Senior UX Researcher

American Express•New York, NY

2d•$123,000 - $215,250

About The Position

American Express is seeking a Senior UX Researcher to partner with its Design Strategy team and connect customer understanding with competitive intelligence, emerging trends, and business priorities. The role will help identify opportunities, inform future-state experiences, and influence strategic decisions before solutions are defined. The position calls for exceptional qualitative research craft, strategic thinking, research leadership, and experience partnering with service design, experience strategy, and innovation teams. The Senior UX Researcher will independently lead complex, ambiguous research from problem framing through executive decision-making; develop forward-looking research agendas; and conduct rigorous generative and exploratory research. The role combines customer evidence with competitive intelligence, market trends, emerging technologies, strategic foresight, quantitative research, behavioral data, feedback, and external signals. It translates findings into opportunity frameworks, future-state concepts, narratives, and recommendations that guide strategic priorities, experimentation, investment, and experience improvement. The researcher will serve as a thought partner to senior leaders, coordinate multidisciplinary research, guide methods and learning agendas, coach other researchers, and help advance research capabilities through reusable frameworks, critical review, and responsible experimentation with AI-enabled tools and methods. American Express describes its working model as onsite, hybrid, or fully virtual depending on role and business needs. Employment eligibility to work in the United States is required; the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.

Requirements

7+ years of UX research or applied research experience, with a strong track record leading complex generative and exploratory research programs.
Mastery of qualitative research, including interviewing, contextual inquiry, research design, and interpretive synthesis, with the ability to uncover latent needs and develop strategic insights and conceptual frameworks.
Experience partnering with service design, experience strategy, or innovation teams to shape future-state experiences, journey transformation, and strategic opportunities.
Experience incorporating competitive intelligence, market trends, strategic foresight, or emerging technologies into research to anticipate customer needs and inform experience strategy.
Ability to navigate ambiguity, challenge assumptions, and influence director- and VP-level stakeholders through evidence, strategic judgment, and storytelling.
Experience leading research across multiple researchers or complex workstreams, including setting learning agendas, guiding methodological choices, coaching others, and elevating research quality.
Strong quantitative literacy and ability to synthesize evidence across qualitative research, surveys, behavioral analytics, customer feedback, and secondary sources.
Employment eligibility to work in the United States; American Express will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with foresight methods such as horizon scanning, scenario exploration, or signals analysis, and their application to emerging customer and experience opportunities.

Responsibilities

Independently lead complex, ambiguous research from problem framing through executive decision-making.
Partner with Design Strategy, Product, and business leaders to develop forward-looking research agendas, uncover opportunities, and inform strategic priorities.
Design and lead rigorous qualitative generative and exploratory research into customer motivations, behaviors, unmet needs, and mental models, using methods such as interviewing, contextual inquiry, longitudinal studies, and participatory research.
Connect customer research with competitive intelligence, market trends, emerging technologies, and strategic foresight to anticipate changing expectations, identify whitespace opportunities, and inform differentiated experiences.
Partner with experience strategists, service designers, and product leaders to investigate customer journeys and service ecosystems.
Translate research into opportunity frameworks, future-state concepts, and hypotheses that guide experimentation and investment decisions.
Triangulate qualitative and quantitative research, behavioral data, customer feedback, and external signals to identify patterns and opportunities.
Turn complex findings into compelling narratives and conceptual frameworks that build shared understanding and drive decisions.
Act as a trusted thought partner to senior Product, Design, and Business leaders; connect customer insights with business priorities, challenge assumptions, and help ensure research informs strategy, experimentation, and experience improvement.
Establish cohesive learning agendas, guide methodological decisions, and coordinate research across multidisciplinary engagements.
Coach researchers through complex challenges while maintaining high craft standards and a collaborative, intellectually rigorous environment.
Develop rigorous approaches to researching emerging experiences, technologies, and service innovations.
Strengthen research practice through reusable frameworks, critical review, and responsible experimentation with AI-enabled tools and methods.

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, offered for pregnancy, adoption, or surrogacy
Free access to global on-site 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