UX Researcher

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At GitLab, UX Researchers collaborate with our Product Designers, front/backend engineers, product managers and the rest of the community to assist in determining what features should be built, how they should behave, and what the priorities should be. UX Researchers report to the UX Research Manager.

Responsibilities

Junior UX Researcher

A Junior UX Researcher has some practical experience but needs regular guidance and training to produce their best work and develop their skills.

• Understands user research methods, when to use them and how to apply them correctly. This may include, but not be limited to: usability testing, user interviews, surveys and competitor analysis.
• Understands basic methods to analyze and synthesize research data. Interprets data correctly.
• Translates research findings into actionable recommendations in conjunction with the Product team and Product Designers.
• Plans, designs and conducts usability testing and user interviews. Effectively undertakes associated tasks such as participant recruitment and scheduling, producing test materials, setting up test environments, analyzing and delivering findings.
• Assists in the creation of research deliverables such as personas, customer journey maps, etc.
• Responsible for their own personal development, actively seeks out opportunities to improve their skill set.

UX Researcher

• Deeply understand the technology and features of the stage groups to which you are assigned.
• Proactively identify generative user research projects within your stage groups, and engage the UX Research Manager/Senior UX Researchers for guidance and/or collaboration.
• Facilitate evaluative research studies and support Product Designers in the creation of strategic deliverables (such as journey maps, storyboards, competitive analyses, and personas).
• Evangelize research. Share user insights with the broader organisation and externally in creative ways to increase empathy.
• Actively contribute to UX Research processes, documentation and repositories.
• Assist in the maintenance and promotion of GitLab First Look.

Senior UX Researcher

• Proactively identify generative user research projects within your stage groups. Work collaboratively with Product Managers to execute research projects.
• Guide, and where necessary train, Product Designers in how to undertake evaluative research projects and in how to create strategic deliverables (such as journey maps, storyboards, competitive analyses, and personas).
• Understand the technology and features of the stage groups to which you are assigned, and have working knowledge of the end-to-end GitLab product.
• Evangelize research. Share user insights with the broader organisation and externally in creative ways to increase empathy.
• Lead strategic user research initiatives that span multiple stage groups (and possibly the entire product).
• Mentor UX Researchers, both inside and outside of your stage groups.
• Actively contribute to UX Research processes, documentation and repositories.
• Engage in social media efforts, including writing blog articles and responding on Twitter, as appropriate.
• Interview potential UX candidates.

Success Criteria

You know you are doing a good job as a UX Researcher when:

• You collaborate effectively with Product Designers and Product Managers.
• You can quickly build rapport with GitLab's users.
• You contribute ideas for feature improvements based on your research findings.

UX Researcher Interview Questions

Here are some questions we might ask:

1. What are some existing case studies or research results we can see as an example of your work?
2. When you did x project, what was the biggest problem that you had to solve and how did you solve it?
3. What was a really interesting insight or finding that you had from a recent project?

Relevant links

• UX Research Handbook
• UX Department Handbook
• Engineering Handbook
• Product Handbook
• GitLab UX Research Project
• GitLab Design System

Hiring Process

Candidates for this position can expect the hiring process to follow the order below. Please keep in mind that candidates can be declined from the position at any stage of the process. To learn more about someone who may be conducting the interview, find her/his job title on our team page.

• Screening call with a recruiter.

• Interview with UX Research Manager. In this interview, we will be looking for you to give some real insight into two projects you've worked on. We'll look to understand the size and structure of the team you were a part of, the goals of the project, how you approached research, how you synthesized research data in order to inform design/product decisions and the final output of your research.

• Interview with Product Designer. Overall, this stage aims to understand your research methods, how you choose a methodology to use, how you present results, and how you work with a wider team of counterparts. This interview will also look to understand the softer skills you have as a researcher, and how you apply these in the real world.

• Interview with UX Director. In this final stage interview, we'd like to see the end result of a research study you've been a part of, we want to understand the question(s) you were addressing (and how you determined these questions), your methodology, and how you shared that information with the wider team.

• Successful candidates will subsequently be made an offer.

Additional details about our process can be found on our hiring page.

Apply

Please note that if we are actively hiring for a position, you will see it listed on our jobs page, where all of our current openings are advertised. To apply, please click on the name of the role you are interested in, which will take you to our applicant tracking system (ATS), Greenhouse.

Avoid the confidence gap; you do not have to match all the listed requirements exactly to apply. Our hiring process is described in more detail in our hiring handbook.

About GitLab

GitLab Inc. is a company based on the GitLab open-source project. GitLab is a community project to which over 1,000 people worldwide have contributed. We are an active participant in this community, trying to serve its needs and lead by example. We have one vision: everyone can contribute to all digital content, and our mission is to change all creative work from read-only to read-write so that everyone can contribute.

We value results, transparency, sharing, freedom, efficiency, frugality, collaboration, directness, kindness, diversity, boring solutions, and quirkiness. If these values match your personality, work ethic, and personal goals, we encourage you to visit our primer to learn more. Open source is our culture, our way of life, our story, and what makes us truly unique.

Top 10 reasons to work for GitLab:

1. Work with helpful, kind, motivated, and talented people.
2. Work remote so you have no commute and are free to travel and move.
3. Have flexible work hours so you are there for other people and free to plan the day how you like.
4. Everyone works remote, but you don't feel remote. We don't have a head office, so you're not in a satellite office.
5. Work on open source software so you can interact with a large community and can show your work.
6. Work on a product you use every day: we drink our own wine.
7. Work on a product used by lots of people that care about what you do.
8. As a company we contribute more than we take, most of our work is released as the open source GitLab CE.
9. Focused on results, not on long hours, so that you can have a life and don't burn out.
10. Open internal processes: know what you're getting in to and be assured we're thoughtful and effective.

See our culture page for more!

Work remotely from anywhere in the world. Curious to see what that looks like? Check out our remote manifesto.