Lead UX Product Researcher - Emerging Experiences

Target • Minneapolis, MN

6d • Hybrid

About The Position

As a Lead Product Researcher embedded within our Emerging Experiences team, you will help shape the future of Target’s guest experience by leading research that informs long-term vision, concept incubation, and emerging product opportunities across digital and physical touchpoints. You will drive understanding of evolving guest needs, behaviors, expectations, and emerging technologies, helping teams identify opportunities that may not yet have clear product definitions. Working across multiple initiatives and strategic horizons, you will guide research efforts that evaluate future-state concepts, immersive experiences, AI-enabled interactions, and new service models that have the potential to transform how guests engage with Target. As a Lead Product Researcher, you will serve as a research leader throughout the concept and product development lifecycle, shaping research strategy, recommending methodologies, facilitating synthesis, and activating insights that influence decision-making across teams. You will help define how Target evaluates emerging experiences by establishing success criteria, identifying risks and opportunities, and translating ambiguity into actionable direction. Through your work, you will connect guest needs with business objectives, helping teams make informed decisions about where to invest, explore, and innovate. Beyond individual initiatives, you will serve as a catalyst for human-centered thinking across product, design, engineering, and business teams. You will elevate the practice of research through mentorship, thought leadership, and influence, helping teams deepen their understanding of guest needs and translate insights into meaningful experiences. As a member of the Guest UX Research Team, you will contribute to advancing the broader UX practice at Target through leadership, collaboration, and craft.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience practicing UX research for digital products, services, or emerging technology experiences.
• Demonstrated expertise in qualitative and quantitative research methods, including remote moderated and unmoderated testing, contextual inquiry, ethnographic research, surveys, concept testing, and emerging AI-supported research approaches.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; demonstrated ability to effectively communicate complex concepts to cross-functional partners and influence decision-making.
• A strong ability to tell compelling stories from data and translate ambiguity into actionable insights and recommendations.
• Comfortable operating in highly ambiguous environments where concepts, prototypes, and priorities evolve rapidly.
• Strong project leadership skills with experience managing multiple initiatives across varying stages of discovery and development.
• Advanced strategic problem-solving, systems thinking, and collaboration skills.
• Experience working effectively with early-stage concepts, prototypes, future-state visions, and innovation-focused teams.
• Demonstrated ability to influence without authority and build alignment across diverse stakeholder groups.
• Experience mentoring researchers and helping elevate research capabilities across teams.
• Proficient in research tools for remote testing, surveys, analysis, synthesis, and reporting (UserTesting, Qualtrics, Dscout, ChatGPT, etc.).
• You balance near-term learning needs with long-term strategic vision.
• You are an advocate for human-centered design and can clearly communicate how research drives business outcomes, product strategy, and guest value.
• Exhibit a growth mindset, intellectual curiosity, and passion for understanding people and experiences.

Nice To Haves

• Preferred 4-year degree in Design Research, Social Science, Psychology, Human Factors, HCI, Anthropology, or related field.

Responsibilities

• Lead research strategy and execution across future-focused initiatives, concept incubation efforts, and emerging experience explorations.
• Serve as a research leader throughout the research lifecycle by recommending methodologies, defining scope, coordinating execution, facilitating research activities, and leading synthesis and analysis.
• Lead qualitative and quantitative research efforts, including moderated and unmoderated testing, concept evaluation, ethnographic research, shop-alongs, longitudinal studies, intercepts, journey mapping, and exploratory generative research.
• Define and evaluate quality for emerging experiences, including adaptive, AI-enabled, and highly personalized interactions.
• Lead synthesis of research findings and activate insights through compelling storytelling, opportunity identification, and strategic recommendations.
• Use your influence to identify and pursue user-centered outcomes within and across products, initiatives, and teams.
• Effectively facilitate multiple cross-functional working teams and collaborate across product, design, engineering, brand, and business partners.
• Guide research process and mentor researchers and cross-functional partners.
• Advance a culture of experimentation and human-centered practice within UX, product, and engineering teams.
• Build relationships across Target to identify emerging opportunities and enable future-state innovation.
• Contribute to the evolution of research practices, frameworks, and thought leadership across the Guest UX Research organization.

Benefits

• comprehensive health benefits and programs, which may include medical, vision, dental, life insurance and more
• 401(k)
• employee discount
• short term disability
• long term disability
• paid sick leave
• paid national holidays
• paid vacation

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Associate degree