Principal Experience Design Researcher

Position Overview

Ever wanted to help build the tools that designers use to make a better world? Autodesk’s platform services team designs common capabilities used by our large portfolio of design and make software. The platform helps Autodesk teams other companies grow their business, solve important workflow challenges, and build functionality on top of our 3D modeling, visualization and data insight software. You’ll collaborate with other designers, researchers, product managers, and engineers across teams who are passionate about bringing better experiences to the fields of architecture, construction, manufacturing and film and visual effects. Our team has a strong culture of collaboration, mentorship, practice excellence and individual attention to your career growth and impact. 

In the role of Principal Researcher, you’ll design the research strategy for a key initiative around how customers access licenses and tokens that let them use our software, and how they manage, share and control access to their projects and data. Access impacts over eight products – everything from identity and licensing to project administration and collaboration on CAD data.

We are seeking a collaborative researcher who can successfully focus a large set of stakeholders on the key goals and questions that require customer feedback, and work with designers to craft an agile program of needfinding, prototyping, usability sessions and metrics to help the team answer risky questions, clarify customer goals, and measure the success of feature experiments towards our business goals. In your research practice, you love clarifying patterns out of large amounts of data during synthesis, and you’re a skilled influencer who knows how to bring the right data and stories of customer empathy to change minds if the project needs to change direction based on research insights. You’ll have a chance to mentor junior researchers, share best practices across Autodesk’s cohesive and active research community, show thought leadership inside and outside the company, and get mentored by senior members of our entire design team.

We are open to remote candidates based in Canada.

Responsibilities

• Become a domain expert on customer experience and trends in access (licensing and data) and use your expertise to inform projects across 8 product teams

• Deliver research strategy that balances business and customer needs

• Track key areas of uncertainty and prioritize research to minimize product development risk

• Use customer insights to influence design and product roadmap

• Plan and execute formative and summative user research studies to increase quality, ease-of-use and the overall user experience related to accessing licenses, projects and data

• Analyze quantitative/qualitative data and present study findings in a timely manner, in alignment with project milestones

• Broadly share user research findings and contribute to increased empathy for customers within User Experience, Product Management, Marketing and Engineering

• Advance the discipline of user research within Autodesk

Minimum Requirements

• Proven record in impacting user experience through user research findings

• Ability to produce exceptional user research deliverables expressed in a portfolio of your work

• Expert knowledge and innovation in user research and field study methodologies, including designing and conducting usability studies, statistical analysis of survey data, heuristic evaluations, participatory design activities and focus groups

• Experience contributing user research within an agile development environment

• Ability to influence stakeholders across divisions including senior directors and VPs and present up to CTO

• English language fluency; exceptional verbal and written communication skills

• Excellent visual and oral storytelling skills

• MS/MFA+ in Human Factors, Human Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science, Engineering, Psychology, Product Design or related field

• Minimum 8 years of professional experience in the field of user research and usability

The Ideal Candidate

• Positive, winning attitude

• Adept at influencing outcomes via teamwork and diplomacy

• Excellent interpersonal communication skills

• Keen interest and ability in driving user research activities from concept to conclusion, working directly with any combination of stakeholders

• Embraces learning and curiosity about Autodesk tools and markets

Learn More

About Autodesk
Welcome to Autodesk! Amazing things are created every day with our software – from the greenest buildings and cleanest cars to the smartest factories and biggest hit movies. We help innovators turn their ideas into reality, transforming not only how things are made, but what can be made.

We take great pride in our culture here at Autodesk – our Culture Code is at the core of everything we do. Our values and ways of working help our people thrive and realize their potential, which leads to even better outcomes for our customers.

When you’re an Autodesker, you can be your whole, authentic self and do meaningful work that helps build a better future for all. Ready to shape the world and your future? Join us!

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