User Experience Research Manager at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

The Opportunity

Our work in education is aimed at ensuring that every student — not just a lucky few — can get an education that’s tailored to their individual needs and supports every aspect of their development. We’re pairing engineering with grantmaking, impact investing, policy, and advocacy work to help every young person enter adulthood with the skills and abilities they need to reach their full potential — and equip every teacher with the tools and research they need to help students get there. 

Our education team is responsible for improving how:

• Teachers facilitate projects where students can build and demonstrate learning and skill growth.
• Students work through content and assessments.
• Teachers individualize instruction using real-time data to keep students appropriately challenged and highly engaged with the projects
• Students work with teacher mentors to build trusting relationships which support their development.

As a Manager of User Experience Research, you will manage a team of UX researchers working on defining and evolving our product strategy and roadmap toward delivering critical short- and long-term process changes and solutions that show impact. You are mission-driven, entrepreneurial, and committed to building transformative education technologies, with experience building zero to one products and leading high-performing teams. 

You will

• Mentor user research team and UX designers on user research methodologies
• Develops team skills to support organization needs and individual career goals
• Lead the shaping of an inclusive, innovative, candid and trusting culture across the design organization
• Socialize and drive organization awareness of UX research, the process, and findings
• Collaborate with cross functional product teams to generate and gain agreement on research methods that will support short and long term strategic goals across all projects
• Uncover actionable insights alongside the user research team that will inform strategic decisions and inform future strategy across the education team.
• Lead research critiques for research team members to share and receive constructive feedback
• Create and communicate timelines, manage and distribute work, and adjust quickly to shifting needs and directions
• Own the pipeline and operation of recruitment methods in partnership with ux operations
• Build a library of insights over time for the organization to continually reference

You have

• 8+ years of experience in user experience research or related design field
• 4+ years experience as a people manager
• Strong research, synthesis, and presentation skills
• Deep knowledge and expertise of research tools and methodologies
• Familiarity and experience managing end-to-end research through the full product lifecycle - generative to evaluative across several projects simultaneously
• Strong analytical thinking, problem-solving, and prioritization skills
• Demonstrated ability to communicate research insights to cross-functional product teams and leadership in a way that promotes impact on product design, development, and strategy
• Ability to balance methodological rigor with a healthy sense of urgency to evolve our processes
• Zero to one product delivery experience from idea to execution  is a plus

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