UX Researcher, YouTube Studio Foundations

About the UX Researcher, YouTube Studio Foundations Role at Google

At Google, the foundational principle of “Focus on the user and all else will follow” guides our work. As a User Experience Researcher (UXR), you will be instrumental in making this premise a reality, deeply understanding the needs, attitudes, emotions, and behaviors of the people who use our products.

The Google User Experience (UX) team is a diverse group of UX Designers, Researchers, Writers, Content Strategists, Program Managers, and Engineers, all committed to creating exceptional user experiences. This team plays a critical role in gathering insights that inspire and inform design decisions. You will collaborate closely with multidisciplinary colleagues, as well as engineering and product management teams, to develop industry-leading products that deliver significant value to both users and Google's businesses.

As a UX Researcher, YouTube Studio Foundations, you will empower your team of UXers, product managers, and engineers by providing profound insights into user needs. Your impact will span all stages of product development, working with stakeholders across various functions and levels to create products that are useful, usable, and truly delightful. Your primary research efforts will involve field studies, interviews, diary studies, participatory workshops, ethnography, surveys, usability testing, and logs analysis to explore user behaviors and motivations.

Google fosters a unique UXR community, providing ample opportunities for collaboration and learning from researchers across the company through regular meetups, mentor programs, and access to advanced internal research tools.

At YouTube, we champion the belief that everyone deserves a voice, and that a better world is built through listening, sharing, and community. You'll contribute to a mission that empowers individuals to share their stories, explore their passions, and connect globally. Operating at the intersection of advanced technology and boundless creativity, we move with the pulse of culture, united by the goal of showcasing the world to people. This environment encourages new ideas, solves complex problems, and promotes a collaborative, enjoyable work experience.

Responsibilities

• Influence stakeholders across various organizations to secure support for research-based, user-centric solutions.
• Take ownership of project priorities, ensuring alignment with overarching product goals, and manage resource allocation within your projects.
• Drive improvements in products and services by generating research-driven insights and actionable recommendations.
• Lead teams in defining and evaluating the impact of products, services, and the broader ecosystem.
• Facilitate goal and strategy discussions through comprehensive research, analyzing, consolidating, and synthesizing existing knowledge about user, product, service, or business needs.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 4 years of experience in an applied research setting (e.g., product or academic), or similar.
• Demonstrated experience with various research methods, including usability studies, contextual inquiries, 1:1 interviews, and unmoderated research studies.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree or PhD in Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science, Statistics, Psychology, Anthropology, or a related field.
• 3 years of experience engaging with senior leadership (e.g., Director level and above).
• 2 years of experience conducting UX research on products, managing projects effectively, and working within a matrixed organizational structure.

Key skills/competency

• User Research
• Usability Testing
• Qualitative Research
• Quantitative Analysis
• Stakeholder Management
• Product Development
• Ethnography
• Research Strategy
• Design Thinking
• Data Synthesis