Strategic Researcher

About us

At Udemy were on a mission to transform lives through learning. Through our intelligent skills platform and a global community of instructors weve helped nearly 80 million learners and more than 17000 organizations achieve their goals. Come join us in ensuring everyone everywhere has access to the skills they need to unlock their potential and create possibilities for themselves and others. Learn more about us on our company page.

Where we work

Udemy is a global company headquartered in San Francisco with additional U.S. offices in Denver and Austin and international hubs in Australia India Ireland Mexico and Trkiye. This is an in-office position requiring three days a week in the office (Tuesday Wednesday Thursday) and flexibility on Mondays and Fridays.

About your skills

• Qualitative research: Experienced in qualitative research facilitation and systems mapping.
• Design strategy: Experienced with design strategy frameworks (e.g. double diamond speculative design future scenarios).
• Synthesis: Able to synthesize complex information into clear actionable insights and design recommendations.
• Communication: A strong visual communicator storyteller and presenter able to clearly articulate research insights in unique ways that meet the needs of different audiences.
• User advocacy: A relentless user advocate on a mission to create deep user empathy across the organization.
• Strategic insights: Able to synthesize qualitative and quantitative insights into strategic recommendations.
• Collaboration: A strong collaborator with great facilitation skills.
• Research methods: Expert in a range of strategic and generative design research methods including but not limited to ethnographic field studies contextual inquiries diary studies survey design and qualitative concept testing
• Quantitative knowledge: Familiar with quantitative concept testing card sorting A/B testing usability benchmarking competitive analysis etc.
• Communication skills: Excellent English oral and written communication skills including the ability to articulate and present rationale behind your design decisions.
• Design ambassador: An ambassador for design & research who brings diverse stakeholders together to align and work together to solve problems.

About this role

• Overview: The Udemy Research team is seeking a Strategic Design Researcher with a background in design consultancy and innovation strategy to help shape the future of digital learning. This role blends human-centered research design strategy and creative problem-solving to inform product development and business decisions. You will lead research-driven design processes facilitate workshops and translate insights into strategic recommendations that drive innovation in EdTech.
• Our why: Research is at the heart of Udemys goal to be obsessed with our customers bringing their point of view to the strategy design voice and innovation of our products. We work ceaselessly to understand consumer attitudes goals and behaviors so that we can create the most delightful and innovative experiences for them. We focus on learning why people do the things they do when learning or growing pivoting or beginning a new career.
• Strategic approach: We strategize so that we apply the right research at the right time for the right problems. Our research informs and empowers our marketing product design and corporate strategy teams to create the best educational experiences for our customers.
• Customer understanding: As a Strategic Researcher you will provide insights that drive the strategy and execution for Udemys global consumer and B2B learning products. You will be integral in uncovering the mental models mindsets and behaviors of our customers and communicating that to our partners so that we can create the best learning products for our learners.
• Mentorship & Advancement: You will also play a critical role in guiding and mentoring fellow researchers in applying a strategic lens across all research efforts. You will be responsible for contributing to processes and programs for advancing strategic UX research methods and the impact the team has in defining our product strategy. You will work closely with other researchers to socialize a strategic approach for delivering impactful and actionable insights.
• Cross-functional bridge: Most importantly you will serve as a bridge between product product design and business-focused partners to ensure that user goals and needs are at the forefront of the organizations business decisions.
• Strategic influence: As a user advocate you will play a critical role in guiding and influencing the short and long-term product strategy. You have a deep passion for uncovering user needs and jobs and use them to create user empathy within the organization. As a strategic user researcher you are comfortable defining and conducting rigorous research efforts that translate into impactful insights and strategic solutions for the organization.
• Research translation: Working within a product design organization you will determine the best approach for translating research findings into actionable outputs.

What youll be doing

• Design research: Conduct design research (contextual inquiries ethnographic studies co-creation workshops) to uncover deep insights about learners educators and digital education experiences.
• Strategic thinking: Apply strategic design methodologies to frame problems map ecosystems and identify opportunities for innovation.
• Research synthesis: Synthesize research into strategic frameworks journey maps service blueprints and inspiring narratives to inform design and business strategy.
• Workshop facilitation: Facilitate design thinking workshops and collaborative strategy sessions with cross-functional teams.
• Insight communication: Translate research findings into compelling narratives visual storytelling and actionable recommendations for Product UX and Strategy teams.
• Human-centered advocacy: Advocate for human-centered insight-driven design within the organization.
• Relationship building: Build trust and effective relationships with cross-functional teams by always seeking alignment via stakeholder interviews workshops or other alignment activities.

What youll have

• Experience: 3 years in strategic design research service design or innovation consulting ideally in EdTech learning experiences or digital products or equivalent education. Ability to navigate ambiguity and drive clarity that brings the user technology and business together.
• Preferred background: Background in design or research strategy innovation strategy or design consulting. Experience working in complex cross-functional environments.
• Language skills: Fluency in English
• Research tools: Familiar with design research tools (e.g. Miro Figma Notion Adobe CC visualization software).

We understand that not everyone will match each of the above qualifications. However we also realize that everyone has unique experiences that can add value to our company. Even if you think your background might not perfectly align wed love to hear from you!

Life at Udemy

We aspire to be as vibrant and dynamic as the communities we serve as inquisitive as those who use our platform and as revolutionary as the future we strive to open for everyone. Here are some of the things we love about life at Udemy:

• Were invested in creating an inclusive environment that welcomes a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences. From creating employee resource groups ensuring were a Fair Pay Workplace and building a flexible work culture our belonging equity diversity and inclusion (BEDI) initiatives always put our people first. We want you to be able to bring your authentic self to work because when we all do were better for it.

• Learning is what we do inside and out. Our Learning & Development team is second to none helping ensure your journey is one of continuous progression. Youll also have unlimited access to Udemy courses monthly UDays (meeting-free professional development days) and a generous annual professional development stipend.

• Our reason to exist is to revolutionize learning that calls for taking risks and learning from failures. Whether its our hackathons (a company-wide effort to envision new possibilities for our product) or sharing our prototypes we see experimentation as a crucial step on the path to success.

• Were committed to creating world-class employee experiences and are proud of the recognition of this by Great Place to Work.

Of course the best thing about being part of Udemy is knowing your work makes a difference for people and organizations around the world. Youve got the skills; why not use them to help others develop theirs

At Udemy we value diversity and inclusion and consider qualified applicants without regard to race color religion sex national origin ancestry age genetic information sexual orientation gender identity marital or family status veteran status medical condition or disability.

Our Benefits Start with U

Our benefits start with you and were built to provide you and your family with the protection and care you need making it easy to access the right coverage when you need it most. Benefits vary by region and we encourage applicants to review our US Benefits Ireland Benefits & Turkiye Benefits pages to get an understanding of some of the benefits we offer. For details on region-specific benefits please refer to the information provided during the hiring process.

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