We are seeking a Principal UX Researcherto join our UX Strategy team that sits at the nexus of research, design, and product planning for Microsoft 365 experiences.Working in this spacemeansinfluencing the experiences of100s of millions of people every day.Our teamtakesthis influence seriously,andweareactivelyinnovatingour research practicestoensure all people using Microsoft products have arepresentedvoice in what webuild.Our successin doing sois dependent on building teams that include people from a variety of backgrounds and experiences who can challenge each other's assumptions withfreshperspective. Your experiences and your demonstrated skill sets are far more important than your level.If you are interested, feel free to apply regardless of your years of experience.
This Competitive Insights role, rooted in the AI landscape, will be responsible for bringing the user experience, market, and competitive insights to the teams responsible for re-imagining core productivity and creativity in Microsoft 365, with a specific focus on consumer audiences. You will create deep understanding of both top and bottom of the funnel drivers of competitive usage. You'll help ground the product vision in market realities. You'll leverage your quantitative skills to drive improvements in metrics and dashboarding, and your mixed methods skills as you evangelize insights through rich storytelling. You'll work closely with UX designers and strategist, other user researchers, data science, market research, and engineering partners to proactively drive investments in our ecosystem flywheel and ensure that we're addressing the most critical needs and opportunities.
We're looking for someone that is willing to challenge and provoke new ideas. This position requires research, storytelling, and organization skills, and the ability to work across teams. We are looking for the ability to establish a point of view - informed by market and user level insights - and to leverage that to focus and define product strategy.
We're especially looking for someone who wants to learn, grow, and embody new ways of working. If you embrace growth mindset, have a track record of delivering results, and you light up collaborating with other planners, researchers, designers, product managers and engineers this is an awesome team to join.
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.
In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.
Responsibilities
Build and execute impactful research plan(s) that provide the broad market views and deep competitive and customer insights needed to impact product strategy and user experiences.
Firmly grounded in the context of UX strategy, consistently monitor competitive actions and the market response. Interpret these movements and their implications for product strategy and user experience.
Employ these collective insights to inform strategic decisions ranging from product vision to prioritization of engineering work items, new investment areas, target audience definition, UX metrics and business model. Key to this accountability will be identifying gaps and customer pain points, as well as potential customer delighters.
Identify and stakeholders across Microsoft and bring them along as you provide qualitative and quantitative insights to influence shifts in product and business strategy at different levels of granularityfromproduct planning to cross-platform coherence to feature usability.
Derive insights from quantitative and qualitative data, complementing other research that you will conduct on your own or in partnership with other researchers.
Land impact broadly from your customer-focused knowledge by working across multiple organizations and their respective engineering, design and marketing teams.
Other: Embody our Culture (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/about/corporate-values) and Values (https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/culture)
Qualifications
Required Qualifications:
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 6+ years User Experience Research experience
OR 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 4+ year(s) User Experience Research experience
OR 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 3+ years User Experience Research experience
OR equivalent experience.
Preferred Qualifications
Hands-on research and/or product planning experience, withdemonstratedskill in collecting and analyzing human behavioral data and business data to improve plans and UX in a technology industry setting
Hands-on experience applying insights generated from user research and competitive intelligence to product-led growth practices.
Experienceimpactingboth product direction and detailed experience designincluding on products leveraging AI and large language models (LLMs)
4+ years relevant domain experience within the technology sector
4+ years experience in research methods impacting both product direction and detailed experience design.
UX Research IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $133,600 - $256,800 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $173,200 - $282,200 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
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Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations (https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html) .
