Lead UX Researcher

About the role

In this Lead position, you will drive the end-to-end UX research practice for a complex, high-impact product portfolio. You will be expected to lead both strategic generative research and evaluative studies, shaping how the team uncovers and acts on deep user insights.

You will support less experienced researchers on the team through coaching, peer review, and by continuously raising the bar for research quality and influence.

Responsibilities

• Quickly synthesize business objectives and customer needs to define the right research scope.
• Develop a UX research approach, schedule, and detailed test plan.
• Plan, partner with Research Ops on developing strategies on how best to recruit our target audience, script, facilitate, collect, analyze, and document data.
• Lead strategic generative research to identify unmet user needs and long-horizon product opportunities.
• Identify and articulate user needs first, and then potential usability issues, both verbally and through documentation.
• Transform data into prioritized, actionable recommendations within a short turnaround time.
• Influence product and design decisions — not just report findings, but drive next steps.
• Create persuasive presentations for product owners, developers, visual designers, other UX team members, and C-level executives.
• Facilitate internal meetings to triage and manage research findings.
• Demonstrate the business impact of research through clear before/after framing, behavioral outcomes, or measurable product changes.

Requirements

• Enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the end-to-end product development process, with a special emphasis on demonstrating the business impact of UX research and insights.
• Think beyond the click and ask: Why would anyone want to push this button in the first place?
• Experienced leader with experience working side by side with Product, Design, and Engineering leaders to solve the right problems at scale.
• Can write about research findings in a way that does not require voice-over — clear, compelling, and self-contained.
• Can sketch in a collaborative way to illustrate a flow or make a point.
• Bachelor’s degree in a Social Science, or Master’s degree in Social Sciences, Interaction Design, Human Factors, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience applying research to high-volume, interactive B2B and B2C applications, rich web-based applications, or websites.
• Strong analytical problem solving, decision-making, and leadership skills.
• In-depth understanding of user-centered design principles and tools.
• Familiarity with SharePoint and project management tools such as Jira.
• Familiarity performing studies in a virtual lab environment.
• Familiarity with data-logging tools and systems such as Tableau, Qualtrics, Adobe Analytics, or other BI analytic programs.

Qualifications

• Deep knowledge and practical experience structuring user needs through fundamental UX frameworks such as Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) and Customer Experience Outcomes (CXOs).
• Use these frameworks not just to describe user behavior, but to connect research insights directly to business and product decisions.
• Keep pace with agile testing while maintaining the strategic perspective needed to give design teams long-term goals for hitting user objectives.
• Influence decisions and next steps with product and design partners, are comfortable navigating trade-offs, and advocate for user-centered outcomes in roadmap prioritization.
• Practical experience applying AI to accelerate Experience building prototypes with AI tools that pull directly from a body of insights to illustrate recommendations.
• A mindset focused on responsible, thoughtful adoption of AI to raise the efficiency and impact of UX research.
• Lead Expectations in an Embedded Model.

Skills

• Proactive and self-directed — identifies opportunities and acts without waiting for direction.
• Provides strategic and thought leadership on UX research practices, methods, and the team’s overall research approach.
• Partner with other customer insight functions, including Product Marketing and Customer Experience teams to create a more wholistic research roadmap and triangulate data.
• Form key partnerships with product, engineering, and design to unearth deeply impactful research opportunities.
• Advocates for user-centered decisions in roadmaps and influences next steps with product and design partners.
• Navigates trade-offs thoughtfully and helps teams make informed, user-grounded decisions under constraints.
• Supports less experienced UX researchers through coaching, peer review, and mentorship.
• Continuously raises the bar for what “Lead level” research looks like in quality, influence, and outcomes.
• A strong team player who collaborates naturally while operating autonomously and owning results end to end.

Benefits

• Hybrid Work Model: We’ve adopted a flexible hybrid working environment (2-3 days a week in the office depending on the role) for our office-based roles while delivering a seamless experience that is digitally and physically connected.
• Flexibility & Work-Life Balance: Flex My Way is a set of supportive workplace policies designed to help manage personal and professional responsibilities, whether caring for family, giving back to the community, or finding time to refresh and reset.
• Career Development and Growth: By fostering a culture of continuous learning and skill development, we prepare our talent to tackle tomorrow’s challenges and deliver real-world solutions.
• Industry Competitive Benefits: We offer comprehensive benefit plans to include flexible vacation, two company-wide Mental Health Days off, access to the Headspace app, retirement savings, tuition reimbursement, employee incentive programs, and resources for mental, physical, and financial wellbeing.
• Culture: Globally recognized, award-winning reputation for inclusion and belonging, flexibility, work-life balance, and more.
• Social Impact: Make an impact in your community with our Social Impact Institute.
• Making a Real-World Impact: We are one of the few companies globally that helps its customers pursue justice, truth, and transparency.

Pay

The base compensation range varies across locations. Eligible office location(s) for this role include one or more of the following: New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and/or Irvine, CA; McLean, VA; Washington, DC. The base compensation range for the role in any of those locations is $146,800 USD - $272,600 USD. For any eligible US locations, unless otherwise noted, the base compensation range for this role is $127,400 USD - $236,600 USD. For Ontario, Canada, the base compensation range for this role is $132,800 CAD - $182,800 CAD.

Schedule

Base pay is positioned within the range based on several factors including an individual’s knowledge, skills and experience with consideration given to internal equity.