Senior Research Strategist

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With over 18,000 employees worldwide, the mission of the Customer Experience & Success (CE&S) organization is to empower customers to accelerate business value through differentiated customer experiences that leverage Microsoft’s products and services, ignited by our people and culture. Come join CE&S and help us build a future where customers achieve their business outcomes faster with technology that does more.

The Global Customer Success (GCS) organization, an organization within CE&S, is leading the effort to enable customer success on the Microsoft Cloud by harnessing leading, AI-powered capabilities and human expertise to deliver innovation solutions that accelerate business value, drive operational excellence and nurture long term loyalty.

Are you looking for a strategic job opportunity with a unique and spirited team converging strategy, design, and research with a focus on customer experience? If so, you may want to join the Experience Strategy & Design Studio team as a Senior Experience Research Strategist!

How we are different from other research and design teams:
• We are strategic more than tactical and work primarily on large scale end-to-end experiences. This means we have more interaction with executives.
• We operate within a horizontal team format, where we lead with influence to cultivate key partnerships across organizations within Microsoft.
• Much of our work is fast-paced, agile, and iterative.

We could be the right team for you if you are looking for a team with:
• An inclusive and collaborative environment, encouraging diverse team perspectives.
• A culture of thought leadership, shepherding customer-centricity at the team’s core.
• Agency and creative freedom to generate energy with stakeholders through dynamic storytelling and visually appealing artifacts.
• The ability to create clarity amidst ambiguous and complex customer challenges.
• A diverse and energetic team that lives across four countries.

This role is flexible in that you can work up to 100% from home.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Required qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND extensive User Experience Research experience.
o OR Master's Degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND User Experience Research experience.
o OR Doctorate in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND User Experience Research experience.
o OR equivalent experience.

• Experience designing and facilitating co-creation/ideation/design thinking workshops to drive meaningful business outcomes.

• Experience working on experiences that include extensive digital solutions (omni-channel, self-service, AI bots, etc).

• Experience conducting 1:1 research interviews.

• Relevant domain experience within technology sector and enterprise (B2B) customers [KP2].

Preferred qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree, Master's Degree or Doctorate in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND extensive User Experience Research experience.

• Extensive relevant domain experience within technology sector and enterprise (B2B) customers [KP1].

• Experience in research methods impacting both product direction and detailed experience design.

• Extensive experience designing and facilitating co-creation/ideation/design thinking workshops to drive meaningful business outcomes.

• Extensive experience conducting 1:1 research interviews.

• Extensive experience working on experiences that include extensive digital solutions (omni-channel, self-service, AI bots, etc).

• Demonstrated technical or conceptual understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI) principles, including machine learning, natural language processing, and AI-driven user experience enhancements.

• Scope, design, and lead in-person and virtual customer-facing co-creation workshops that result in breakthrough ways AI can transform our customers’ business.
• Excellent communicator and storyteller that can communicate complex concepts in a manner that creates enthusiasm and alignment for the proposed future state experiences.
• Skilled at executive-level stakeholder management; comfortable setting and respectfully communicating expectations.
• Confidently identify the best way to leverage qualitative research to support a design objective, including the area of focus and research method(s) best suited to the business objectives and customer needs.
• Demonstrate experience with a wide variety of research methods (e.g., interviewing, surveys, foundational, quantitative, qualitative, etc.). Hands-on experience designing, planning, and facilitating interviews, field research, international research, and survey design.
• Build connections and partnerships to deliver a persuasive outside-in customer-centric approach to enable a connected experience delivered at scale.
• Drive a foundational research strategy for the team while partnering with stakeholders to define moments of truth.
• Clearly and succinctly present possible solutions outside of the designated design space.
• Review and validate work with peers, stakeholders, and customers to maintain open communication.
• Ability to see things from various altitudes and communicate holistic solutions.
• Expertise in Customer Experience Design and Design Thinking.