Lead Experience Researcher

About Phocas

At Phocas, we’re on a mission to make people feel good about data. Our software helps everyday people get insights that drive better decisions — across finance, operations, sales, and beyond. We’re known for our unmatched customer love, industry-leading retention, and a culture built on openness, autonomy, and doing the best work of our lives.

We believe great ideas come from everywhere. We work flexibly, we collaborate deeply, and we’re constantly improving. If you want to join a scaling global SaaS business that genuinely cares about people and customers, Phocas is a place you can thrive.

About the Role

As our Lead Experience Researcher, you will lead the discovery of deep customer insight across our global customer base. You’ll uncover motivations, frustrations, and behaviours — then turn those findings into trusted knowledge systems that power product, customer, and commercial strategy.

You’ll also champion the democratisation of research at Phocas: enabling cross-functional teams to contribute to, access, understand, and apply insight with confidence. This role is central to our mission of developing unparalleled customer intimacy and driving smarter, more empathetic decisions across the business.

What You’ll Be Doing

Drive customer insight at scale

• Design and embed a scalable, organisation-wide continuous opportunity discovery practice
• Plan and run mixed-method research: interviews, workflow observation, JTBD studies, diary studies, usability tests, and more
• Map end-to-end workflows across industries and personas to reveal unmet needs and opportunities

Codify and centralise insight

• Transform raw and unstructured data into high-quality, standardised knowledge assets
• Develop and operationalise a comprehensive framework documenting customer journeys, personas, and Jobs-to-be-Done
• Build and maintain a central customer intelligence repository used across Phocas

Elevate research impact & capability

• Partner with Product, Engineering, Customer teams, and leadership to ensure insight drives rituals and decisions (roadmaps, solution design workshops, opportunity evaluation, AI exploration)
• Work closely with teams to coach and build confidence and capability in conducting meaningful customer conversations and uncovering deeper insights
• Create compelling storytelling artifacts — narratives, read-outs, voice-of-customer updates, insight channels
• Introduce new methods, tools, and techniques to mature the research practice

What We’re Looking For

• Extensive UX and customer research experience, with mastery of qualitative and quantitative methods
• Proven ability to drive strategic impact through foundational research that shaped product vision and major strategic shifts
• End-to-end mixed-methods capability: field studies, interviews, surveys, data analysis, and behavioral interpretation
• Skilled at scaling insight, translating complex findings into compelling stories, frameworks, and artifacts
• Strong systems thinking — linking customer behavior and needs to product architecture, AI opportunities, and platform evolution
• Experience building and maturing research practices in growing or evolving teams
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and guiding cross-functional teams toward clarity and alignment
• Exceptional communicator, equally effective with senior leaders and hands-on contributors, inspiring empathy and confident decision-making

Phocas is an Accredited Employer and typically we are strong supporters of international talent, but due to current visa settings and processing times, we can only consider applicants with current NZ working rights.

Why Phocas?

• Award-winning culture grounded in trust, autonomy, and flexibility
• Global team with opportunities to influence product direction at scale
• A genuinely supportive workplace that invests in development and celebrates people
• The chance to shape the research discipline from the ground up

Phocas is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or veteran status.

Recruiters, please note: We don’t accept unsolicited agency resumes

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