Senior UX Researcher

Microsoft Teams is seeking a Senior UX Researcher with a proven track record for delivering compelling user experiences that are usable, seamless, impactful solutions, deeply rooted in customer needs. In this role, you'll be part of the team responsible for enhancing the user experience of Teams workflows. You will work closely with Designers, Product Managers, and Engineers to define and deliver innovative solutions that empower people and teams to work more effectively and efficiently.

We are passionate about putting customers front and center while creating solutions to complex problems that empower our users to be more productive, efficient, and successful. Our diverse team of researchers and designers who work on a variety of products including, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Planner and more, will provide an environment where you will thrive and grow professionally. This is an amazing opportunity to reach hundreds of millions of users with your innovative and creative work. We approach our problem space with empathy for our customers, as well as a drive to innovate and evolve the product. We are building partnerships with teams across Microsoft, functioning as scenario and customer experts to solve real customer problems.

Our team sits within the Collaboration Experiences Design (CxD) organization which is a diverse team of UX Researchers, Designers, Producers, Content Writers, Creatives, and UX Engineers who partner closely across disciplines, such as Product Management, Data Science, Engineering, and Marketing. The CxD Research team is known for research excellence, collaboration, and our supportive culture.

We are a high-performing team that challenges ourselves to live the Microsoft philosophies around inclusive culture and growth mindset. Local mentoring rings and communities allow us to learn from each other and grow. We focus on having inclusive interactions that foster productive dialog. We are dedicated to the work of creating an inclusive, and transparent culture - a safe place to do our best work!

We have a proven track record of delivering positive business results with key metrics to track our successes and failures. We are a truly hybrid work environment with much of our team in Washington state and across the USA and Prague. We also work closely with our partners in India, China and new teams in Atlanta and Vancouver, Canada. We like to have fun, celebrate our wins, and learn and grow from our mistakes.

We would love to talk to you if:

• You're passionate about applying human-centered design thinking and advocating for strategic and foundational research to identify big picture problems.
• You're skilled in both qualitative and quantitative methods, and have end-to-end experience with all aspects of research (study design, recruiting, moderation, analysis, reporting).
• You're a detail-obsessed and highly organized person when it comes to designing user research studies and do not lose sight of the big picture when synthesizing meaningful insights that drive innovative design.
• You're a great storyteller; able to confidently and creatively communicate research insights in ways that influence product and design decisions at multiple levels of leadership.
• You have experience collaborating with design, product management, data science, marketing, and engineering teams around the company and globe, leveraging partnerships for diverse perspective on our products.
• You have experience contributing to broaden multi-discipline team's creative processes, team building, and our cultural values around diversity, inclusion, transparency, and growth mindset.
• You have experience contributing to the learning and growth of the broader research team.
• You have experience learning and understanding about diverse audiences, their behaviors, context(s) and motivations - across all phases of the customer lifecycle and user journey.
• You can demonstrate empathy for users while balancing the vision and constraints of stakeholders.

Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

This is a unique opportunity for someone who thinks and works strategically and is motivated to partner across disciplines to deliver holistic experiences in a customer driven organization. Microsoft Teams is part of the Microsoft 365 family, bringing opportunities to work with a vast number of teams at Microsoft to deliver innovative and coherent solutions. Experience in UX Research practice and methodology throughout the product cycle is critical for customer and product impact.

In this role, you will:

• Understand UX Research needs and develop research plans and roadmaps to deliver insights that will guide product development decisions across the lifecycle.
• Create and manage UX research knowledge that is leveraged across design and engineering teams and across products when appropriate.
• Provide actionable insights as an outcome of research activities and drive those insights into product and design plans working with peers and leaders in the PM and Design organizations.
• Effectively communicate research strategies, methodologies and insights to peers, partners, and stakeholders throughout the organization.
• Be a key partner in ensuring product success by representing the value of UX Research to product managers and engineers throughout the organization.
• Work closely with design counterparts in global teams to align research activities and execution consistently.
• Leverage your insights and experience in design reviews and planning cycles to improve the team's ability to deliver world-class design solutions for our customers.
• Work to uplevel and cross-pollinate learnings and experiences with other CxD Researchers.