Principal User Researcher

In a Nutshell

‍We are looking for an experienced lead user researcher who can deliver real insights into the target user experience for digital products and services, used by people every day. You care how a real person will experience it and use it. And can demonstrate these insights to teams and senior stakeholders alike. We are building a world-class research team – want to help lead it? Valtech is a multi-award winning digital agency with 4,500+ people across 15 countries. We work with major global brands like L’Oréal and BMW, to UK brands including Easyjet to Very. We have over 25 years of transforming the service experience to improve lives with the UK Government like delivering the Blue Badge for the Dept for Transport.

‍About The Role

‍As a principal user researcher, you’ll be responsible for leading user research across projects and programmes, delivering key insights enabling Valtech to design frictionless services for our clients and products that delight their customers. We take a user centered design approach to delivering on this promise. Some of our clients run products and deliver services used by millions of users. All of our clients operate in complex digital environments.  Our Agile teams work iteratively, aiming to get feedback quickly, validating ideas and iterating designs to shape innovative solutions for complex problems. You will be experienced in this way of working and can bring a range of industry standard research methodologies to bear on the work.

You need to demonstrate empathy, critical thinking and a drive to find the innovation solution with teams across often competing and complex digital landscapes.

Finally, we are looking for a leader, one with a point of view and can contribute to the Valtech culture, driving our research practice and develop our design community – in the UK and globally.

‍Essential Skills

• Demonstrable experience of applying qualitative user research skills, from interviewing to unmoderated remote testing
• Experience driving quantitative research methods where viable (from surveys to optimisation testing)
• A great track record as a user researcher within Agile-based teams.
• Clear experience working within the GDS delivery model for UK Government service design (for Gov-focused role)
• Clear experience working with commercial clients (ideally in ecommerce) delivering service design (for commercial-focused role)
• Ability to synthesis evidence (both received and from your own research sessions) and run synthesis sessions with teams
• Strong communicator delivering insights to teams and senior stakeholders in an accessible way (from presentations to films)
• Experience running research with participants with medium-to-high accessibility needs and/or at risk groups
• Clear grasp of inclusive design, accessibility (i.e. WCAG guidelines) & its application within user research across Discovery & Alpha phase projects
• Willingness to travel to run research on-site and in the field (COVID pandemic-dependent)
  

Why Valtech

‍At Valtech we promise to make products and services that will delight users. We take a user centered design approach to delivering on this promise. All our clients operate in complex digital environments. You must have deep experience of delivering and engaging stakeholders in the design process so they will buy into the solutions we’re delivering.

So, whether you are renewing a Blue Badge, booking your next holiday or ordering your Friday night takeaway, we’re making it happen. We transform by doing across commerce, Government services, digital platforms, marketing and more.

Diversity and Inclusion at Valtech

At Valtech, we’re here to engineer experiences that work and reach every single person. To do this, we are proactive about creating workplaces that work for every person at Valtech. Our goal is to create an equitable workplace which gives people from all backgrounds the support they need to thrive, grow and meet their goals (whatever they may be).

‍If You Choose To Fill It Out, All Of The Information You Give Us Is

As part of this work, we’re sharing an optional anonymous survey with you after your application. This survey will help us better understand the people who apply to work at Valtech. It'll help us see how different demographics progress through our hiring process, and where we need to make improvements to give them a better chance of succeeding.

• Voluntary. And we've included a "prefer not to say" option for every question. It'd be helpful if you still fill out the survey even if you choose "prefer not to say" for every question, as it's useful for us to understand & record this. We won't know if you choose to fill this survey in or not.
• Anonymous to Valtech. We can't tie your responses to you and they won't make a difference to the outcome of your application. We'll only use grouped responses for equal opportunities monitoring in our hiring process.
  

For more information on how we'll use this data, please read our candidate privacy notice.

By filling out the survey, you agree that we can use your responses for the purposes we've mentioned above.