As a Manager - User Research, you will lead and mentor a team of user experience researchers to gather and synthesize insights about user behaviors, needs, and motivations. You will be a strategic leader who will align the research roadmap with broader business goals, advocates for user-centric design, and guide the team to produce actionable findings that drive product decisions.
Responsibilities
- Strategy and planning: Develop the overall vision, strategy, and roadmap for the UX research team, ensuring it aligns with product and business objectives.
- Team leadership: Recruit, hire, and manage a team of UX researchers. Responsibilities include mentoring, providing professional development opportunities, conducting performance reviews, and fostering a collaborative team culture.
- Research oversight: Oversee the planning and execution of a wide range of qualitative and quantitative studies, such as usability testing, user interviews, surveys, and ethnographic research.
- Stakeholder collaboration: Partner with cross-functional leaders in product management, design, and engineering to prioritize research opportunities and ensure that user insights are integrated into the product development lifecycle.
- Advocacy and evangelism: Act as the voice of the user within the organization, effectively communicating research findings to stakeholders and senior leadership through compelling presentations and storytelling.
- Process and operations: Build and refine research processes and operations (ResearchOps) to improve efficiency and impact. This can include managing budgets, creating participant recruitment processes, and organizing a central repository for research insights.
- Insight synthesis: Ensure that research findings are synthesized into actionable recommendations that inform product strategy and design solutions.
Required Skills And Qualifications
Technical and research skills
- Expert knowledge of research methods: Deep expertise in qualitative methods (e.g., interviews, usability tests) and quantitative methods (e.g., surveys, A/B testing).
- Data analysis: The ability to analyze behavioral data and statistical metrics to complement qualitative findings.
- Research tools: Proficiency with a wide range of user research and analytics tools, such as UserTesting, Dovetail, Figma, and Google Analytics.
- Design thinking: A strong understanding of the user-centered design process, from empathy and ideation to prototyping and testing.
Management and soft skills
- Leadership: Proven ability to manage, mentor, and inspire a team of researchers.
- Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills for presenting complex findings to diverse audiences.
- Strategic thinking: The capacity to connect user research to broader business and product strategies.
- Collaboration: Strong interpersonal skills for building and maintaining relationships with cross-functional teams.
- Problem-solving: Ability to identify and resolve complex design and research issues.
Education and experience
- Education: A bachelor's or master's degree in a field such as Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Psychology, Anthropology, or Design is preferred.
- Experience: At least 8+ years of experience in UX research, including 3+ years of direct people management experience in a fast-paced environment.
- Portfolio: A portfolio demonstrating previous high-impact research projects and leadership.
