Associate Researcher - Impact Analytics

Solace

Healthcare in the U.S. is fundamentally broken. The system is so complex that 88% of U.S. adults do not have the health literacy necessary to navigate it without help. Solace cuts through the red tape of healthcare by pairing patients with expert advocates and giving them the tools to make better decisions—and get better outcomes.

We're a Series C startup, founded in 2022 and backed by Inspired Capital, Craft Ventures, Torch Capital, Menlo Ventures, Signalfire, and IVP. Our U.S. based team is lean, mission-driven, and growing quickly.

Solace isn't a place to coast. We're here to redefine healthcare—and that demands urgency, precision, and heart. If you're looking to stretch yourself, sharpen your edge, and do the best work of your life alongside a team that cares deeply, you're in the right place. We're intense, and we like it that way.

Role Summary

The person in this role will be an early-career member of the Impact Analytics team, splitting time between two complementary streams of work: structured literature research that supports the Chief Medical Officer's strategic priorities, and rigorous claims-data analysis that contributes to Solace's evidence base on patient outcomes, utilization, and spend. The role reports to the Head of Impact Analytics, with the literature work directed by the CMO.

This is a hands-on role for someone with master's-level training in a quantitative public-health discipline who wants real exposure to evidence synthesis at a strategic level, Medicare claims data, and the day-to-day work of a small research team in a fast-moving company.

Key Responsibilities

• Run structured literature searches on questions that matter to Solace's strategic direction and maintain a working literature library the CMO can pull from

• Synthesize the published evidence base honestly — what the literature does and doesn't support — into briefings useful to leadership conversations

• Construct cohorts and execute analyses inside the CMS Virtual Research Data Center (VRDC) on Medicare claims data, working from analytic specs designed by senior researchers and the Head of Impact Analytics

• Build and maintain analytical datasets and code with attention to data quality, integrity, and reproducibility

• Translate VRDC output into findings the research team can review, iterate on, and use downstream

• Document analytic work to a standard that supports team-wide reproducibility and review

• Partner with senior researchers, clinical, and operations stakeholders on shaping research questions worth pursuing

• Contribute to white papers, case studies, and (over time) peer-reviewed publications, in supporting and co-author roles

Requirements

Education

• Master's-level training in Public Health (HSR or Biostatistics concentration), Health Services Research, Health Policy with quantitative concentration, Epidemiology, Biostatistics, or a closely related field

• Approximately 1-3 years of post-graduate experience working with healthcare data; structured research-assistant work during graduate training counts toward this

Technical Skills

• Zotero for organizing literature

• PubMed search syntax — Boolean operators, MeSH terms, filters

• SQL for complex querying and data manipulation

• R or Python for statistical analysis and research computing (stack tier pending — see CLIN-1328)

• Structured literature search, screening, and evidence-synthesis methods

• Notion (or a comparable structured knowledge-management platform) for collaborative documentation and library-building

• Healthcare claims data structures, particularly Medicare RIF/LDS files

• Cohort construction and longitudinal analysis methods relevant to claims data

• Descriptive epidemiology and standard regression techniques for observational data

Familiarity

• Healthcare data standards (ICD-10, HCPCS, NDC, DRG codes) and Medicare/commercial insurance structures

• Quasi-experimental and causal-inference methods relevant to claims-based outcomes research (propensity score matching, difference-in-differences, survival analysis)

• Reproducible-analysis practices and version control (git)

• VRDC operational conventions (cell-size suppression, output-review caps, named-seat constraints) — or willingness to ramp on these quickly

You have

• A willingness to evaluate and adopt AI-assisted literature research tools — the role contributes to ongoing tool evaluation rather than requiring day-1 fluency in any specific one

• High standards for defensible research and willingness to be honest about what the data can and cannot support

• Business sense and the ability to deliver on non-academic timelines while making pragmatic research choices

• Strong written communication, with the ability to write clearly for both technical and executive audiences — and to write briefings that hold up when leadership asks pointed follow-up questions

• Attention to detail in code, documentation, and results

• Comfort working across two stakeholders with different priorities, and the judgment to be honest about capacity when they pull in different directions

• Natural curiosity that extends beyond a narrow specialty

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with Medicare claims data specifically (rather than commercial claims only)

• Prior work under a CMS DUA or in a CMS Innovator-licensed environment

• A peer-reviewed or working-paper first or co-author publication based on original work

• Prior work in health tech, digital health, or startup environments

What Success Looks Like

Within your first year, you will have stood up a literature-research practice the CMO pulls from regularly, contributed analyses to at least one substantive Impact Analytics project, and built reproducible analytical workflows the research team relies on. You move quickly without sacrificing rigor — balancing academic standards with the pragmatism of a growth-stage company — and you know the difference between what we can describe in the data and what we can actually attribute causally.

Applicants must be based in the United States.

Up for the Challenge?

We look forward to meeting you.

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