Permanent Position

Excellent salary, bonus and benefits

Relocation is will consider for outstanding candidates

Company designs meaningful products and experiences for companies ranging from startups to Fortune 100 giants. From design strategy through product development, they align user needs with business goals to ensure market success. With offices in Chicago, Boston, Raleigh and Shanghai, they have a global perspective that feels local. They work closely with their clients because they believe a collaborative relationship leads to greater innovation and market success.

Their teams work on a variety of consumer, medical, and commercial projects. Their research staff helps them push past the limits of traditional consumer and product design research methods to provide their internal teams and clients with knowledge, opportunities, and direction that lead to meaningful product and service experiences. Their researchers are part of a multi-disciplinary team involved in the design process from defining the strategic direction through full development, representing the voice of the end consumer.

POSITION TITLE:                   Manager, User Research

POSITION LOCATION:         Chicago, IL

DEPARTMENT:                       User Research

POSITION REPORTS TO:      Partner, Director

DIRECT REPORTS

TO POSITION:                         5 Researchers

KEY FUNCTION AND

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES:

This opportunity is designed to not only help lead a user research team and staff /manage programs, but to also help company develop new research tools and methodologies as they continually try to raise the bar for excellence in user research. Company has user research staff in multiple offices and this position is a collaborative one, where offices frequently work together, share work, and evolve methodologies.

POSITION REQUIREMENTS

·         Minimum of 8 years direct experience in user/design research

·         Minimum of 3 years direct experience in user/design research for product development of manufactured physical products (not web-based, services, or commodity consumables like diapers)

·         Demonstrated ability to design and implement research programs to investigate user workflow, goals, tasks, end-user needs, emotive responses, expectations, and beliefs

·         Direct experience with contextual research methods, interviewing, survey development, observational research, usability testing, heuristic analyses, and other qualitative and quantitative methods for collecting and analyzing user data and understanding user experiences

·         Direct experience performing detailed analysis of research data to produce actionable direction as design requirements

·         Experience performing research and analysis for products that are a part of complex work flows

·         Demonstrated ability to organize a team and assign/manage tasks as needed to complete projects on time and within budget

·         Bachelors or Masters in either anthropology, sociology, human factors, psychology, or other cognitive science (or Masters in industrial design).

·         Experience as a manager with director reports, including mentoring less experienced staff

·         Demonstrated ability to effectively articulate the value of research to internal or external groups.

·         Willing and able to work full time out of our Chicago office and live within a reasonable commuting range (15 miles)

Nice to haves:

·         Some experience in the medical and or pharmaceutical fields

·         Demonstrated track record of publications and/or speaking engagements in the field of research and/or  design

·         Financial (P/L) responsibility for a small group or a department

·         Experience with quantitative research, statistics

·         Experience participating in new business development efforts related to research and product development programs.

Please send your resume to: jennifer@odonnellsearch.com