Academic Research Consultant (Part-Time)

Academic Research Consultant (Part-Time; Product & Platform Feedback)

Employer: The Simple Platform (TSP)
Location: Remote, on campus
Role Type: Part-time (contract)
Time Commitment: ~4 hours/week (flexible around classes/research; includes a weekly virtual call with your TSP Lead)
Duration: Initial 12-week pilot (with option to extend)
Compensation: $35/hr and early access to platform features

About The Simple Platform

The Simple Platform (TSP) is building a human-centered research platform for early-career academics (ECAs). TSP helps researchers organize their work, connect across disciplines, and create meaningful visibility beyond the lab or department. See www.simple-platform.com.

We are currently in an early product-development and validation phase, working closely with real researchers and labs to ensure we build what they actually need.

Role Overview

As a Academic Research Consultant (Part-Time), you are a true product development partner and TSP’s researcher voice on campus, helping us understand how early-career academics actually work, what labs really need, and what features genuinely support research life.

You will sit at the intersection of real lab workflows, structured usability testing, early feature exploration, and continuous product feedback. Your primary role is to bring authentic, ground-truth insights from your own research experience directly into TSP’s development cycle and help test emerging features in realistic academic contexts.

This is a research-adjacent role ideal for ECAs who enjoy thinking critically about tools, systems, and academic work practices.

What You’ll Do

1. Use TSP in real academic contexts

Evaluate platform onboarding and navigation

Create and maintain 1–2 research hubs (or “verticals”) relevant to your work

Add publications, funding opportunities, events, and links

Use Folder-of-Links, discovery suggestions, and dashboards

Test specific flows (vertical creation, content addition, discovery review)

Observe what feels intuitive vs. confusing over time

2. Provide structured feedback and weekly product insights

Submit a short weekly summary (15–20 minutes to write, bullet points):

What you observed

What worked

What was confusing

Highlight 1–2 actionable product recommendations per week

Distinguish between nice-to-have ideas and blocking issues

3. Support early feature validation

Test new or evolving features as available

Provide feedback on naming, mental models, and overall UX clarity

Help TSP prioritize in its product development

Who We’re Looking For

You may be a great fit if you:

Are a graduate student, postdoc, or early-career researcher

Actively participate in a lab or research group

Are reflective about how tools shape research work

Enjoy testing, analyzing, and improving systems

Can articulate why something doesn’t work

No prior product or UX experience required--curiosity and thoughtfulness matter most

What Success Looks Like

By the end of the consultancy, success looks like:

Clear, concrete insights into how ECAs actually use TSP, or where and why they struggle

Identified usability blockers and workflow mismatches

Evidence-based recommendations influencing the product roadmap

A stronger alignment between TSP’s design and academic reality

Why This Role Matters

Your feedback will directly shape:

onboarding and self-sign-up flows

discovery vs. curation behavior

integration priorities (e.g., ORCID, Zotero, events, funding)

how TSP supports real research life (not hypothetical use cases)

You are helping shape a platform grounded in real academic workflows

How to Apply

Please submit via Handshake:

A CV/LinkedIn profile link

Your institution and field

A brief statement (~300 words) describing your research context and why you’re interested

(Optional) Any experience testing tools, platforms, or workflows