Senior User Researcher

Overview

We are seeking a Senior User Researcher to join our multi-disciplinary team of over 60 user researchers and planners working on a breadth of experiences across Microsoft 365 (M365). In this position, you’ll be part of the team responsible for reimagining Outlook products by leveraging AI and Microsoft Copilot to transform how millions of people communicate every day. You will work closely with designers, product managers, and engineers to define and deliver innovative AI powered solutions that empower people and teams to work more effectively and efficiently.

In this specific role, you will be responsible for bringing the user experience and competitive insights to the teams delivering on core communication and productivity experiences both within Outlook and across M365 Copilot. You’ll leverage your mixed methods skills as you take on complex and nuanced topics and work to define and drive near and long-term investments. You will work closely with other user researchers, designers, and program managers to ensure that we are addressing the most critical needs and opportunities.

We’re looking for someone who is forward-thinking and willing to challenge the status quo and to help define and incubate new ideas. This position requires strong research, organization and storytelling skills, and the ability to work across teams. The ability to establish a strong point of view – informed by both market and user level insights – and to leverage your POV to define product direction is a must. You have systems thinking skills, understanding how complex systems work and how they can be improved, to integrate AI within the existing M365 ecosystem to create a seamless, effective, and personalized user experience for both individuals and project teams.

We’re especially looking for someone who wants to learn, grow, and embody new ways of working. If you embrace a growth mindset, have a track record of delivering results, and you light up collaborating with other researchers, planners, designers, product managers and engineers you’ll feel right at home on this awesome team.

Responsibilities

• Create a research strategy and build/deliver impactful research plan(s) that provide deep competitive and customer insights needed to impact strategy and UX.
• Derive insights from quantitative and qualitative data, complementing other research that you will conduct on your own or in partnership with other researchers. Key to this accountability will be identifying gaps and customer pain points, as well as potential customer delighters.
• Define and measure UX approaches, metrics, and work with core stakeholders on research planning. Innovate and develop new approaches to measure users’ experiences.
• Gain insights into user behavior, retention and churn by studying the product funnel and align qualitative research plans to uncover the ‘why’.
• Identify stakeholders across Microsoft and bring them along as you provide qualitative and quantitative customer feedback to influence product development at different granularity, from product strategy to cross-platform coherence to feature usability.
• Work across organizational boundaries and across disciplines with UX Designers, other User Researchers, Data/Applied Science, Program Managers and Engineers to ensure that we’re addressing the most critical business and technology objectives to meet the right user needs and opportunities.
• Land impact broadly from your customer-focused knowledge by working across multiple organizations (from Outlook to Teams to M365) and their respective engineering, design and marketing teams.
• Partner with Applied and Data Science to integrate customer data and insights into AI model evaluation sets and quality rubrics.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications (RQs)

• Doctorate in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND 1+ year(s) User Experience Research experienceOR Master's Degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND 3+ years User Experience Research experienceOR Bachelor's Degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND 4+ years User Experience Research experienceOR equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications (PQs)

• Hands-on research and/or product planning experience, with demonstrated skill in collecting and analyzing human behavioral data to improve plans and UX in an AI-forward technology industry setting.
• Experience impacting both product direction and detailed experience design on products leveraging AI and large language models (LLMs).
• Proficient in data or funnel analysis or deep quantitative research design and analysis.
• Use of AI to augment research workflows (planning, moderating, analysis, reporting).
• Experience with integrating research/customer data in AI model evaluation sets and quality rubrics.

Key skills/competency

• User Experience Research
• AI Integration
• Microsoft Copilot
• Mixed Methods Research
• Product Strategy
• Qualitative Data Analysis
• Quantitative Data Analysis
• Stakeholder Management
• Systems Thinking
• UX Metrics