Director-UX Researcher

American Express•New York, NY

12d•$144,250 - $256,250

About The Position

American Express is seeking a senior individual-contributor UX researcher to shape how the company understands, designs, and evaluates AI-powered and agentic experiences. The role combines strategic research leadership, deep qualitative expertise, methodological innovation, and the ability to influence consequential product and experience decisions. The researcher will lead complex initiatives, develop forward-looking research agendas, and advance research capabilities and practices across the organization. The position focuses on generative and exploratory qualitative research into customer motivations, behaviors, unmet needs, and mental models, as well as new methods for understanding human-AI interaction. The researcher will synthesize qualitative and quantitative evidence into original insights, frameworks, and executive-ready recommendations, and will partner with senior Product, Design, Engineering, Technology, and business leaders. The role also provides research thought leadership, mentorship, and scalable methods and standards without relying on formal people-management authority. American Express describes its culture as grounded in innovation, shared values, Leadership Behaviors, and a commitment to customers, communities, and colleagues. Its Amex Flex work model offers onsite, hybrid, or fully virtual arrangements depending on role and business needs. Employment eligibility to work in the United States is required; American Express will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.

Requirements

10+ years of UX research or applied research experience, including a substantial track record leading complex, strategically significant generative research programs.
Expertise in qualitative research, including advanced interviewing, contextual inquiry, research design, and interpretive synthesis, with the ability to develop original insights and conceptual frameworks.
Experience researching AI-powered, conversational, adaptive, or similarly complex emerging technologies, and understanding of the methodological challenges associated with intelligent systems.
Ability to develop or substantially advance research methodologies, evaluation frameworks, or approaches that influence research practice beyond individual projects.
Strategic judgment and ability to influence director-, VP-, or executive-level stakeholders through compelling evidence, original thinking, and storytelling.
Experience providing research thought leadership across teams or complex programs, including guiding research direction, advising on methods, mentoring researchers, and elevating standards.
Quantitative literacy and ability to integrate qualitative research, behavioral analytics, survey data, customer feedback, and other evidence into strategically meaningful insights.
Ability to navigate ambiguity, challenge established assumptions, and connect customer understanding with business strategy, emerging technologies, and experience opportunities.
Eligibility to work in the United States; American Express will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.

Nice To Haves

Direct experience researching generative AI, LLM-based experiences, autonomous agents, or human-AI collaboration.
Experience evaluating trust, delegation, comprehension, customer control, and error recovery in AI-powered experiences.
Experience developing reusable research methods or evaluation frameworks adopted across multiple product teams.
Experience in financial services or other complex, highly regulated environments.

Responsibilities

Shape AI experience strategy by framing critical customer questions, setting research agendas, identifying opportunities, challenging assumptions, and influencing experience strategy and investment decisions.
Lead sophisticated qualitative generative and exploratory research, selecting and adapting methods such as contextual inquiry, longitudinal studies, behavioral simulations, and research in live or simulated AI environments.
Develop and validate methods for investigating human-AI interaction, including trust, transparency, delegation, decision-making, and customer control.
Establish reusable frameworks and measures to evaluate comprehension, usefulness, task effectiveness, and error recovery in agentic experiences.
Integrate qualitative and quantitative evidence, behavioral data, and emerging customer signals to develop original insights and conceptual frameworks that inform experience principles, product direction, and strategy.
Translate complex research into compelling narratives, conceptual models, and executive-ready recommendations for senior leaders.
Advise senior Product, Design, Technology, and Business leaders, connect customer understanding with business objectives and technical possibilities, and ensure customer evidence informs consequential decisions.
Guide complex methodological decisions, elevate research quality, coach researchers, and foster intellectual rigor, creativity, and excellence across multidisciplinary teams.
Build scalable research capabilities through reusable methodologies, evaluation frameworks, and practice standards; explore emerging AI-enabled research tools and workflows while maintaining research quality and responsible practice.

Benefits

Competitive base salaries
Bonus incentives
6% company match on retirement savings plan
Free financial coaching and financial well-being support
Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits
Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite, or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need
20+ weeks of paid parental leave for all parents, regardless of gender, for pregnancy, adoption, or surrogacy
Free access to global onsite wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors, depending on location
Free and confidential counseling support through the Healthy Minds program
Career development and training opportunities
Opportunities to learn new skills, develop as a leader, and grow a career