Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
Harvey sits at an intersection that is increasingly central to SaaS: enterprise software infused with frontier AI, sold into regulated, high-stakes professional workflows. With a large customer footprint and an explicitly scaling posture, the company signals a stage where external credibility and internal operating cadence become strategic assets, not side projects. This role is notable because it treats research community presence and research operations as part of the product ecosystem’s long-term competitiveness.
For a SaaS career, the position offers unusually broad leverage across the research to product boundary. Building planning cycles, milestone tracking, and dependency management mirrors the operational disciplines that mature SaaS organizations rely on as teams and surfaces area expand. In parallel, shaping conference strategy, publications, and partnerships builds fluency in how technical reputation, talent pipelines, and platform narratives compound over time in AI-led SaaS categories.
The role fits professionals who enjoy creating structure across ambiguous, cross-functional work and who can translate between technical researchers and business stakeholders without diluting either side. It will suit someone motivated by stewardship as much as execution, comfortable owning both outward-facing community programs and the internal mechanisms that keep research integrated with engineering and product delivery.
The section above is editorial commentary from The SaaS Jobs, provided to help SaaS professionals understand the role in a broader industry context.
Job Description
Why Harvey
At Harvey, we’re transforming how legal and professional services operate. By combining frontier agentic AI, an enterprise-grade platform, and deep domain expertise, we’re reshaping how critical knowledge work gets done for decades to come.
This is a rare chance to help build a generational company at a true inflection point. With 1500+ customers in 60+ countries, strong product-market fit, and world-class investor support, we’re scaling fast and defining a new category in real time. The work is ambitious, the bar is high, and the opportunity for growth — personal, professional, and financial — is unmatched.
Our team moves fast, takes ownership, and is deeply committed to the mission — operating with intensity, staying close to our customers, and pushing each other for excellence. We live by three values: Decisiveness, Simplicity, and Job's Not Finished. We act quickly on clear judgment over perfect information, we believe simplicity is what scales, and we're never satisfied with where we are. If you want to do the best work of your career alongside people who share that drive, we'd love to build with you.
At Harvey, the future of professional services is being written today — and we’re just getting started.
Role Overview
The Head of Research Community and Operations is a senior leader who connects Harvey's research organization to the broader AI and legal tech ecosystem while ensuring the team operates with rigor and velocity. Harvey's research teams, spanning AI research and applied legal research, are at the forefront of building large language model systems that transform how professionals deliver complex knowledge work. This role drives both the external visibility of Harvey's research efforts and the internal operational infrastructure that keeps research initiatives on track and deeply integrated with product and engineering. The person in this seat partners with research leadership, product, engineering, and marketing to shape how Harvey shows up in the research community and how the research organization scales its processes as the company grows. It is a rare opportunity to define the research identity and operational backbone of one of the most consequential AI companies in professional services.
What You'll Do
Build and manage Harvey's external research community presence, including academic partnerships, conference strategy, publication support, and open-source engagement to attract world-class talent and elevate Harvey's reputation in AI research.
Design and operate the research organization's planning and coordination infrastructure, including quarterly planning cycles, resource allocation, milestone tracking, and cross-team dependency management across research, engineering, and product.
Develop and execute a research communications strategy in partnership with marketing and research leadership, translating technical breakthroughs into compelling narratives for external and internal audiences.
Establish and maintain relationships with academic institutions, industry research labs, and professional organizations to foster collaboration, visiting researcher programs, and knowledge exchange.
Drive internal community-building initiatives — such as research seminars, reading groups, and cross-team knowledge-sharing forums — that keep researchers connected, inspired, and aligned on strategic priorities.
Own research program management end to end: scoping initiatives, managing budgets, tracking deliverables, and reporting progress to R&D leadership.
What You Have
8+ years of experience in research operations, technical program management, or community building within a technology, AI, or academic research organization.
Demonstrated track record of building external research communities, managing academic or industry partnerships, or scaling research programs at a high-growth company.
Strong program management skills with experience coordinating multi-stakeholder initiatives across technical and non-technical teams in fast-moving environments.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate complex research concepts for audiences ranging from ML engineers to senior executives to external partners.
Deep familiarity with the AI/ML research ecosystem, including major conferences (NeurIPS, ICML, ACL, EMNLP), publication processes, and academic collaboration norms.
A builder's mindset, comfort with ambiguity, a bias toward action, and a track record of creating structure where none existed before.
Compensation
$236,600 - $355,000 USD
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Harvey is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related condition, or any other basis protected by law.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made by emailing accommodations@harvey.ai
