Human-AI Interaction Researcher

Company Description

Meet Unit4. With over 40 years of heritage, we’re an agile, fast growing, Cloud company that is on a mission to redefine Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) for mid-market people-centric organisations.

With our innovative, self-driving, adaptive and intuitive software, our customers can spend more time on meaningful high-value work.

At the heart of what we do lies a simple yet profound purpose: Improve how people work by focusing on what truly matters. — A powerful statement that enables different priorities for different people.

We’re shaping how work should feel, and we empower our people by providing them with the right tools to achieve the autonomy they need - it's what makes us unique.

Job Description

A research position in Unit4 CTO, joining the team in Labs. You will work on how people and AI agents work together, so the systems agents operate stay understandable, trustworthy, and useful to the people they serve.

About the role

Enterprise software has always been an information system. For most of its history it was an information system built for people to operate directly. People read the screens, entered the data, and moved work through the steps the system laid out. The data meant something and the process meant something, but that meaning lived in the heads of the people using the system and in the code underneath it, never in a form the system itself could reason about.

That is changing now that meaning can be made explicit, so the system represents it, something else can read and act on it, and that something is increasingly an agent. The information system is becoming one that agents operate, in service of the people it has always been for. As the burden of reading the system, traversing it, and acting through it moves onto the software, the person's part changes. They author intent and judge outcomes rather than traverse machinery. How that relationship should work, how an agent should communicate, how it earns and keeps trust, and what it does to the way people think, decide, and work, are open questions. This role works on exactly that.

What already exists

Our AI First program has built a layered architecture in which meaning sits between the raw data and the agents that reason over it, a semantic data model and a semantic business process model, with metadata pipelines, data contracts, a catalog, and an ontology graph delivered as a proven proof of concept and now moving toward delivery. Agents already answer business questions over this layer. What we do not yet have is a research line on the human side of that interaction. Human-AI interaction is a new research area in Unit4 Research, and you would help define it from the start, drawing on what the program has built and on the experience of the teams taking agents into product. This is research on the relationship between people and AI, rather than product usability or customer research, though it should inform both.

What you will work on

This is a research role, so the questions are open, but the starting problems are concrete.

1. Define and run the research agenda for human-AI interaction at Unit4, setting its priorities together with the program.
2. Study how AI should interact and communicate with users, including how an agent presents itself, explains what it did, and signals what it is unsure of.
3. Understand how trust between people and agents is built, calibrated, and lost, so people rely on an agent when they should and question it when they should not.
4. Examine the cognitive and behavioral impact of AI on productivity and decision-making in everyday enterprise work.
5. Help make human-AI collaboration safe, fair, transparent, and trustworthy, working with our responsible AI stakeholders.
6. Turn findings into principles and patterns that guide future AI experiences across Unit4.
7. Build links with universities and academic institutions, and help decide whether research collaborations or interns would add value and which profiles we need.

How the work is shared

You would open this research area within Unit4 Research, providing subject-matter guidance without formally managing a team. You work alongside the architecture and AI research people on the meaning layer, including the information scientists working on how meaning is represented and evaluated, where questions about how people and agents find and interpret meaning meet. You also work with the product, design, and engineering teams taking agents into delivery, and with responsible AI stakeholders.

What we offer

• The chance to shape a new research area from its start, inside an established program whose work is already proven and now scaling.
• A place in Unit4 Research, close to our architecture and AI research people and to the teams taking agents into product.
• A research mandate judged by whether the findings change how we design and build AI experiences across Unit4.
• Room to build links with academia and to help shape how Unit4 collaborates with universities in this area.
• An international and multidisciplinary environment, working in English.

Qualifications

Who we are looking for

You might currently hold a title like human-computer interaction researcher, cognitive scientist, human factors researcher, behavioral scientist, UX researcher with a strong research focus, or have a keen interest in the topic. The label matters less than the way you think about how people and intelligent systems work together and some real experience studying it.

What we hope you bring.

• Some experience researching how people think, decide, or work with technology, from cognitive science, human-computer interaction, human factors, psychology, or a related field.
• A solid command of research methods, qualitative and quantitative, from designing studies and experiments to drawing sound conclusions from them.
• The ability to own a research area, framing the right questions, setting priorities, and moving forward with limited guidance.
• The ability to turn academic findings into practical principles and recommendations that product and engineering teams can act on, and to explain them to people who do not share your background.
• The habit of asking what a person is actually trying to achieve, and what they need to understand, before asking how the system should respond.

What you can pick up after joining.

• The ERPx domain and the specifics of our architecture. We do not expect you to arrive knowing enterprise resource planning.
• The particulars of how large language models and agents work, if you have the depth on the human side but less exposure to the model side.

We are glad to invest in people who want to grow into this. If you have the research depth and the interest but less exposure to AI or enterprise software, we will sponsor the learning.

Helpful, but not required

• Research on trust, explainability, or human oversight of automated or AI systems.
• Experience studying knowledge work or decision-making in organizational settings.
• Experience with academic collaboration, publishing, or building university partnerships.
• Familiarity with responsible AI principles or AI regulation.

Additional Information

Who we are?

We are a people-first community that nurtures all the areas that surround your working experience. With us, you’ll be surrounded by a high-performance team that supports your authentic self and celebrates your uniqueness.

We believe that ‘How work should feel’ is an evolving statement. Work goes beyond tasks and everyday responsibilities it’s about feeling valued, empowered, promoted, impactful, seen, and appreciated. We are reimagining how work makes people feel.

What we offer

• a culture built on trust and accountability - giving you the freedom and autonomy to be successful and make an impact
• balance - with our Flexible Leave Paid Time Off policy, remote working opportunities, Global Wellbeing Days, and other great benefits
• growth opportunities - we provide the tools and guidance required so that you can focus on what really matters to you and so, ultimately, you can achieve your best work
• talented colleagues, role models and mentors - work, learn and be inspired by some of the best talent in the software industry
• a commitment to sustainability - with initiatives such as our Environmental, Social, and Governance strategy and Act4Good programme
• a safe and inclusive working environment – supported by our Employee Resource Groups, which are open to all.

Our commitment to equity

Unit4 is committed to ensuring equal opportunity for everyone. We make our hiring decisions solely based on skills, qualifications, and our current business needs. We know that diversity brings fresh perspectives, ideas, and solutions to our company. This is the essence of our culture. We also welcome and encourage people who are pregnant and/or parents-to-be to apply. If you would like to know more about our commitment to diversity, visit our blogs:

• Our focus to DEI remains central to who we are
• Inclusive hiring at Unit4: Building equal opportunities for all

This role may require security clearance required for customer projects and access to sensitive (customer) data. That means that after you have accepted our offer, we could ask for background checks. Subject to applicable local laws, such security checks may require disclosure of personal information including criminal record declaration, right to work, personal identification and work history. No worries though – we'll handle it according to local privacy laws and keep your info safe. Questions? Feel free to reach out!