Senior User Experience Researcher

Microsoft Design is seeking a Senior User Experience Researcher in Redmond, WA to build the next generation of tools, systems, and infrastructure that enable UX Research to scale across the Windows organization. This role bridges research insights and organizational action by creating and championing research tools that teams value and adopt. The work connects knowledge across studies, product areas, and audiences to surface broader patterns and opportunities, driving measurable improvements in UX quality and craft.

About the role

The Windows & Devices Research & Design organization is looking for a technical Senior User Experience Researcher to help close the gap between research insights and organizational action. In partnership with UX researchers, product managers, designers, data science, and engineering leaders, you will design and operationalize research tools that make insights findable, composable, and ready for both human and AI-powered workflows. This role requires a blend of program strategy, operational excellence, and fundamental UXR skills to shape how Windows learns from customers and improves experiences for millions of users.

The ideal candidate is passionate about building systems that drive measurable UX improvements, with hands-on research experience, fluency in working with data at scale, and the technical ability to architect, prototype, and operationalize tools and AI-enabled systems. You thrive on both conducting research and building the systems that support and amplify it, with a track record of delivering end-to-end tools that change how organizations work.

Responsibilities

• Design, operationalize, and maintain research infrastructure and quality scaling programs, including the research knowledge system.
• Leverage AI agents, agentic systems, and self-service infrastructure to scale quality programs across hundreds of product makers.
• Partner with UX researchers, product managers, designers, and engineering leaders to co-create programs that drive product and experience quality, ensuring adoption and value.
• Establish measurement frameworks to track program adoption, quality outcomes, and the impact of customer feedback on product decisions, demonstrating how systematic customer connections improve shipped experiences.
• Champion and drive adoption of new tools through training, best practices, showcase examples, and ongoing support, helping teams integrate them naturally into workflows.
• Continuously evolve tools and systems based on team feedback, emerging AI capabilities, and metrics, innovating to drive measurable improvements in product excellence.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Doctorate in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND 1+ year(s) of User Experience Research experience.
• OR Master's Degree in the above fields AND 3+ years of User Experience Research experience.
• OR Bachelor's Degree in the above fields AND 4+ years of User Experience Research experience.
• OR equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Deep understanding of research operations and methodologies, with end-to-end experience building production-quality internal tools, research platforms, data pipelines, and/or AI-enabled workflows.
• Ability to translate research and operational requirements into technical system designs.
• Experience with data modeling, taxonomies, or ontology design for both structured and unstructured data.
• Experience building or managing data pipelines (ingestion, storage, transformation, data delivery), including data cleansing, enrichment, aggregation, and integration.
• Experience with modern data platforms for storing, transforming, and surfacing data at scale, especially Microsoft Fabric and data lakehouses.
• Track record of measuring and demonstrating program impact on product quality metrics, user satisfaction scores, or business outcomes, with examples of quality improvements driven by systematic customer feedback.

Pay

The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800 - $234,700 per year. For specific work locations within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, the base pay range is USD $160,200 - $261,000 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.