Whole Foods Market is looking for a Principal User Experience Researcher to join our team in Austin. This is an IC6, Individual Contributor position. We are building, evolving, and refining an ecosystem of digital and physical products to create a best-in-class retail experience that is intuitive, joyful, and innovative. This position will design and conduct research activities that inform our understanding of the end-to-end shopping experience, identifying key opportunity areas. The ideal candidate will have a deep understanding of user research methods and best practices, experience with and passion for new consumer technology and digital product development, and a nimble, creative, and pragmatic approach.  This role will work in close day-to-day partnership with the Design, Product, and Technology teams to improve existing customer experiences and identify new opportunities for future growth.  

Essential to this role is… 

• Conducting primary research, including methods such as user interviews, ethnography, shopalongs/store intercepts, usability testing, and surveys to truly understand and empathize with our customers while answering specific business questions. You will be an expert in our suite of digital tools, fully understanding how our customers engage (or don’t) with them throughout their shopping journey. 

• Synthesizing the research into actionable and interesting insights. Great researchers uncover patterns that can effectively improve and enhance the suite of tools. 

• Presenting the findings in clear and compelling formats that are effective at bringing teams together and sparking meaningful conversations. These communications will take the form of clearly written documentation as well as articulated through discussion and collaboration. 

Ultimately, this role will proactively represent and advocate for both Whole Foods Market and Amazon Fresh customers and can efficiently help discover solutions that balance desirability with feasibility and viability.  

You are a human-centered design researcher and strong communicator who can work collaboratively on passionate teams. You are proactive and will dive into the suite of products to fully understand our existing end-to-end customer experience with a critical eye. You have the ability to empathize with the customer and take pride in untangling pain points in both conventional and novel ways. You understand the value for both qualitative and quantitative research and know when and how to leverage both. You know how to perform formal research studies when resources allow but are also comfortable finding ways to quickly get an idea in front of customers for a gut check. You take pride in your documentation and present findings in clear and beautiful ways. You are comfortable working across multiple modalities and interfaces from desktop and mobile to in-store experiences. You have excellent communication skills, are able to influence others, and work with minimal direction.  

Location: Austin, TX

Responsibilities 

• Distill project goals and research questions into well thought-out research plans. 

• Method determination – ability to identify the best method or mix of methods based on research questions, timeline and resourcing. 

• Evaluative research – assessing our existing product ecosystem with an eye for incremental improvements and refinements.

• Generative research – assessing gaps in our customer journey that would benefit the customer and how they engage with our offerings. 

• Collaboration on interdisciplinary teams – strong cross-functional communication skills and comfortable working with design, product, and technology in order to actualize the recommended changes. 

• Communication through documentation – Perform quick (but thorough) analysis and translate into clear, beautiful, and insightful presentations of research findings. 

• Leading workshops and stakeholder meetings – ability to listen and incorporate feedback from colleagues in a workshop environment. 

• Ownership of key research supplier relationships, including general account management and serving as the liaison between supplier and team members utilizing research platforms. 

Desired Skills and Experience 

• 5+ years of experience in product and/or UX research 

• BA/BS degree or equivalent practical experience 

• End-to-end experience with all aspects of research (study design, recruiting, moderation, analysis, reporting) 

• Experience with usability testing and evaluative research as well as generative research methodologies, including expertise in digital product development 

• Facilitation for decision making and prioritization 

• Conversant in complex & emerging technologies 

• Understanding of agile design and development practices 

• UX-centered systems thinking for complex organizations 

• Excellent communication, presentation, interpersonal and analytical skills; the ability to communicate complex concepts clearly and persuasively across different audiences and varying levels of the organization 

• The ability to manage ambiguity, work autonomously, and multi-task in an agile environment 

• A portfolio that exhibits how past research experiences contributed to successful feature/product development is strongly encouraged, but not required 

• Sense of humor is a must.