User Experience Researcher

Strata Decision Technology • Chicago, IL

4h • $80,000 - $100,000 • Onsite

About The Position

As a UX Researcher at Strata, you will work directly with our user experience team to help many of the nation’s leading hospitals, universities, and financial institutions make better decisions with their financial, operational, and strategic data so they can care for their communities. This role is focused on collaborating with Product Managers and UX Designers to solve complex problems by uncovering user needs, behaviors, and motivations, and translating these insights into actionable solutions and product decisions. You will be the voice of the user in cross-functional team discussions, advocating for user needs while balancing business objectives and constraints. Additionally, you will help foster a user-centric culture by refining unclear questions into clear research opportunities, sharing insights across teams, and ensuring those insights shape product decisions from discovery through launch.

Requirements

• Relevant research experience within an agile team; SaaS, finance, or healthcare experience highly preferred, with 2+ years of professional user research experience on product teams.
• Ability to navigate both clear and ambiguous problem spaces, selecting appropriate research methods and adapting approach based on project constraints.
• Ability to synthesize findings into clear, actionable insights and recommendations that inform product decisions.
• Strong organizational skills, with the ability to manage and prioritize work and independently drive research projects forward.
• A body of past work that showcases strong core research skills including generative research, evaluative research, analysis, and generating actionable insights.
• Experience incorporating quantitative data into research (e.g., product analytics, surveys, or behavioral metrics) to complement qualitative insights.
• Familiarity with product analytics tools (e.g., Pendo or similar) and an interest in leveraging usage data to inform research.
• Interest in incorporating AI tools into research workflows (e.g., synthesis, analysis, or operational efficiency), while maintaining research quality and rigor.
• Comfortable sharing expertise and offering research advice in group settings, growing into a trusted research partner to stakeholders and team members.
• Fearlessly dig into existing research and new research to understand user needs.
• Contribute to problem discovery activities with design and product manager peers, while learning how to refine ambiguous questions into clearer goals.
• Ask tough questions, identify assumptions, discuss new ideas, and remain open to opposing viewpoints.

Responsibilities

• Conduct generative and evaluative research to uncover user needs, behaviors, and motivations, guiding the product team through all stages of product development.
• Be the voice of the user in cross-functional team discussions, advocating for user needs while balancing business objectives and constraints.
• Help foster a user-centric culture by refining unclear questions into clear research opportunities, sharing insights across teams, and ensuring those insights help shape product decisions from discovery through launch.
• Create research plans, coordinate recruitment, talk to users, share relevant insights with stakeholders, and connect insights across studies and teams, with support from senior researchers.
• Become an expert in the research repository and help maintain it so product teams have a source of truth to influence their decisions.
• Actively contribute to the growth and development of the research function.
• Show initiative in end-to-end ownership of research studies, while seeking feedback and guidance from senior team members as you stretch into strategic work.
• Brainstorm research questions with other research team members.
• Work with product manager and design partners to uncover where there are gaps in knowledge that you can contribute to.
• Review findings and recommendations with design partner.
• Share learnings with the team to spark discussion.
• Guide your team through the pros and cons of your research plan and questions along with your decision-making process.

Benefits

• Retirement benefits
• Health and welfare benefits
• Paid time off
• Parental leave
• Life and accident insurance
• Other voluntary and well-being benefits
• Annual bonus based on both individual and company performance (for full-time roles)

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed