Strategy & Operations Lead — Reality Labs Research

At Meta's Reality Labs Research (RLR), we are inventing the future of virtual and augmented reality. As the Strategy & Operations Lead, you will partner closely with the VP of Research to run how our organization plans, resources, and operates.

You will support strategy development alongside research leadership, own and run the operating cadence of a large, globally distributed research organization, and lead complex, high-stakes cross-organizational initiatives. You will work across research pillars and with Product, Finance, HR, Legal, Comms, Operations, and Facilities to build the relationships and mechanisms that let ambitious, long-horizon research succeed.

The ideal candidate exercises independent judgment informed by organizational context, stakeholder input, and data, is comfortable holding both strategic framing and operational details, and is energized by ambiguous problems in a research environment. This is a full-time individual contributor role with organization-wide scope.

Responsibilities

• Partner with the VP of Research to shape and articulate organizational strategy, and translate it into an annual operating plan with clear goals and success measures
• Own the organization's operating cadence end to end: planning cycles, goal-setting and tracking, quarterly business reviews, leadership staff forums, and decision follow-through
• Drive headcount and budget planning for the organization — annual HC planning, cross-sub-org allocation, forecast accuracy, and utilization rigor — in partnership with Finance and RL leadership
• Represent the VP of Research in cross-functional and leadership forums, carrying out decisions and escalations on their behalf
• Identify, structure, and lead high-impact cross-organizational initiatives, including organizational changes, new team or site stand-ups, and external partnership structures
• Define and instrument the metrics and mechanisms through which leadership understands research progress, resourcing health, and operational risk; proactively surfacing and resolving risk
• Build and improve the systems of record and the information architecture that the organization runs on

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
• 8+ years of experience in strategy, business operations, or program management, including experience in supporting or partnering with senior leaders
• Demonstrated experience running an operating cadence — planning, goal setting, business reviews, and decision follow-through — for a large, multi-team organization
• Experience with headcount and budget planning at scale, including cross-team allocation trade-offs, forecasting, and driving utilization rigor with finance partners
• Track record of independently leading ambiguous cross-functional initiatives to completion, including change management
• Demonstrated the ability to influence and align senior stakeholders without direct authority
• Experience coordinating operations teams, program managers, or vendor/contract worker teams without direct reporting lines
• Written and verbal communication, including authoring leadership review materials
• Experience applying analytical and structured problem-solving approaches to operational challenges, including determining when to investigate in depth versus when to delegate Demonstrated ability to integrate AI tools to optimize/redesign workflows and drive measurable impact (e.g., efficiency gains, quality improvements)
• Experience adhering to and implementing responsible, ethical AI practices (e.g., risk assessment, bias mitigation, quality and accuracy reviews)
• Demonstrated ongoing AI skill development (e.g., prompt/context engineering, agent orchestration) and staying current with emerging AI technologies
• Master's or equivalent graduate degree
• Experience with external partnerships, academic collaborations, or consortium structures
• Experience adhering to and implementing responsible, ethical AI practices (e.g., risk assessment, bias mitigation, quality and accuracy reviews)
• Demonstrated ongoing AI skill development (e.g., prompt/context engineering, agent orchestration) and staying current with emerging AI technologies
• Experience in a research, R&D, or advanced technology organization with long-term, uncertain deliverables
• Experience supporting a VP-level leader as a strategy and operations partner
• Demonstrated ability to integrate AI tools to optimize/redesign workflows and drive measurable impact (e.g., efficiency gains, quality improvements)
• Experience across globally distributed teams and multiple physical sites, including lab or hardware environments