Tech Lead

UX Researcher — AI Quantitative Specialist

Contract | Hybrid 3 days/week in office | Seattle or San Jose | UX Research Team AI-Native Research Quantitative

About the Role: We are looking for a curious, data-savvy UX Researcher to join our team as a contractor. This is not a traditional research role — it sits at the intersection of AI-augmented research, advanced quantitative analysis, and cross-team capability building. You will help accelerate our journey toward an AI-native research practice by bringing hard-won external experience in using AI tools within research workflows, and by embedding behavioural data fluency across the team. You will work alongside researchers, designers, and product managers — influencing how we work, not just what we deliver.

What You'll Do:

• AI-Augmented Research: Apply AI tools actively in day-to-day research workflows — synthesis, analysis, screener design, report generation, and more.
• Lead and co-create internal initiatives that accelerate the team's AI adoption and maturity.
• Share external best practices and bring fresh thinking to how AI can transform research at scale.
• Act as an internal champion for AI-native ways of working, coaching peers and running enablement sessions.
• Quantitative Research Statistics: Design, execute, and analyse quantitative studies including large-scale surveys, concept tests, and benchmark studies.
• Apply statistical methods confidently: significance testing, regression analysis, factor analysis, conjoint, MaxDiff, and more.
• Build clear, insight-led outputs from quantitative data that drive product and business decisions.
• Partner with data and analytics teams to ensure research findings are grounded in robust methodology.
• Behavioural Product Data Analysis: Extract, interpret, and storytell with behavioural data from platforms such as Power BI, Amplitude, Mixpanel, or similar.
• Triangulate product usage data with primary research to surface richer, more actionable insights.
• Identify patterns in user behaviour that inform hypothesis generation and research prioritisation.
• Collaborate with engineers and researchers to ensure the team has access to the right data sources and behavioural signals.
• Qualitative Research: Plan and facilitate user interviews, usability studies, diary studies, and contextual enquiries.
• Apply thematic analysis, affinity mapping, and Jobs-to-be-Done frameworks.
• Translate qualitative findings into compelling narratives for product, design, and leadership audiences.
• Cross-Team AI Acceleration: Lead AI research initiatives end-to-end — from scoping to delivery — while actively partnering with fellow researchers throughout.
• Work alongside researchers across the team to co-develop AI-assisted processes, templates, and playbooks that embed into everyday ways of working.
• Collaborate with researchers on shared AI projects, bringing structure and momentum while creating space for others to upskill alongside you.
• Identify bottlenecks in research operations and propose scalable, AI-enabled solutions developed with the team, not just handed to them.
• Contribute to a culture of continuous learning, methodological rigour, and shared ownership of the team's AI maturity.

What We're Looking For:

Non-Negotiables: Demonstrable experience using AI tools within a research context — not just awareness, but active application. Strong quantitative research skills: survey design, statistical analysis, and insight generation. Hands-on experience pulling and interpreting behavioural data from Power BI, Amplitude, or equivalent platforms. Solid grounding in mixed-methods research — you can move fluently between qual and quant. Experience creating or leading AI-related research initiatives, not just participating in them.

Strong Assets: Experience collaborating cross-functionally with Designers, PMs, and Engineers in agile or product-led environments. Ability to communicate complex data clearly to non-research stakeholders. Familiarity with research tooling: UserTesting, Qualtrics, Airtable, Maze, or similar. Confidence working independently as a contractor — you manage your own time and know when to escalate.

The WOW Factor: Experience in Foresight or Strategic Foresight research — scenario planning, horizon scanning, trend analysis, or futures methodologies.

About You: You don't wait to be told what to explore. You see a messy dataset and get excited. You've probably already built a prompt library or AI workflow that made your research faster — and you want to share it. You care about the quality of insight AND the speed at which it reaches the people who need it. You're comfortable being the person who brings new thinking into a team. You can run a depth interview in the morning and build a regression model in the afternoon. And if someone mentions foresight research — your eyes light up.

Working With Us: This is a contractor role within a UX Research team embedded in a product organisation. You will work closely with the Head of UX Research and collaborate regularly with Researchers, Designers, and Product Managers. The team is actively building an AI-native research practice — you won't be joining something fully formed. You'll help shape it. We take quality seriously and fun even more so. Rigour is non-negotiable — sloppy research doesn't leave the building. But insight that sits in a deck and changes nothing? That's not research, that's decoration.