Design Researcher- User Experience

We’re looking for a Design Researcher to design studies, recruit participants, moderate sessions, analyze findings, and develop actionable recommendations that improve our customer experience. This role defines, plans, and executes human-centered discovery and validation activities—both generative and evaluative—across digital (e-commerce mobile and desktop) and physical retail stores.

About the role

Your research will directly shape experiences used across our national retail network, including our in-store employee application (retail services and point-of-sale), partner retail experiences, online content pages, customer ordering flows, and creative tools integrated into the retail environment.

You’ll own a comprehensive research strategy and have the autonomy to recommend the right methodology for any scenario, drawing on a full toolkit from generative through evaluative research across both digital and physical touchpoints. You’ll also help coach and grow research practice across the team, not just execute studies.

This is a hybrid position located in Memphis, TN, Pittsburgh, PA, or Plano, TX. Candidates must live within 50 miles of the campus location and will be required to work on-site several times per week.

Responsibilities

• Develop a comprehensive research strategy to drive qualitative insights and quantitative data into decisions across the product and experience lifecycle.
• Lead, plan, recruit, and execute a range of formative and iterative research studies, including empathy interviews, ethnographic/field research, diary studies, heuristic evaluations, rapid and iterative usability and concept testing, and surveys.
• Conduct research for both digital (web/mobile) and retail (in-store) experiences, across all development stages from conception to design to release.
• Translate research findings from multiple data sources into actionable recommendations; communicate and evangelize results in compelling ways to cross-functional teams and leadership.
• Influence leadership with a persuasive, insight-driven stance on difficult customer experience and business issues.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams—CX, design, product, business, IT, and marketing—to define and prioritize research needs across a breadth of experiences and platforms.
• Provide recommendations for appropriate research to inform customer strategy, vision, roadmaps, and initiatives.
• Practice and help evolve the team’s research techniques and toolset to work effectively within a rapid product and experience development cadence.
• Partner with business and product teams to leverage quantitative research into insights; use analytics tools and quantitative techniques to measure success, present opportunities, and support decision-making and prioritization.
• Leverage deep human-factors expertise to guide design teams in developing highly intuitive user interactions and interfaces across online and in-store experiences.
• Identify and champion opportunities for infusing a learning mindset throughout the organization and promoting transparency and accessibility to collective insights across teams and departments.
• Build and maintain a reusable knowledge base of customer/experience research; assist team members with leveraging previous research studies and insights to drive strategy and decisions for current initiatives.
• Provide coaching to team members who are developing and conducting user research activities; oversee the research relationship with vendors and contractors when needed.
• Travel as required to meet with customers, vendors, other team members, and/or other business necessities.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree, preferably in behavioral science, HCI, human factors, user-centered design, psychology, anthropology, or sociology (or equivalent experience). Master’s degree a plus.
• 7+ years professional experience in full-cycle design research methods, ranging from ethnography to statistically-based user testing.
• 3+ years of experience researching for retail omni-channel services, including digital e-commerce and physical retail store interactions.
• Portfolio of work samples demonstrating experience influencing customer experience and strategy through research planning, execution, data, and insights.
• Hands-on experience with lab-based user testing, remote testing, paper prototype testing, iterative prototype testing, concept testing, field research, and survey design.
• Strong understanding of strengths and shortcomings of different research methods, including when and how to apply them.
• Exceptional behavioral data-collection and analysis skills (e.g., designing, conducting, and analyzing all kinds of user data).
• Excellent problem-solving skills with the ability to analyze situations, identify opportunities, and recommend solutions.
• Experience working on cross-functional teams and synthesizing feedback from CX, product, business, IT, and marketing.
• Experience presenting to and advising senior management; comfortable and confident presenting to all levels within the organization in both written and verbal communication.

Skills

• Proficiency with UX research and testing tools (e.g., UserTesting, Figma).
• Strong mixed-methods background: contextual inquiry, usability testing, heuristic evaluation.
• Ability to translate research findings quickly into visual artifacts and actionable recommendations for UX/Product partners.
• Comfort conducting in-person interviews and store visits (this role requires talking directly with customers in-store, not just remote/digital research).
• Experience using AI tools to support research workflows (synthesis, analysis, rapid prototyping).

Pay

Dallas, TX & Pittsburgh: $5,960.29/mo – $9,834.48/mo
Memphis: $5,662.27/mo – $9,342.75/mo

Benefits

For details on our comprehensive benefits, visit FedEx Office benefits page.