Senior User Experience Researcher
We are thrilled to announce Handshake’s $200M Series F funding round. At Handshake, we believe that a career opportunity shouldn’t be determined by who you know or what you’ve done. It’s about what you can - and will - do. Your future, not your past. Our Series F fundraise and new valuation of $3.5B will fuel our next phase of growth and propel our mission to help more people start, restart, and jumpstart their careers.
Handshake is the #1 place to launch a career with no connections, experience, or luck required. Handshake’s community includes 20 million students and young alumni around the world from 1,400 educational institutions, including four-year colleges, community colleges, boot camps, and 290+ minority-serving institutions. The platform connects up-and-coming talent with 650,000+ employers - from Fortune 500 companies like Google, Nike, and Target to thousands of public school districts, healthcare systems, nonprofits, and even sports teams like the LA Dodgers. Handshake is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Denver, New York, and London and teammates working globally.
Everyone is welcome at Handshake. We know diverse teams build better products and we are committed to creating an inclusive culture built on a foundation of respect for all individuals. We strongly encourage candidates from non-traditional backgrounds, historically marginalized or underrepresented groups to apply.
If you are not sure that you’re 100% qualified, but up for the challenge – we want you to apply. We believe skills are transferable and passion for our mission goes a long way.
User Experience Research at Handshake
Handshake believes user research is the foundation of product development and design. We are committed to delivering the right research upfront. Because of this commitment, Handshake is growing its user research team and function. We collaborate with every team across Handshake—from product management to engineering; from sales to support—because incorporating insights leads to better outcomes. Companies are more successful when they have diverse teams, and we want our team to look like the future of our modern workforce. We’re committed to growing a user experience research team that reflects the diversity of students we serve and support.
Your Impact:
In this role, you will have the opportunity to join our small UX Research team to support our product. You’ll play a critical role in creating useful, usable, and delightful experiences for our Handshake. You’ll explore user behaviors by conducting primary research such as surveys, qualitative interviews, usability studies, and analyzing existing data sets. Our researchers partner closely with designers, content strategists, product managers, data scientists, and engineers. Talent is distributed but opportunity is not. If you are looking to have a real impact on the next generation of the workforce, come join our growing team.
Your Role:
Plan and facilitate research initiatives from beginning to end.
Establish methodologies and best practices when conducting research across a diverse set of employers and career service administrators.
Advocate for our customers by sharing research findings in written reports and presentations.
Collaborate closely with product, data science, engineering, and other stakeholders to identify and prioritize research needs.
Leverage both generative and evaluative research methodologies to understand the needs and motivations of our users.
Screening, recruiting, and scheduling research participants.
Note taking, analysis and organization of research data.
Key member of a small, highly leveraged design team, and supportive of the organization’s ability to engage directly with users.
Conduct iterative research in conjunction with designers, product managers, and engineers.
Produce quick, actionable insights for the team.
Perform usability and concept testing for our student and employer experiences.
Help other Handshake designers and product managers on how to conduct their own research.
Your Experience:
Minimum 3 years of experience conducting user research on digital products
Experience with qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis
Experience with surveys and interviews
Experience performing usability and concept testing
An engaging storyteller with great written communication
Compensation Range:
$123,000 - 150,000
For cash compensation, we set standard ranges for all roles based on function, level, and geographic location, benchmarked against similar stage growth companies. In order to be compliant with local legislation, as well as to provide greater transparency to candidates, we share salary ranges on all job postings regardless of desired hiring location. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including geographic location as well as candidate experience and expertise, and may vary from the amounts listed above.
Benefits:At Handshake, we'll give you the tools to feel healthy, happy and secure.
- Stock: Ownership in a fast-growing company.
- Hub-Based Remote Work: Handshakers can enjoy the flexibility of remote work whilst ensuring in-person collaboration, and team experiences remain possible.
- Financial Management with Origin: We provide you with a professional financial planner via Origin to gain a better understanding of making the most of your compensation, equity, benefits, and perks.
- Paid Parental Leave: All new parents at Handshake (both birth and non-birth giving) are encouraged to take time to focus on their growing family and are eligible for paid family leave. US Handshakers are provided up to 16 weeks of paid family leave for birth-giving parents and 10 weeks for non-birth-giving parents.
- Mental Health Assistance: We are here to support you in every step of your mental health journey; our benefits include Employee Assistance Programs that offer counseling support for those eligible.
- Home Office Stipend: Handshake offers $500/£360 for you to spend on setting up a productive and comfortable workspace at home.
- Learning: Learning & Development opportunities and an annual $2,000/£1,500 stipend for you to grow your skills and career.
- Team Bonding: Regularly scheduled virtual company-wide and team events! Once it’s safe, we’ll provide meaningful connection points throughout the year for Handshakers to build community and meet teammates in person.
- Great team: Working with fun, hardworking, nice people who are committed to making a difference!
(US Handshakers)
- 401k: We care about your ability to save for your future. Launching Spring 2022, Handshake will offer a dollar-for-dollar match on 1% of deferred salary, up to a maximum of $1,200 per year.
- Healthcare: World-class medical, dental, and vision policies including LGTBQ+ Coverage.
- 2022 Time Off: All full-time US-based Handshakers are eligible for our flexible time off policy to get out and see the world. We also offer 8 standardized holidays, 2 additional days of flexible holiday time off, and 2 one-week periods of Collective Time Off (7/4-7/8/2022) and (12/26-12/30/2022).
(UK Handshakers)
- Pension: Handshake matches 3% of your salary towards your pension scheme.
- Healthcare: Handshake's comprehensive healthcare policy covers 100% of employee premiums & 100% of dependent premiums for medical, dental, and vision benefits.
- 2022 Time Off: Up to 25 days of vacation to encourage people to reset, recharge, and refresh, in addition to 8 bank holidays throughout the year.
Benefits above apply to employees in full-time positions.
Looking for more? Explore our comprehensive US benefits at joinhandshake.com/careers.
Interested in what Handshake’s San Francisco HQ is like when we’re together? Check out this video: