Staff UX Researcher - AI Agents

About the role

Secure Every Identity, from AI to Human Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real-world stakes. We are looking for builders and owners who operate with speed and urgency and execute with excellence. This is an opportunity to do career-defining work.

You will proactively construct and own an AI-forward research roadmap for key product pillars at Okta, operating at the intersection of Identity, Security, and Artificial Intelligence. As a Staff-level individual contributor, you will drive both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to define user experiences for non-deterministic AI agents, automated workflows, and developer platforms. Additionally, you leverage agentic tools and AI workflows internally to scale qualitative coding, synthesis, and research operations across the organization.

Responsibilities

• Drive AI Agent Research: Lead foundational and evaluative research on autonomous AI agents and the security thereof.
• Execute Balanced Mixed-Methods: Drive qualitative depth (contextual inquiry, cognitive walkthroughs) and quantitative rigor (large-scale surveys, behavioral telemetry, statistical modeling) to evaluate AI products.
• Pioneer AI Research Operations: Integrate AI tools, prompt engineering, and agentic research workflows into your daily practice to accelerate quality research outputs.
• Lead Cross-Discipline Collaboration: Facilitate research to drive cross-discipline clarity, executive alignment, and decision-making across complex security and admin workflows.
• Solve Complex Problems: Bring stakeholders together across multiple teams to scope problems and collaborate on research in ways that nurture a culture of curiosity and learning.
• Cultivate Empathy: Design mechanisms to build up customer empathy and deep knowledge of our partners, end users, consumers, administrators, and other identified audiences.
• Tell High-Impact Stories: Represent your research to diverse audiences across the organization by telling compelling stories that motivate others to solve complex needs with your insights.

Requirements

• Staff-Level Expertise: 7+ years of hands-on UX research experience in complex B2B, developer, or enterprise software environments, with a track record of driving product impact at a Senior or Staff level.
• Mixed-Methods Research Knowledge: Demonstrated equal mastery across Qualitative and Quantitative research methodologies.
• AI Tool Practitioner: Active daily practitioner of AI tools and prompt workflows to streamline research processes and execution, including but not limited to synthesis, structuring unstructured data, and scaling insight delivery.
• Domain Experience: Experience with products made for developers, administrators, or other technical audiences; experience working on security products is a strong plus.
• Strategic Problem Solving: Strong ability to plan, prioritize, organize, and solve complex problems independently while working with technical and business constraints.
• Cross-Functional Communication: History of effective communication, storytelling, and alignment across all levels of leadership and cross-functional partners (Product, Design, ML Engineering, Data Science).
• Mentorship & Leadership: Voracious learner and coach to people around you, raising the methodological and technical bar for the team.
• Education: Master’s or Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Cognitive Psychology, Computer Science, Data Science, Social Sciences, or equivalent industry experience.

Nice-to-Have

• Advanced Quantitative Toolkit: SQL, R or Python, Cluster Analysis, Advanced Statistical Modeling, A/B Testing.
• AI Systems & Ops: Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) UX Evaluation, Advanced Prompt Engineering for Ops, Agentic Workflow Evaluation, Synthetic Data Validation.

Pay

The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in the San Francisco Bay area is between $174,000 USD - $240,000 USD.

The annual base salary range for candidates located in California (excluding San Francisco Bay Area), Colorado, Illinois, New York, and Washington is between $156,000 USD - $215,000 USD.

The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in Canada is between $140,000 CAD - $192,000 CAD.

In addition, Okta offers equity (where applicable), bonus, and benefits, including health, dental and vision insurance, 401(k), flexible spending account, and paid leave (including PTO and parental leave) in accordance with our applicable plans and policies. To learn more about our Total Rewards program, please visit https://rewards.okta.com/us (US) or https://rewards.okta.com/can (Canada).

Benefits

• The Okta Experience Supporting Your Well-Being
• Driving Social Impact
• Developing Talent and Fostering Connection + Community

We are intentional about connection. Our global community, spanning over 20 offices worldwide, is united by a drive to innovate. Your journey begins with an immersive, in-person onboarding experience designed to accelerate your impact and connect you to our mission and team from day one.