UX Researcher

Applied Intuition•Sunnyvale, CA

1d•Onsite

About The Position

We are hiring our first UX Researcher to join our product design team focused on Vehicle OS and in‑vehicle experiences. This is an early‑career role for someone with a strong academic foundation in Human‑Computer Interaction who wants to own the full UX research lifecycle in a fast‑paced, highly technical environment. You will partner closely with interaction designers, product managers, and engineers to define problems, run user studies, and make our complex automotive workflows intuitive and safe. In this role, you will spend time in the field with our customers, run evaluative user tests on our UI, and synthesize insights that directly shape our roadmap. You will be a key voice of the customer inside the Vehicle OS organization and help us navigate standards, safety, and usability constraints for production automotive software.

Requirements

A master’s degree in Human‑Computer Interaction, Human Factors, Cognitive Psychology, or a related field.
1–4 years of industry experience in UX research, interaction design, or a closely related discipline (internships and co‑ops count).
Experience planning and running user research studies (e.g., usability testing, interviews, concept tests) end‑to-end.
Strong interaction design literacy and a genuine interest in complex user workflows, even if you are not the primary UI owner.
Excellent listening and note‑taking skills, with the ability to capture and organize qualitative insights clearly.
Comfort working in a fast‑paced, ambiguous environment where speed and iteration are critical.
Strong communication skills, including the ability to present findings and advocate for user needs to cross‑functional partners.

Nice To Haves

Experience working on automotive, mobility, or other highly regulated or safety‑critical products.
Familiarity with automotive UI patterns, in‑vehicle HMI, or infotainment systems.
Exposure to ISO or other relevant safety/usability standards in transportation or hardware‑centric products.
Experience collaborating with academic or external research partners.
Prior work conducting field research or ethnographic studies with professional users.

Responsibilities

Work with product and design partners to clarify problem statements, define research questions, and scope research plans for Vehicle OS and in‑vehicle features.
Design and execute user studies end‑to-end, including participant selection, protocol design, moderation, note‑taking, and synthesis.
Run usability tests on interaction designs and UI flows (both in‑lab and in‑field) to validate concepts quickly and inform iteration.
Conduct contextual and field research with automotive customers and end users, including observing workflows and capturing qualitative insights.
Translate research findings into clear narratives, artifacts, and recommendations that influence product decisions and design direction.
Collaborate with designers who are focused on interaction design to ensure research questions are tightly connected to design hypotheses.
Incorporate constraints such as automotive ISO and safety standards into research questions and recommendations in partnership with engineering and compliance stakeholders.
Build lightweight, repeatable research practices for the product design team (templates, checklists, repositories of findings).
Advocate for the customer in discussions about scope, prioritization, and trade‑offs, balancing insight quality with speed.
Continuously refine your toolkit of qualitative and quantitative methods to match the pace and needs of our teams.