UX Researcher - (Hardware/AR/VR/Wearables)

Our Customer’s mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. Through their family of apps and services, they are building a different kind of company that connects billions of people around the world, gives them ways to share what matters most to them, and helps bring people closer together.

Our Customer is seeking a skilled and knowledgeable Contingent Worker to serve as a UX Researcher - (Hardware/AR/VR/Wearables) to help support their business needs. This role is onsite in Seattle, WA, or Burlingame and Sunnyvale, CA.

As a UX Researcher, you’ll have the opportunity to partner directly with a single, tightly integrated pod with significant freedom to operate with the time, people and space necessary for conceiving, building and launching brand new products. Research is paramount to this organization’s success - formative research is needed to identify the right latent needs or problems in the world to tackle with product solutions, iterative design research is needed to mold early product ideas into testable prototypes, and creative evaluative research is needed to improve and prepare those products for market.

Responsibilities:

• Conduct research using a wide variety of qualitative and some quantitative methods, including remote and in-home interviews, diary studies, in-lab studies with novel hardware prototypes, and ethnographic observation, to track current MR product performance in market and inform future VR product development
• Work closely with partners (hardware engineering, industrial design, product management, privacy & security, and more) to ensure the product team is moving forward with a clear understand of the user problem space
• Effectively communicate with and present findings to a variety of audiences from product teams to executive leadership
• Collaborate closely with researchers, designers, PMs & engineers to identify, define and deliver meaningful products into the world
• Collaboratively and independently develop and execute research roadmaps
• Lead various research studies throughout all the phases of the product development cycle
• Contribute to product strategy, execution and go-to-market plan
• Manage research vendors to help augment the work of the research team

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree (human behavior related field, such as human-computer interaction, psychology, sociology, communication, information science, media studies, computer science, or economics)
• 8-10 years of experience required
• Hardware UX Researcher with 4+ years experience in hardware products and/or virtual/mixed reality products.
• Core engineering meeting with cross-functional team, gathering requirements needed to do studies, run them and report the findings back
• Strong capacity for methods
• End-to-end UX research, being able to select the appropriate methods for a study
• Verbal and written communication skills, problem solving skills, customer service and interpersonal skills.
• Strong ability to work independently and manage one’s time.
• Experience with data and utilizing numbers to define and support hypotheses
• Experience with storytelling to get traction with various audience
• Experience with autonomy and decision making to balance demands
• Strong mentoring skills necessary to provide support and constructive performance feedback.

Keywords:

Smart glasses, headsets, heads-up displays, helmets, AR contact lenses, handheld AR devices, Oculus, HoloLens, AR Devices, AR Hardware, Google Glass, wearables, User Experience, UX Research, User Research, Usability Testing, User Interviews, Persona Development, User-Centered Design, Qualitative Research, Quantitative Research, Survey Design, User Testing, Focus Groups, Heuristic Evaluation, Ethnographic Research, Wireframing, Prototyping, A/B Testing, Journey Mapping, User Flows, Human-Computer Interaction, augmented reality, AR, mixed reality, MR, extended reality, XR, AR applications, AR development, AR software, AR hardware, spatial computing

We offer a competitive salary range for this position. Most candidates who join our team are hired at the median of this range, ensuring fair and equitable compensation based on experience and qualifications.

Perks are available through our 3rd Party Employer of Record (Available upon completion of waiting period for eligible engagements)

• Health Benefits: Medical, Dental, Vision, 401k, FSA, Commuter Benefits Program
• Accrued PTO: Up to 15 days per 12 months on assignment
• New Child Benefit: Up to $4,000 for the birth or adoption of a child while on assignment (conditions apply)

An Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.