Principal UX Researcher

Microsoft Teams is seeking a Principal UX Researcher to join an exciting opportunity to impact the growth portfolio for Teams, focusing on Consumer and the Teams Communities Feature. This individual will have a proven track record for delivering compelling user experiences that are engaging, seamless, and deeply rooted in user needs. This is a unique opportunity for someone who thinks and works strategically and is motivated to partner across disciplines to deliver holistic experiences in a customer driven organization. Microsoft Teams is part of the Microsoft 365 family, bringing opportunities to work with a vast number of teams at Microsoft to deliver innovative and coherent solutions.

**Our Culture**

We are a diverse team of UX Researchers, Designers, Producers, Content Writers, Creatives, and UX Engineers who partner closely across disciplines, such as Product Management, Data Science, Engineering, and Marketing.

We are a team that challenges ourselves to live the Microsoft philosophies around inclusive culture and growth mindset. Local mentoring rings and communities allow us to learn from each other and grow. We focus on having inclusive interactions that foster productive dialog. We are dedicated to the work of creating a inclusive, and transparent culture - a safe place to do our best work

We have a proven track record of delivering business results with key metrics to track our successes and failures. We are a truly hybrid work environment with much of our team in Washington state and across North America. We also work closely with our partners in India, China and new teams in Atlanta and Vancouver, Canada. We like to have fun, celebrate our wins, and learn and grow from our mistakes.

**Responsibilities**:

- Understand UX Research needs and develop research plans and roadmaps to deliver insights that will guide product development decisions across the lifecycle.
- Create and manage design research knowledge that is leveraged across design and engineering teams and across products when appropriate.
- Provide actionable insights as an outcome of research activities and drive those insights into product and design plans with peers in the PM and Design organizations.
- Effectively communicate research strategies, methodologies and insights to peers, partners, and stakeholders throughout the organization.
- Be a key partner in ensuring product success by representing the value of UX Research to product managers and engineers throughout the organization.
- Work closely with design counterparts in global teams to align research activities and execution consistently.
- Leverage your insights in design reviews and planning cycles to improve the team’s ability to deliver world-class design solutions for our customers.
- Contribute to the learning and growth of the broader research team
- Contribute to broaden multi-discipline team’s creative processes, team building, and our cultural values around diversity, inclusion, transparency, and growth mindset
- Lead by example with clean, focused, and inspiring work, through all phases of the product cycle
- Provide thought leadership in user experience areas through collaboration with designers, participation in design reviews
- Collaborate with design, product management, data science, marketing, and engineering teams around the company and globe, leveraging partnerships for diverse perspective on our products
- Learn and understand about diverse audiences, their behaviors, context(s) and motivations - across all phases of the customer lifecycle and user journey
- Demonstrate empathy for users while balancing the vision and constraints of stakeholders

**Qualifications**:
**Required Qualifications**:

- Bachelor's Degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND 6+ years User Experience Research experience
- OR Master's Degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND 4+ years User Experience Research experience
- OR Doctorate in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND 3+ years User Experience Research experience
- OR equivalent experience

**Other Requirements**:
**Preferred Qualifications**:

- 8+ years of product UX Research experience (HCI, user experience, social psych, cognitive psych, behavioral psych, user Research, Usability, etc.).
- Proven ability to champion and drive plans for research programs for widespread impacts across a division, across the company, or within the industry.
- Comm