Meta
Running a $14–20M research budget, one tracked purchase at a time
I managed the research budget for Meta's Reality Labs Wearables team: every vendor contract, contractor engagement, tool, off-site and hardware purchase, plus the long-term research programs that spend funded.
- Role
- Senior Research Program Manager (contract)
- Team
- Wearables research, ~90 researchers
- Timeframe
- 2024 – 2026
- Scope
- Budget, vendors, contractors, long-term programs
- research budget managed
- $14–20M
- research budget managed
- researchers supported
- ~90
- researchers supported
- faster recruitment
- ~30%
- faster recruitment
- faster research turnaround
- ~25%
- faster research turnaround
Overview
Research for Wearables runs on a lot of outside spend: tooling, vendor partners, contractors, off-sites and hardware, all of which has to be contracted, tracked and accounted for.
I owned the money behind all of it, and the long-term research programs it paid for.
The challenge
A budget this size spreads across many kinds of spend at once: outside tooling, vendor partnerships, short- and long-term contractors, off-sites and hardware. Each has its own contracts, approval paths and timelines.
Research leaders needed to know where spend stood at any moment, and long-running programs needed participants recruited thoroughly, on schedule and within cost.
What I built
How I ran it, in the order spend moves through the system.
Contract submission
Every vendor and contractor contract came through me for submission, so nothing was committed outside the plan.
Purchase tracking
I built internal trackers and logged every purchase against them, giving a live view of spend by category.
Program budgets
Long-term research programs each had their own budget, which I oversaw alongside the overall research budget.
Recruitment oversight
I made sure participant recruitment for those programs was thorough and landed within expected timelines and costs.
Faster workflows
Improved AI tooling and internal workflows to clear bottlenecks and launch projects sooner, cutting recruitment timelines about 30% and research turnaround about 25%.
- Tooling
- Outside research tools and platforms
- Vendors
- 60+ vendor partnership contracts
- Contractors
- 30 short- and long-term contractor contracts
- Off-sites
- Research off-sites
- Hardware
- Devices and equipment for research
Impact
- A $14–20M budget spanning 60+ vendor contracts and 30 contractor contracts, with every purchase tracked.
- Long-term research programs kept recruiting thorough and inside expected timelines and costs.
- Recruitment about 30% faster and research turnaround about 25% faster for a team of roughly 90 researchers.