Senior Research Manager, Design Research

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Provide strategic leadership across design research, ensuring alignment with hardware, product, and organizational priorities.
• Scale early-stage research initiatives, working closely with cross-functional leaders to identify opportunities for research and set expectations for mixed-methods research, ensuring research is positioned as a critical input to decision-making. 
• Partner closely with Program Management and team members to intake research needs, assess tradeoffs, and guide prioritization and research direction.
• Manage, coach, and develop a team of senior researchers, fostering strong research craft, clear communication, and professional growth.
• Serve as a senior individual contributor on complex, high-impact research initiatives, particularly those adjacent to physical product and hardware development.
• Own relationships with external research vendors, including scoping projects, defining success criteria, and ensuring high-quality execution.
• Communicate research insights clearly and credibly to cross-functional partners and leadership, positioning research as a critical input to decision-making.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field such as human factors, design research, user experience research, design anthropology, psychology, or a related discipline.
• 5+ years of experience conducting user research for physical products, ideally within hardware, health, or consumer product environments.
• 2+ years of people management experience, including coaching, feedback, and performance development.
• Strong mixed-methods research background, with demonstrated application of qualitative and quantitative approaches to real-world products.
• Experience working within or alongside hardware development lifecycles (not software-only).
• Experience managing or partnering with external research vendors, including project scoping and execution.
• Ability to manage multiple workstreams, navigate ambiguity, and influence without direct authority across cross-functional teams.
• Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills, with the ability to communicate complex insights to executive audiences.
• Strong commitment to embracing and leveraging AI tools in day-to-day tasks, ensuring AI-assisted work aligns with the same high-quality standards as personal contributions.