Sr. UX Researcher I

Job Description

About the Role & Atlas:

Atlas is KFC's global web and mobile app platform, designed to deliver a consistent, high-quality digital experience across all markets. Our goal is to ensure that, like leading global platforms, the core UX/UI feels familiar and intuitive regardless of where customers engage with KFC.

Atlas is built on a principle of global UX/UI standardization, while enabling markets to tailor menu offerings, merchandising, and promotions to meet local customer needs. Localization is applied selectively and only where required, ensuring the core experience remains consistent while supporting local relevance.

This role plays a critical part in validating that the global experience performs consistently, while ensuring local configurations are clear, usable, and effective for customers in each market.

The CRO & UX Researcher will drive optimization and continuous improvement of KFC's Atlas web and mobile app experience, while helping establish and scale UX research capabilities within the Global Brand Experience team.

This role combines qualitative user research with data-informed insights, partnering closely with Analytics to uncover behavioral patterns, identify friction, and inform experimentation strategies that improve conversion, transactions, and customer retention.

A key focus of this role is conducting usability testing in both existing and upcoming markets to ensure Atlas delivers a high-quality, locally relevant customer experience as it scales globally.

Scope & Impact:

• Improves conversion, transactions, engagement, and retention across Atlas digital journeys
• Enables successful market launches through in-market usability testing
• Establishes a scalable approach to combining qualitative and quantitative insights
• Builds foundational UX research and CRO capabilities within the Brand Experience team
• Influences product roadmap and experience strategy through data-driven insights
• Drives a culture of continuous optimization and test-and-learn experimentation

Responsibilities

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

• Identify friction points and drop-offs across key journeys (browse → cart → checkout)
• Develop and prioritize optimization hypotheses grounded in user research and supported by data
• Partner with Product, Design, and Analytics to design and evaluate A/B and multivariate tests
• Interpret experiment results in collaboration with Analytics to inform next steps
• Continuously improve transaction completion and experience efficiency

UX Research for Atlas (Web & App)

• Conduct usability testing on live experiences and prototypes for Atlas web and mobile apps
• Evaluate key journeys including menu discovery, ordering, checkout, and account flows
• Use qualitative methods to understand user motivations, pain points, and behaviors
• Perform heuristic evaluations and rapid testing to support fast product iteration

Global Market Usability Testing (Critical Focus)

• Plan and conduct usability testing for the Atlas customer experience in upcoming and newly launched markets
• Validate that experiences meet local user expectations, behaviors, and cultural norms
• Identify market-specific usability issues prior to launch and recommend improvements
• Partner with regional teams or vendors to execute in-market and remote studies
• Ensure insights directly inform localization and go-to-market readiness

Data Partnership & Behavioral Insight

• Partner closely with Data & Analytics teams to analyze funnels, drop-offs, and performance trends
• Leverage quantitative insights (conversion rates, engagement metrics, retention data) to inform research focus areas
• Collaborate to define and track key experience metrics across markets
• Validate and enrich data findings with qualitative research to explain why behaviors occur

Prototype & Concept Testing

• Test early-stage concepts and prototypes to inform product direction before development
• Validate new features across priority global and emerging markets
• Provide actionable feedback to improve usability, clarity, and conversion potential

Competitive & Comparative Research

• Conduct competitive benchmarking and experience audits across QSR and digital ordering platforms
• Analyze competitor journeys, features, and conversion strategies
• Translate insights into clear opportunities for Atlas optimization and differentiation

Research & Optimization Capability Building (Global)

• Help establish a scalable approach to combining qualitative research with quantitative data (via Analytics partnership)
• Contribute to defining key conversion, behavioral, and retention metrics for Atlas
• Build repeatable frameworks to:
  • Identify issues through data (with Analytics)
  • Diagnose root causes through research
  • Inform experiments and validate outcomes
• Develop toolkits, templates, and playbooks for usability testing and experimentation
• Contribute to a centralized insight repository to enable global knowledge sharing

Insight Synthesis & Communication

• Synthesize qualitative insights and quantitative inputs into clear, actionable recommendations
• Communicate findings that influence product, design, and business decisions
• Tell a cohesive story connecting user behavior, experience gaps, and business impact

Qualifications

• 4-6+ years of experience in UX research, CRO, or digital product optimization
• Strong expertise in qualitative research methods (usability testing, interviews)
• Experience supporting CRO and experimentation efforts
• Ability to work with and interpret quantitative data in partnership with Analytics
• Familiarity with analytics tools (GA, Adobe, FullStory) and experimentation platforms
• Experience researching web and mobile applications
• Experience working across multiple markets or global products
• Familiarity with accessibility evaluation and inclusive-research practices.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to present findings to mixed audiences.
• Experience with research tools (e.g., UserTesting, UserZoom, Figma for prototypes) is a plus

Salary Range: 109,000 - 142,900 annually + bonus eligibility. This is the expected salary range for this position. Ultimately, in determining pay, we'll consider the successful candidate's location, experience, and other job-related factors.