Gusto is looking for a Head of User Experience Research to empower our small but growing User Research team & establish a multifaceted approach to bringing meaningful, timely, & actionable insights to teams across Gusto.

About Gusto

Gusto is a modern, online people platform that helps small businesses take care of their teams. Every touchpoint a business has with their employees offers an opportunity for meaningful connection, from payroll & health insurance, to onboarding & team management. We believe that work can empower a better life & that small businesses are the backbone of the economy. Gustos team is distributed with home bases in San Francisco, Denver, & New York, & with many people working remotely across the US & Canada. We serve over 100,000 businesses & over a million of their employees. Read more about what its like to work at Gusto on our careers page. 

Our mission is to create a world where work empowers a better life, & it starts right here at Gusto. Thats why were committed to building a collaborative & inclusive workplace, both physically & virtually. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy. 

About the Role

We envision an expansive role for research to make an impact across Gusto. Although the Head of UX Research will be a part of our EPD organization (Engineering, Product, Design) & report to our Chief Design Officer, our goal is to think beyond the software we build with an eye towards the holistic customer experience with our software & with our service. Our Head of UX Research will create a program where recommendations, relevant information, anecdotes, insights & stories will help our teams understand the problems theyre solving more deeply, bring them closer to the day-to-day realities & challenges of our customers, & help them make better decisions more quickly. 

Our research approach is not academic in nature, & our goal isnt to be comprehensive. Were motivated to ship valuable experiences with a high level of velocity & we value a bias to action. For this role, we need someone who is comfortable applying an experimental & creative mindset to how we approach research & develop insights, & someone who brings insights to life through simple & compelling storytelling. At Gusto, we care about empowerment. In this role, youll need to be excited by the prospect of partnering with research operations to create repeatable processes that enable non-researchers to connect with customers & conduct their own low-risk research. This is also important because it creates space for our researchers to focus on deeper, more meaningful, strategic work. 

Heres what youll do day-to-day:

• Drive the strategy & execution that connects information & creates useful insights about customers, & help people across Gusto understand & apply customer stories to their work.
• Coach & empower a team of researchers & research operations people, with room to grow & shape the team & practice. 
• Build strong relationships with leaders in our product management, data science, marketing, & customer support teams & work with them to identify opportunities to create insights that will help teams make informed, timely decisions about product direction & strategy. 
• Experiment with creative ways to reduce the distance to our customers through approaches such as panels, community engagement strategies, & co-design opportunities. 
• Be obsessed with finding the stories & insights that help people feel connected to the people who use Gusto. 
• Steward the evolution of Gustos key personas & unified journey map.
  

Heres what we're looking for:

Strong UX Research Leadership & People Empowerment Skills 

Experience scaling a research team & delivering on a strategy across a large, complex area, ideally in a technology company as part of your interview process well ask you to walk us through a case study example of this.

An inclusive, empowering approach to encourage non-researchers to get close to customers & gather their own insights to inform their product decisions & strategies.

Cross-Functional Partnership & Communications Skills 

Top-notch communication & storytelling skills you are attuned to the audience & know how to craft a memorable, compelling story with their needs in mind.

Experience partnering with senior leaders in Design, Product, Marketing, Data Science, & Customer Support to drive the creation of cohesive, actionable insights.

Exceptional craft & expertise in the specific function of UX Research 

Familiarity & fluency in quantitative methodologies & opinions about how market research & segmentation data might inform our picture of existing & prospective customers.

Expert-level knowledge of UX research practices with at least 10 years experience doing hands-on research with 4 of those years leading UX researchers.

Customer-obsession & a vision for how research teams & practices can be structured to deliver high impact, timely, & iterative insights about customers to product teams.

Our cash compensation range for this role is USD $187,000 to USD $217,000 per year in Denver & most remote locations, & USD $220,000 to USD $256,000 per year in San Francisco & New York. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including candidate experience & expertise, & may vary from the amounts listed above.

Our customers come from all walks of life & so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it makes our company stronger. If you share our values & our enthusiasm for small businesses, you will find a home at Gusto.

Gusto is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. Gusto considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state & local law. Gusto is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities & disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at accommodations@gusto.com. 

#LI-KM2