Experience Designer – Research Lead – Sr

Experience Designer – Research Lead – Sr

Requirements

• Design Thinking Facilitation – framing and leading workshops that drive alignment, ideation, and customer-centered decision-making.
• Human-Centered Design – putting user needs at the core of solution-building.
• Journey Mapping / Service Blueprinting – able to visualize and communicate the end-to-end user experience in a way that aligns teams and identifies opportunities.
• Workshop Facilitation Expertise – deep experience designing and running collaborative sessions with stakeholders.
• Mixed-Methods Research – comfortable across qualitative and quantitative methodologies, interviews, usability testing, surveys, A/B testing, readouts with large audiences, contextual inquiries.
• Insight Synthesis & Storytelling – distill findings into compelling insights and present them clearly up and down the org chart.
• Continuous Discovery – advocates for and implements ongoing research to inform product evolution and future phases.
• Evidence-Based Decision Making – Evangelizes user evidence as a key input into product and business strategy.
• Research Ops / Intake Management – setting up and managing a structured intake process, prioritization of work, and resourcing processes.
• Contractor Oversight – Able to assess quality and fit, delegate effectively, and ensure consistent research standards.
• Team Leadership & Mentorship – ability to govern the work of a team, delegate effectively, ensure consistent standards across all researchers.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration – trusted partner to product, design, engineering, and business stakeholders.
• Influence Without Authority – able to align and persuade without formal reporting lines.

Responsibilities

• Influences the process and transforms most complex tasks into intuitive, accessible and easy-to-use designs through the entire experience lifecycle, from the first-time user to the expert.
• Develops and recommends the discovery techniques of customer and business needs through contextual inquiries, and generative and quantitative research. Uncovers customer latent needs and creates vision to meet those needs.
• Drives and establishes the design direction and strategy. Leads others to execute visual, information, interaction and service design elements of the initiative that meets business and customer needs and delights customers. Communicates the initiative and product to others, including senior management, through user journeys, storyboards, prototypes, wireframes and other materials.
• Sets the direction for usability of new and existing products, makes adjustments to align with shifting customer expectations.
• Develops research methods and strategies, conduct studies, and present findings that will inform improvements in the customer experience.
• Coaches and mentors junior staff; Assists management team in training new staff.

Preferred Qualifications

• Agile Web Development
• Business Requirements Documentation (BRD)
• Digital User Experience
• IT Architecture
• JavaScript
• Wireframing