UX Researcher

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4. UX Researcher

At GitLab, UX Researchers collaborate with our UX 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. User Experience Researchers report to the UX Lead.

Responsibilities

• Help to research and improve the user experience of GitLab.
• Help the company and the rest of the community build empathy for users by synthesizing and communicating user insights.
• Collaborate with our UX designers, front/backend engineers, product managers and the rest of the community to determine what features should be built, how they should behave, and what the priorities should be. This is mainly done on our public issue tracker.
• Create deliverables (reports, personas, customer journey maps, etc) to communicate research findings.
• Use quantitative data to complement qualitative data about users to inform company and product decisions.
• Respond to comments about GitLab's usability.
• Recruit and screen participants for user research that are willing to work in the open.
• Stay informed of the latest UX research techniques, tools and processes.

Junior UX Researcher

• Support the UX Researcher with scoping, designing and conducting research studies. This may include but not be limited to usability studies, user interviews, surveys and field studies.
• Conduct secondary research methods such as desk research, competitor analysis, etc.
• Help maintain GitLab's research panel.
• With support from the UX Researcher, interpret research findings and ensure UX Designers and Product Managers are debriefed on the results of our testing sessions.
• Work collaboratively with UX Designers and Product Managers to help identify opportunities for research.
• Assist in the creation of research deliverables such as reports, personas, customer journey maps, etc.

UX Researcher

• Develop and execute research plans and objectives based on an understanding of company’s strategic goals.
• Employ qualitative methods to understand user needs, motivations, and behaviors. This may include but not be limited to field studies, usability studies, diary studies, user interviews, and surveys.
• Maintain a participant database for user research recruiting.
• Write blog articles and respond to comments about GitLab's usability.

Senior UX Researcher

• Deeply understand the needs and issues of GitLab users.
• Propose, implement, and lead significant improvements based on research findings.
• Mentor more junior UX researchers.
• Delegate work to more junior UX researchers as appropriate.
• Have deep knowledge of GitLab UX research history and direction.
• Serve as the go-to person for UX research.
• Improve other UX researchers productivity through better tools and workflow.
• Collaborate with team members across the organization and advocate for users and user-centered solutions.
• Write blog posts and conduct FGU articulating UX research strategy.
• Interview potential UX research candidates.
• Have a deep understanding of UX research fundamentals.

Tools

Tools used by UX Researchers at GitLab are flexible depending on the needs of the work.

Success Criteria

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

• You are contributing research to resolve UX / UI issues assigned to milestones well before the milestone comes up.
• You are contributing ideas and solutions beyond existing issues.
• Users are overwhelmingly happy about your contributions.
• You collaborate effectively with Frontend Engineers, Developers, and Designers.

UX Researcher Interview Questions

The UX Researcher Interview determines if a UX Researcher is a good fit for GitLab. Here are some questions we might ask:

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

Relevant links

• Engineering Handbook
• Engineering Workflow
• GitLab Design Kit

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), Lever.

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.