UX Research Lead at Google

About the job

At Google, we follow a simple but vital premise: "Focus on the user and all else will follow." User Experience Researchers (UXRs) make this possible.

Google User Experience (UX) is made up of multi-disciplinary teams of UX Designers, Researchers, Writers, Content Strategists, Program Managers, and Engineers: we care deeply about the people who use our products. The UX team plays an integral part in gathering insights about the needs, attitudes, emotions, and behaviors of people who use our products to inspire and inform design. We collaborate closely with each other and with engineering and product management to create industry-leading products that deliver value for the people who use them, and for Google’s businesses.

As a User Experience Researcher (UXR), you’ll help your team of UXers, product managers, and engineers understand user needs. You’ll work with stakeholders across functions and levels and have impact at all stages of product development. You’ll play a critical role in creating useful, usable, and delightful products. You’ll explore user behaviors and motivations by conducting primary research such as field studies, interviews, diary studies, participatory workshops, ethnography, surveys, usability testing, and logs analysis.

The UXR community at Google is unique and will help you do your best work. You’ll have the opportunity to work with and learn from UXRs across Google through regular meetups, mentor programs, and access to internal research tools.

In Google Search, we're reimagining what it means to search for information – any way and anywhere. To do that, we need to solve complex engineering challenges and expand our infrastructure, while maintaining a universally accessible and useful experience that people around the world rely on. In joining the Search team, you'll have an opportunity to make an impact on billions of people globally.

Responsibilities

• Conduct independent research collecting and analyzing user behavior through a range of mixed methods, including lab studies, field visits, interviews, surveys, concept evaluations, etc.
• Conduct foundational, strategic, and iterative research. Work with stakeholders to formulate research questions and collaborate to draw out insights.
• Partner closely with cross-functional stakeholders to understand research needs, and craft and execute studies that address priorities in a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment.
• Drive change by communicating compelling and actionable findings to diverse audiences. Impact product strategy and design through your research. 
• Deliver business impact by advocating for the user in key business decisions. 

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science, Experimental Psychology, Anthropology, Information Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8 years of experience within User Experience, an applied research setting, or product research and development.
• Experience in an applied research setting, including experience integrating user research into product designs and strategy.

Preferred qualifications:

• Knowledge of a wide range of UX and market research methods and techniques, such as lab-based usability studies, field research, usability inspections, creation of user profiles or personas, participatory design, survey research, experiment design, and statistical analysis.
• Ability to communicate research results in a clear, concise, and compelling way through written reports and presentations.
• Excellent leadership, communication, facilitation, and collaboration skills.