Head of Research Production

Head of Research Production
PYMNTS Intelligence | Full time | Remote, US-based, with regular time in Boston
The job in one sentence
You'll own everything that happens to a PYMNTS Intelligence report after the argument is written: how it looks, how fast it ships, how it gets found, and how it gets sold.
About PYMNTS Intelligence
PYMNTS Intelligence is the research arm of PYMNTS, the intelligence platform at the intersection of payments, commerce, the AI economy and digital assets. Our PhDs and analysts write dozens of data-driven reports a year for clients that include the largest names in payments. The research is the product. Your job is to make sure it ships on time, looks like it came from one house, and gets cited by the answer engines that now decide what people read.
What you'll own:
House standards. Charts, callouts, executive summaries and layout. You'll set the rules, working with design, and you'll enforce them.
Answer-engine optimization. You'll own the template that makes our reports the thing AI search cites: headline stat placement, extractable takeaways, question-shaped subheads, methodology language, structured data on landing pages. No report publishes without clearing your checklist.
The production calendar. You'll know where every report is on any given day and you'll hold the team to cycle-time targets.
The team. You'll manage two report writers, a copy editor, a pub pack and AEO specialist, and our Manager of Data Products. You'll assign work, review edits for scope, and be the tiebreaker when an editor and an author disagree.
Pub packs. Landing page, social, ads and email for every report. You'll set the format, review the output and track what performs.
The numbers. Draft-to-publish cycle time, answer-engine pickup, pub pack conversion, and edits reversed by authors, which should trend to zero.
What you won't do
You won't rewrite reports. Not a paragraph. You won't decide what the research says or how it's framed. That belongs to our authors and our Head of PYMNTS Intelligence. You won't write pub packs yourself. You'll review them.
Who you are:
You've run a publishing operation with real volume, in content operations, product marketing or digital publishing production. Newsroom experience is fine, but this isn't an editor's job and we'll be direct about that in the interview.
You understand SEO well enough to learn AEO fast, and you're more interested in how content performs than in how it reads.
You've managed editors and you're comfortable doing it without being the best writer in the room.
You're organized to the point that other people rely on your calendar.
You're fluent with AI tools for production work and you use them to take hours out of the pipeline.
You can look at a chart and tell in five seconds whether it's right.
How we'll interview
We'll give you a report draft, its charts and its landing page and ask you to mark it up. We're watching for what you flag, what you leave alone, and whether you reach for the rewrite.
Who you'll report to
Chief Content Officer with a doted line to the PYMNTS Intelligence lead.
What success looks like at 12 months
Cycle time down by half. Every report clearing the AEO checklist and showing up in answer-engine results. Authors who say the process makes their work better rather than slower. A team that knows exactly what its job is.
To apply, send a resume and a short note on one publishing process you've fixed and what changed as a result.
Equal Opportunity Employer
PYMNTS.com, which is proud of its highly diverse team, is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified candidates will receive consideration without regard to race/ethnicity, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, marital status, military veteran status, unemployment status, or any other status protected by law. Only electronic job submissions will be considered for employment. communication skills.

Work arrangement
Yes