Humans of Rally: Crystal Kubitsky, Senior ReOps Consultant

Humans of Rally is a behind-the-scenes look at the people building the future of user research and turning ideas into tools that make research faster, more collaborative, and more human.

Crystal Kubitsky was one of Rally’s earliest customers and biggest champions, and is now our first Research Operations hire. As a Senior Research Operations Consultant, she brings her ReOps expertise inside the team to help customers strengthen their operations and get more out of Rally.

What led you to ReOps and also what led you to Rally?

Crystal: Before I was in Research Operations, I was a researcher, research leader, and designer – research has always been part of my work. In the places I worked, we didn’t have a dedicated ReOps function, so those responsibilities often fell to me or were shared across the team. 

Rally is the only vendor tool I’ve used in my career that I couldn’t live without. If I joined another company, I’d be asking whether they had it or how to influence getting it. When I was looking for a new opportunity to grow my craft and leadership skills, I reached out to Rally, and our conversation led to creating this consulting service. 

I’m happy to be here because I get to see how the product is made, bring in my background, work with customers, and get exposure to a wide variety of industries, team sizes, and challenges that I wouldn’t get inside a single company or even as an independent consultant.

What does your role at Rally look like day to day? 

Crystal: My role is similar to customer success: helping people make the best use of Rally to support their Research Operations function. I lean more into leveling up the Research Ops function, and Rally is one of the tools you use to do that. Rally is robust and flexible, and a lot people may not recognize what they can do with it.

I’m working with 3 clients right now. We’re in early stages, defining what a consulting practice looks like and how that differs from built-in customer success support.

There are many opportunities to connect with the customer success team and figure out what I’m doing that can improve their day to day versus what should be a distinct consulting service.

You were influential as a customer helping shape Rally. How has that shown up in your role now?

Crystal: The past experience that I’ve had gave me a really strong foundation and a lot of lessons around how to implement and enable Rally. I did this in a company that had over 80 people who could be running research at any given time, with only 12 of them trained and dedicated researchers. I was fortunate to introduce Rally in that kind of space, and it’s given me a lot of lessons to bring forward to customers.

There are a lot of different ideas that we tried that I already have at the ready to see how they apply and work in other contexts. So far we’re finding many of them to be helpful, and some of them need to be tweaked.

How do you collaborate with teams across the company?

Crystal: One of the exciting parts of my role is that it’s not just consulting with customers. Every week I take advantage of the opportunity, either initiated by me or requested of me, to help my Rally teammates.

That includes renewing messaging strategies for sales and what really resonates, helping craft new content for the blog, supporting marketing events, and contributing to design conversations around new features. I can bring in context there and lean into support, looking at issues we’re seeing from different angles, investigate new challenges, and figure out what the right response should be.

I get to participate in all of those ways because it’s such an open environment, and it’s exciting to be a part of them.

What is something unique about how Rally collaborates with the research community?

Crystal: I really like that the company provides a platform without influence for the community. It creates a space for people to come together to talk about what they’ve learned and the challenges they have. A lot of the AMAs do this, and the question and answer sessions at the end creates that environment too.

It’s not a big “now buy Rally because Rally solves this” moment, and that really resonates with this community. Having a space to learn and communicate without feeling sold to creates a really good community environment that I think only benefits Rally.

What surprised you about joining Rally and adjusting to a small startup after being a customer on the outside? 

Crystal: Two things surprised me. First, I was impressed by how organized the company is given its size. Things are documented, and we make good use of automation and AI to help everyone stay focused and connected.

Second, I learned how essential it is to protect the customer experience even on the inside. As a customer, I could openly say what was good and what was challenging. On the Rally side, I now see the complexity behind product decisions. I’ve learned to act as a translator and advocate, framing feedback or decisions in a way that feels authentic while still being protective. It builds trust while maintaining openness.

I also expected it to feel like the wild west and was impressed that it wasn’t. It was organized, intentional, and less chaotic than I imagined. A key skill here is being a self starter. You take ownership of the questions you bring. You don’t just come with a problem, you come with ideas you’ve thought through. In a startup, you also own the solution. You need to be comfortable not knowing the answer, trying new things, assessing risk, and understanding the impact of decisions.

Do you have advice for someone considering joining Rally?

Crystal: Lean into the values Rally has on the site. They are lived daily and weekly, not just at review time. If you resonate with those values, you’ll do well here. You also need to be a self starter and willing to own things. You don’t just bring ideas, you bring solutions and help carry them forward. It’s rewarding to see your ideas come to life and to play a driving role in that.

What excites you most about Rally’s future in ways that would also excite a candidate?

Crystal: I’m really excited by how central and foundational Rally is in that story of connecting a company with their customers. It isn’t limited to research. It can go beyond that to other departments, and it was a story that I was trying to enable at my previous company. Rally gives you a safe, reliable way of connecting with customers and honoring the way they want to be contacted.

Rally is the hub for user research. Rally chooses to integrate with the best tools for the job over trying to be the best at everything. As a researcher, you can focus more on using the best methods and tools to get the insights you need through Rally’s connective tissue and trust that you don’t have to sacrifice how you connect with customers or the way you want to connect with them.

💜 Want to work with a team that partners deeply with customers and the research community every day? Explore our open roles and come say hi!