-Nissan, PayPal, TikTok, Uber and Unilever.
In addition, the Group invests in cutting-edge technology companies relevant to and with potential in marketing and has been investing in the AI, AR and the metaverse space since 2015. The Group was the first external investor in Niantic (creators of Pokémon Go), alongside investments in AI Foundation (AI digital twins, personalized AI, and deep-fake detection 2018), Automat (AI chatbots, 2016), Elsy (AI media planning, 2016), Jivox (dynamic automated content,, 2016), Crossing Minds (deep learning AI recommendation system, 2017), CreativeX (AI-driven content optimization, 2022), Zappar (AR, 2017), Provenance (blockchain, 2022) and GGP (the world's largest gaming fund).
The Group is one of the most prominent marketing industry voices on the prediction and movement to AI-driven marketing, including Generative AI. It was named one of the World's Most Innovative Companies 2021 by Fast Company, and by CB Insights as one of the World's Most Valuable Private Unicorns.
https://www.thebrandtechgroup.com
Interview Process
