Sr. Manager, UX Research

About Us HighLevel is an AI powered, all-in-one white-label sales & marketing platform that empowers agencies, entrepreneurs, and businesses to elevate their digital presence and drive growth. We are proud to support a global and growing community of over 2 million businesses, comprised of agencies, consultants, and businesses of all sizes and industries. HighLevel empowers users  with all the tools needed to capture, nurture, and close new leads into repeat customers. As of mid 2025, HighLevel processes over 4 billion API hits and handles more than 2.5 billion message events every day. Our platform manages over 470 terabytes of data distributed across five databases, operates with a network of over 250 microservices, and supports over 1 million hostnames. Our People With over 1,500 team members across 15+ countries, we operate in a global, remote-first environment. We are building more than software; we are building a global community rooted in creativity, collaboration, and impact. We take pride in cultivating a culture where innovation thrives, ideas are celebrated, and people come first, no matter where they call home. Our Impact As of mid 2025, our platform powers over 1.5 billion messages, helps generate over 200 million leads, and facilitates over 20 million conversations for the more than 2 million businesses we serve each month. Behind those numbers are real people growing their companies, connecting with customers, and making their mark - and we get to help make that happen. The Role We’re hiring a Sr. Manager, UX Research to build and lead HighLevel’s research function and make user insight a first-class input into product strategy and execution. This role is not about running more usability tests - it’s about helping HighLevel answer hard questions: - Where does complexity genuinely create power vs. friction? - How do agencies vs. SMBs experience value differently? - What should be easier now, and what can remain “expert-level”? - How do we scale UX quality across dozens of product areas and teams? - What does the competitive landscape look like?  - Where is the next big problem to solve for our customers? - What is the next big SMB segment we should focus on? You’ll partner closely with Product, Design, Engineering, Data, and GTM to ensure we’re building the right things, in the right order, for the right users. What You’ll Do 1. Research Strategy & Product Impact - Define and own HighLevel’s UX research strategy across the full product lifecycle - from discovery and concept validation to post-launch learning and iteration. - Investigate the competitive landscape to identify product differentiation opportunities and unmet needs across core SMB segments. - Focus research on high-leverage decisions, including product sequencing, end-to-end workflows, onboarding, activation, retention, and long-term adoption. - Own and execute customer research programs, including customer interviews, usability testing, surveys, diary studies, and quantitative signal analysis in partnership with Product and Data. - Synthesize research into clear, actionable insights that inform product direction, not just surface-level usability improvements 2. Org Design & Team Leadership - Build and lead a scalable UX research team (initially small, growing with impact). - Define roles, career paths, and hiring plans aligned to HighLevel’s growth stage. - Partner deeply with Product and Design leadership to embed research into planning cycles. - Act as the voice of the user at senior and executive levels. 3. Research Operations at Scale - Create repeatable systems for: - Recruiting agencies, SMBs, and global users - Running fast, pragmatic research without slowing teams down - Centralizing insights in a shared, searchable repository - Balance qualitative depth (interviews, contextual inquiry) with quantitative signal (usage patterns, surveys, funnels). - Introduce lightweight standards for rigor, synthesis, and storytelling across teams. 4. Executive Communication & Influence - Translate complex findings into clear narratives that guide strategic decisions. - Help leaders understand when to invest in UX simplification vs. when complexity is acceptable. - Build confidence across teams in using research to move faster, not slower. What We’re Looking For Experience - 9+ total years of experience in UX research, with 4+ years leading teams. - Experience influencing product strategy in complex B2B or platform products. - Proven ability to operate in environments with: - Power users - Multi-persona workflows - High configuration and automation depth - Track record of turning research into clear decisions and measurable outcomes. Skills & Mindset - Strong systems thinker who understands tradeoffs between power, flexibility, and usability. - Comfortable with ambiguity and imperfect data. - Pragmatic: knows when research should be deep and when it should be fast. - Excellent communicator who can align executives, PMs, designers, and engineers. Nice to Have - Experience in agency-led or reseller-driven products - Background in SaaS, CRM, marketing automation, or workflow tools - Familiarity with product analytics and experimentation - Experience building a research function from scratch or scaling one rapidly Why This Role Matters at HighLevel HighLevel wins by offering unmatched capability density - but our long-term success depends on making that power understandable, adoptable, and scalable. This role ensures that as we grow: - Complexity is intentional, not accidental - UX improves through sequencing, not feature removal - User insight becomes a strategic advantage, not a bottleneck