Senior Research Strategist

With over 18,000 employees worldwide, the mission of the Customer Experience & Success (CE&S) organization is to empower customers to accelerate business value through differentiated customer experiences that leverage Microsoft’s products and services, ignited by our people and culture. Come join CE&S and help us build a future where customers achieve their business outcomes faster with technology that does more.

The Global Customer Success (GCS) organization, an organization within CE&S, is leading the effort to enable customer success on the Microsoft Cloud by harnessing leading, AI-powered capabilities and human expertise to deliver innovation solutions that accelerate business value, drive operational excellence and nurture long term loyalty.

Are you looking for a strategic job opportunity with a unique and spirited team converging strategy, design, and research with a focus on customer experience? If so, you may want to join the Experience Strategy & Design Studio team as a Senior Experience Research Strategist!

How we are different from other research and design teams:
• We are strategic more than tactical and work primarily on large scale end-to-end experiences. This means we have more interaction with executives.
• We operate within a horizontal team format, where we lead with influence to cultivate key partnerships across organizations within Microsoft.
• Much of our work is fast-paced, agile, and iterative.

We could be the right team for you if you are looking for a team with:
• An inclusive and collaborative environment, encouraging diverse team perspectives.
• A culture of thought leadership, shepherding customer-centricity at the team’s core.
• Agency and creative freedom to generate energy with stakeholders through dynamic storytelling and visually appealing artifacts.
• The ability to create clarity amidst ambiguous and complex customer challenges.
• A diverse and energetic team that lives across four countries.

This role is flexible in that you can work up to 100% from home.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Responsibilities

• Scope, design, and lead in-person and virtual customer-facing co-creation workshops that result in breakthrough ways AI can transform our customers’ business.
• Excellent communicator and storyteller that can communicate complex concepts in a manner that creates enthusiasm and alignment for the proposed future state experiences.
• Skilled at executive-level stakeholder management; comfortable setting and respectfully communicating expectations.
• Confidently identify the best way to leverage qualitative research to support a design objective, including the area of focus and research method(s) best suited to the business objectives and customer needs.
• Demonstrate experience with a wide variety of research methods (e.g., interviewing, surveys, foundational, quantitative, qualitative, etc.). Hands-on experience designing, planning, and facilitating interviews, field research, international research, and survey design.
• Build connections and partnerships to deliver a persuasive outside-in customer-centric approach to enable a connected experience delivered at scale.
• Drive a foundational research strategy for the team while partnering with stakeholders to define moments of truth.
• Clearly and succinctly present possible solutions outside of the designated design space.
• Review and validate work with peers, stakeholders, and customers to maintain open communication.
• Ability to see things from various altitudes and communicate holistic solutions.
• Expertise in Customer Experience Design and Design Thinking.

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 extensive User Experience Research experience.
o 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 User Experience Research experience.
o 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 User Experience Research experience.
o OR equivalent experience.

• Experience designing and facilitating co-creation/ideation/design thinking workshops to drive meaningful business outcomes.

• Experience working on experiences that include extensive digital solutions (omni-channel, self-service, AI bots, etc).

• Experience conducting 1:1 research interviews.

• Relevant domain experience within technology sector and enterprise (B2B) customers [KP2].

Preferred qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree, Master's Degree 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 extensive User Experience Research experience.

• Extensive relevant domain experience within technology sector and enterprise (B2B) customers [KP1].

• Experience in research methods impacting both product direction and detailed experience design.

• Extensive experience designing and facilitating co-creation/ideation/design thinking workshops to drive meaningful business outcomes.

• Extensive experience conducting 1:1 research interviews.

• Extensive experience working on experiences that include extensive digital solutions (omni-channel, self-service, AI bots, etc).

• Demonstrated technical or conceptual understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI) principles, including machine learning, natural language processing, and AI-driven user experience enhancements.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.