Senior Researcher, Progress Tracking & User Engagement

Strava • San Francisco, CA

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

Strava is the app for active people. With over 180 million athletes in more than 185 countries, it’s more than tracking workouts—it’s where people make progress together, from new habits to new personal bests. No matter your sport or how you track it, Strava’s got you covered. Find your crew, crush your goals, and make every effort count. Start your journey with Strava today.
Our mission is simple: to motivate people to live their best active lives. We believe in the power of movement to connect and drive people forward.
The Research & Insights team at Strava paves the way towards making confident, user-centered decisions that help our business and product innovation expand. We turn signals into strategy by providing audience understanding, validating opportunities, and shaping experiences that help our users thrive and keep choosing Strava for all their fitness habits, needs and activities.
We are looking for a Senior Researcher to lead the end-to-end research program for Progress Tracking & User Engagement. This is a crucial part of the Strava experience and mission - building and enhancing the experiences that help our community of users achieve their athletic goals, connect, engage, and get the most out of Strava. This role also includes some focus on new AI-generated features and technologies at Strava, which is a key business innovation priority for the company.
You will partner with cross-functional partners, driving research that shapes product strategy and ensures decisions are informed by data and meaningful insights. You will report directly to our Director of Consumer Research.
We follow a flexible hybrid model that generally translates to more than half your time on-site in our San Francisco office— three days per week.

Requirements

• Strong product thinking and leadership
• Experience scaling products to a large and ever evolving user base
• Some familiarity and enthusiasm for AI research & development, both in developing AI generated features, as well as finding innovative ways to test these features with our user base
• An ability to connect dots across multiple product areas and think about Strava as a holistic product and experience
• The capability to inform and influence strategic direction and senior stakeholders, including exec-level stakeholders and be a thought partner with a clear POV to XFN colleagues at all levels
• A balance of creative and analytical skills with the ability to proactively define research questions, identify appropriate methods, execute studies, and synthesize findings. Experience collaborating with Data Science and Analytics is a plus.
• New research methods and tools, as well as best practices that help us build and evolve a best-in-class research team in an organization that is hungry for a user-centered development approach, and is very supportive of the impact that research can have.
• Self-initiative, clear POV, bias to action, and excitement and love for the Strava product, business and most importantly, our mission.
• An ability to pivot and be flexible, finding a balance between highly rigorous research and the realities of working in a late-stage startup that requires resourcefulness and fast paced approaches when necessary.
• 3+ yrs of experience in product research and/or user experience (UX) research roles, with particular expertise and hands-on experience leading end-to-end research studies both in-house and with external agencies.
• An advanced degree in psychology, social sciences, human-computer interaction (HCI), cognitive science, statistics, or a related field.
• A full range of a methodological toolkit that includes both qualitative and quantitative methodologies (quant-leaning is a plus) and solid research expertise. This role will also include developing and testing for AI features on Strava, which is a ripe area for trying new research methods and defining best practices.
• Exceptional communication skills, adept at translating data into actionable insights both verbally and in writing. Expertise in data-driven storytelling, transforming raw data into compelling narratives and visualizations.

Responsibilities

• In partnership with stakeholders and the research team, you will identify, prioritize, and lead research roadmaps that have a tangible impact on company and product strategy, user satisfaction and business outcomes.
• Lead high-visibility research projects, collaborating closely with cross functional partners such as: Design, Product Management, Data Science, Engineering, Marketing, etc.
• Identify best practices and opportunities for socialization of research insights, and forge high-trust relationships with colleagues, fostering collaboration and innovation. By doing so, you influence cross functional partners to act on research insights by providing clear, actionable recommendations and relevant business context.
• Embrace diversity of perspective, yet have a strong point-of-view that can cut through the clutter.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level