User Researcher-Dublin

Your day-to-day:

• Help user experience teams and the business solidify research objectives and identify problems to be explored. Then, translate these objectives into key research questions for study and/or exploration.
• Work across teams to plan and conduct an array of practical and impactful design research  to uncover user attitudes,  behaviors, needs, and motivations.
• Understand when and which quantitative and qualitative research methods to use and their pros and cons. Guide teams on which research tradeoffs are acceptable given research questions, business goals, timeline, and resources.
• Design and execute end-to-end custom, primary research. This includes but is not limited to building study plans, participant screeners, and discussion guides as well as recruiting study participants, moderation research sessions, and generating reports. 
• Uncover useful findings and actionable insights that drive tactical and strategic product decisions. Use third-party, market research, analytics, and user research to generate solid insights  to foster  solutions that consider a  holistic view of people, technology, and business. 
• Cultivate user empathy by translating research into compelling stories of how users of our solutions think, feel, and behave.
• Build artifacts such as personas, journey maps, presentations, reports, etc. to communicate the needs of users and customers to key stakeholders in clear and memorable ways.
• Assist with coaching and training developers, designers, product managers, and others on basic research best practices, enabling them to quickly turn-around meaningful, useful insights.
• Help to build and maintain an archive of research activities, results, and insights that can easily be shared with product shareholders and the user experience team.
• Understand the importance of scaling user research and assist with developing and maturing research at Guidewire. 

What you need to be successful:

• Proven proficiency in common qualitative and quantitative research methods such as moderated and unmoderated usability studies, customer and user interviews, concept testing, cognitive walkthroughs, surveys, discount methods like heuristic evaluations and expert reviews, and benchmarking.
• Experience in conducting both formative and summative research.
• Experience working with designers, developers, and product partners to define research objectives, identify and prioritize research
• Ability to draw out insights from a variety of design research artifacts.
• Experience with crafting UX artifacts like personas, storyboards, and journey maps to illustrate user needs and areas for opportunity.
• Ability to communicate results and opportunities in clear, concise, and compelling ways a that fuel ideation and elevated designs.
• Ability to prioritize and manage numerous projects simultaneously
• Flexibility to quickly respond to emerging issues under tight deadlines and lack of available end users 
• Strong organization and time management skills
• Willingness to work across time zones - We have teams from California to Poland, so you should be comfortable working across those time zones.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D. with 3 – 5 years of experience in Human Factors, Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology, Cognitive Science, Design, or related fields or equivalent practical experience. 
• Passion for research and empathy for the user 
• Experience conducting international research (Ideal but not required)

How we work at Guidewire

• We build on each other's ideas. We are committed to creating synergy and allowing for 'ah-ha' moments.
• Open and honest.
• We're a healthy workgroup that respectfully debates at times and are committed to figuring it out. #keepItPositiveAndProductive.
• We like learning and are curious.
• There's power in knowing what you don't know and then filling in the knowledge gaps. Whether that be design or domain-related-The sky's the limit!
• Confidence with humility.
• We value your thoughts and insights and recognize there are a lot of smart people we work with on our teams.
• Coachable and teachable.
• A growth mindset is critical to the best performing teams. Our commitment to every designer is to provide learning opportunities that both match and stretch their skills.