Lead UX Product Researcher (Vendor)

About Us: 

Working at Target means helping all families discover the joy of everyday life. We bring that vision to life through our values and culture. Learn more about Target here. 

As a Fortune 50 company with more than 350,000 team members worldwide, Target is an iconic brand and one of America's leading retailers. Working at Target means the opportunity to help all families discover the joy of everyday life. Caring for our communities is woven into who we are, and we invest in the places we collectively live, work and play. We prioritize relationships, fuel and develop talent by creating growth opportunities, and succeed as one Target team. At our core, our purpose is ingrained in who we are, what we value, and how we work. It’s how we care, grow, and win together. Learn more about Target here. 

Target UX is a group of design, research, content and accessibility practitioners and experts, with a passion for improving and innovating our digital experiences for Target’s guests, team members, and partners. Here, we pride ourselves on designing tangible, inspiring, and impactful solutions that serve all aspects of our business– and being a part of the team means you will play a critical role for Target’s digital experience by increasing ease, simplicity, value, and delight for every touchpoint.    

As a member of our product research team, you’ll bring that purpose to life across Target.com, Target apps, internal tools, and more through the design of new retail experiences and the evolution of existing ones. 

Reports to: 

Sr Manager UX Product Research 

About the role: 

As a Lead Product Researcher within our Vendor Management space, you’ll be at the forefront of evolving Target’s digital experience supporting our Vendor partners; shaping it with ease, simplicity and growth for businesses to sell their products with Target. You will evolve how we understand our vendors’ experience, needs, and pain points with a focus on the end-to-end experience. As part of a cross functional team, you will help develop new ways of how we onboard, engage, and support businesses who sell their products with us. You will influence the product development process for our digital vendor tools, ensuring that our experiences align with team member needs, business objectives, and technological feasibility. 

The Lead Researcher is responsible for scoping, planning, executing, and synthesizing research to create actionable insights for cross functional product development teams. You will translate research data into powerful stories that help shape Target’s products. This role is a key partner to several functions in the digital group including product managers, UX product designers, engineers, data scientists, content designers, accessibility consultants, and site merchandisers. 
 
Responsibilities: 

• Use your skills, experience, and talents to lead research in the Vendor Management space as you conduct and synthesize research projects, such as: in person moderated testing, remote moderated & unmoderated testing, surveys, heuristic reviews, benchmark studies, concept testing, online & in-store intercepts 

• Utilize both quantitative and qualitative research methods and know when to use one or the other 

• Support UX leaders with research requests; from scoping initiatives, executing testing needs, and synthesizing findings 

• Be responsible to lead and guide junior researchers on intake, planning, scoping and stakeholder management in the Enterprise UX Research space at Target in India 

• Support product teams (product managers, product designers, engineering) throughout the research project life cycle – recommending appropriate methodology, scoping, and coordinating the entire process, facilitating in-field research and post-research synthesis through analysis 

• Assist the broader Product Research team in keeping our ongoing research library up-to-date and comprehensive 

Responsibilities:  

• Serve as a leader throughout the research project life cycle – recommending appropriate methodology, scoping, and coordinating the entire process, facilitating in-field research and post-research synthesis through analysis  

• Provide expert guidance in leading, conducting, and synthesizing qualitative research projects – including, but not limited to: in person moderated testing, remote moderated & unmoderated testing, surveys, heuristic reviews, benchmark studies, concept testing, online & in-store intercepts, digital ethnographies 

• Lead synthesis and analysis of research findings – activating the insights gleaned through observations and interviews and identifying key opportunity areas in the context of corporate strategic direction  

• Use your influence to identify and pursue user-centric outcomes within and across products  

• Effectively facilitate multiple cross functional working teams and collaborate across multiple design and product teams as well as time zones 

• Guide research process and mentor junior researchers  

• Advance a culture of human-centered practice within UX, product, and engineering teams  

• Build a network of relationships to enable your vision in service of our guest experience and Target as a whole  

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About you:    

• 8-10 years’ experience as a product researcher with a strong portfolio showcasing successful case studies  

• Preferred 4-year degree in Anthropology, Social Science, Design Research, Psychology, Human Factors, HCI, or related field.  

• Genuine curiosity about people and experiences.  

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; demonstrated ability to effectively communicate complex concepts to cross functional partners across global time zones 

• A strong ability to tell compelling stories from data   

• Comfortable with ambiguity and can easily adjust to changing priorities 

• Experienced at conflict resolution, expectation setting and diplomacy in dealing with multiple stakeholders since the juniors will look up to you for this skill   

• Strong project management skills – experience managing and prioritizing multiple projects at various stages in the project life cycle.   

• Advanced strategic problem-solving, systems thinking, and collaboration skills  

• You balance the need for near-term solutions and long-term vision  

• You are an expert in communicating how research connects to, serves, and improves business outcomes  

• Exhibit a growth mindset   

• Comfortable speaking to a diverse group of people and leading conversations to uncover research insights.    

• Experience running, recruiting, moderating and analyzing research and thinking strategically about their application.