Job Description

We get it. Much of the world is on quarantine due to COVID. It is hard for most of us to keep up with the demands of home and work, or with the isolation of going days at a time only seeing other people via video conference. And in this time of longer workdays and heightened stress, it is hard to imagine brushing-up your resume, prepping for interviews, and potentially changing companies. We cannot promise it will be easy, but we encourage you to keep reading.

We are seeking a Principal User Researcher to join our multi-disciplinary team of over 30 user researchers and planners working on a breadth of experiences across Microsoft 365. Our success is dependent on building teams that include people from different backgrounds and experiences who can challenge each other's assumptions with fresh perspective. To that end, we look for diverse applicants, including those from historically underrepresented groups. Your experiences and your demonstrated skill sets are far more important than your level. If you are interested, feel free to apply regardless of your level.

The Fluid team's mission is to develop both the underlying technologies and establish high value customer facing scenarios for a new generation of collaboration experiences. In this role, you will be part of the team responsible for re-imagining core productivity in Microsoft Office, and improving the way people interact through new innovations in collaboration. We're looking for someone that is forward-thinking and willing to challenge and provoke new ideas. This position requires strong research and organization skills, and the ability to work across teams. The ability to establish a strong point of view - informed by both market and user level insights - and to leverage that to define product direction is a must.

In this role, you'll leverage your skills in mixed methods. You will take on complex problems and work to guide near and long-term investments. You'll work closely with UX Designers, other planners & user researchers, data science, and engineering teams to ensure that we're addressing the most critical business and technology objectives as well as user needs and opportunities.

We're especially looking for someone who wants to learn, grow, and embody new ways of working. If you embrace growth mindset, have a track record of delivering results, and you light up collaborating with other planners, researchers, designers, product managers and engineers this is an awesome team to join.

* Define product and audience direction and impact and the engineering roadmap using market and customer data (qualitative and quantitative). Key to this accountability will be identifying opportunities for growth, gaps and customer pain points, as well as potential customer delighters.
* Build and execute impactful research plan(s) that provide the broad market views and deep customer insights needed to impact strategy and UX.
* Derive insights from quantitative and qualitative data, complementing other research that you will conduct on your own or in partnership with other researchers.u202F
* Define and measure UX approaches, metrics, and work with core stakeholders on research planning. Innovate and develop new approaches to measure user's experiences.
* Land impact broadly from your customer-focused knowledge by working across multiple organizations and their respective engineering, design and marketing teams.

What does it take?u202F

Balance business motivations, value to Microsoft and external partners

* You are eager to learn and understand about diverse audiences, their behaviors, context(s) and motivations - across all phases of the customer lifecycle and user journeyu202F
* Can demonstrate strong empathy for these users while balancing the vision and constraints of stakeholdersu202F

Desire to work in-stride with other people:u202F PMs, designers, other researchers, marketersu202Fu202Fu202F

* Really, you must love this part of the job.u202F The lines between this role and others are often unclear and you must be comfortable with contributing, engaging others despite the ambiguityu202Fu202F
* Be ready to win together. This team has intentionally designed a structure where we work together.

Entrepreneurial spirit willing to dig in

* You will need practical and real-world problem-solving skills, as this team moves fast, and your role will be to help unblock barriers in design, build and go-to-marketu202F

Other Requirements:u202F

* 7+ years of hands-on research and/or product planning experience, with demonstrated skill in collecting and analyzing human behavioral data to improve plans and UX in a technology industry settingu202F
* Curiosity in, or an understanding of developer audiences.
* Either an MA/MS in computer science, statistics, human factors, psychology, market research or related field, or a BA/BS in one of these fields with significant industry experienceu202F

If the above sounds like you, we can't wait to talk to you!

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.