Qualitative Research Specialist (ASL/Deaf Community Research)

Job Description

Job Description

Job Summary

As a Qualitative Research Specialist focused on Deaf Community Research, you will lead high-trust, ASL-first qualitative research for AI-powered sign language products. This role sits within the Insights function and helps the company deeply understand Deaf users, communication access needs, cultural context, product expectations, and trust signals across real-world experiences. This role is not just about running interviews or usability studies. It is about building respectful, rigorous, and culturally fluent research practices with Deaf communities - especially in areas where video-based research, ASL communication, privacy, consent, and participant trust matter deeply.

Your work will help shape how the company defines effective communication, trusted interpretation experiences, accessibility quality, and meaningful AI-assisted communication outcomes in practice. While the role is centered on Deaf community research, it also incorporates learning from communication stakeholders across the full interaction system, including interpreters, hearing participants, accessibility leaders, customer decision-makers, and organizational stakeholders involved in real-world communication interactions.

This role increases the depth and velocity of user, customer, and ecosystem understanding while ensuring Deaf community input is not treated as performative feedback, but as a structured and meaningful part of how product and model decisions are made.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead high-signal qualitative discovery and evaluative research with Deaf users and broader communication stakeholders, including interpreters, hearing participants, accessibility leaders, prospective customers, and organizational decision-makers as needed.
• Partner with fellow researchers, linguists and sign language data analysts to evolve shared research language, participant-validated survey instruments, and systems that connect qualitative insight to measurement and long-term learning.
• Design and moderate ASL-first qualitative research that is culturally fluent and reflects Deaf user experience, language access, communication context, and community expectations.
• Evolve nvideo-based research protocols by improving practices for consent, privacy, storage, retention, accessibility, participant rights, and ethical handling of recordings.
• Ensure research methods and materials are culturally and linguistically accessible, accurately interpreted, and aligned with participants' understanding and research goals.
• Own qualitative components of longitudinal tracking, including diary studies, qualitative CSAT drivers, and participant narratives over time.
• Partner with the fellow researcher on connecting qualitative insights to survey design, behavioral signals, reporting, and longer-term equivalency goals.
• Help maintain a healthy ASL user panel in partnership with Research Operations, including shaping recruitment inputs, engagement practices, session standards, communication norms, reciprocity, and overall participant experience quality.
• Interface with interpreter and expert communities as needed, including setting guidelines for when ASL-direct sessions are appropriate and when interpreters, CDIs, or expert reviewers are required.
• Synthesize research into clear, actionable insights that help teams understand what matters now, what can wait, and what requires further validation.
• Maintain research practices that are respectful, transparent, accessible, and meaningful to participants.
• Other duties as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibility

This position has no supervisory responsibilities.

Travel Requirements

Travel Requirements:  Less than 25%

Education

Bachelor's preferred in Psychology degree, Anthropology, Journalism, or other research-heavy fields.

Focus: Pure Qualitative Research (literature, methodologies, human interactions)

Experience

6 years Qualitative research experience, including in product and technology environments, and ideally in one or more of accessibility, language, healthcare, education, or community-centered contexts.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Bilingual in English and ASL with proven ability to moderate research with Deaf participants.
• Curiosity and enthusiasm for learning about AI, language technology, accessibility technology, and communication access products. Prior AI model experience is not required, but candidates should be excited by responsible innovation and comfortable engaging with complexity.
• Experience conducting research with Deaf communities or equivalent depth with other trust-sensitive, underrepresented, or culturally specific communities.
• Strong qualitative study design skills across discovery, concept testing, usability research, evaluative research, and longitudinal qualitative methods.
• Strong synthesis and storytelling skills, with the ability to turn complex qualitative input into clear frameworks, themes, recommendations, and decision guidance.
• Experience conducting and managing video-based research.
• Ability to work respectfully and effectively with Deaf users, hearing users, interpreters, Certificated Deaf Interpreters, subject-matter experts, community leaders, and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to partner with Product, AI and GTM teams to shape research scope and activate insights.
• Ability to partner with a mixed-methods and quant researchers to connect qualitative findings to measurement, tracking, survey design, and longer-term evidence-building.
• Strong judgment about when qualitative findings are strong enough to guide decisions and when additional validation is needed.
• Comfort working in ambiguity and helping create new research practices where no playbook exists.
• Core Competencies
• ASL fluency and cultural humility
• Trust-building with Deaf communities
• Qualitative rigor across the research lifecycle
• Ethical judgment and participant stewardship
• Clear synthesis and decision-oriented communication
• Cross-functional influence and stakeholder alignment
• Accessibility-centered thinking research and product thinking
• Structured, collaborative, and action-oriented execution
• Translating community insight into product learning.
• Differentiators
• Experience with sign language translation, interpretation, captioning and video communication, or assistive communication tools.
• Experience analyzing ASL and video-based research data beyond transcript-dependent workflows
• Experience working with Deaf interpreters, Certificated Deaf Interpreters, interpreters, linguists, educators, or community advisory groups.
• Experience driving longitudinal research programs, user panels, or community feedback systems.

Come be a part of our mission and make a meaningful and positive impact with the industry leading provider of language services for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing!

Full time Benefits              

• Paid Vacation Time and Paid Sick Time and Paid Holidays
• 401k 6% match with immediate vesting
• Nationwide Medical Insurance plans and coverage (Medical, Dental/Orthodontia, Vision)
• TeleDoc
• HSA company match
• 3 Medical plan options including a Low Deductible PPO Medical Plan Offering
• Employee Assistance Program
• Engaged Employee Resource Groups
• Outstanding Learning and Career Development Opportunities

Pay Range: Actual pay may vary up or down depending on job-related factors which may include knowledge, skills, experience, and location. In addition, this position may be eligible for incentive compensation.

* Applicants must be legally eligible to work in the United States to be considered. Visa sponsorship is not available for this role *

Company Summary

Our Mission …Leveraging the Power of Language, we connect lives and enrich the human experience.

Our Vision …To provide global language services that expand opportunities, nurture belonging, and empower the world to connect beyond words.

As one of the world’s leading language services providers, Sorenson combines patented technology with human-centric solutions. We strive to increase accessibility and inclusion through communication solutions for all: call captioning and video relay services, over-video and in-person sign language and spoken language interpreting, translation, real-time captioning, and post-production language services. Sorenson’s impact vision and plan extends to enhancing generational wealth and inclusive workplaces for our employees and the communities we serve.

We achieve great things together working “The Sorenson Way” with our employee values: Customer First, Can-Do Attitude, Collective Action, Growth Mindset, Ownership, and Connect Direct.

Equal Employment Opportunity:
Sorenson Communications is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Employer.