Senior UX Researcher/ Designer

About the role

Career track: IC4

Unit: LX

As Senior UX Researcher / Designer, you will play a vital role in understanding our learner audience. This role sits within our Learner Experience (LX) division, a fully-funded zero to one startup within our established business.

You will guide rich, foundational research that shapes what we build before design work begins. Bringing genuine research depth and being comfortable with exploring ambiguous, early-stage problems, you will also be hands‑on enough in design to turn what you learn directly into work that ships.

You will be responsible for:

• Foundational Generative Research: Heading up exploratory research to build a deep, evidence-based understanding of learners, their needs, behaviours, and unmet problems in ambiguous, early-stage problem spaces, setting up continuous discovery practices.
• Methodological Rigour & Infrastructure: Applying structured research methodology, study design, sampling strategies, and bias mitigation, whilst building a robust research repository and knowledge base to compound insight over time.
• Cross‑Functional Insight Sharing: Sharing generative insights clearly with Product Management, UX Design, and Growth Marketing to shape decisions, product directions, and commercial conversations and positioning.
• Design Delivery: As a small, start‑up style team, dedicating roughly 30% of your capacity to translating research insights directly into simple, elegant, production‑ready, and highly accessible user experience design solutions.
• Team Collaboration & Growth: Working closely with the Lead UX Designer to manage and balance capacity, mentoring colleagues to raise research maturity across the Learning Experience team.

Meet the team

You'll report directly into our Chief Product Officer (CPO). On a day-to-day basis, you will work hand‑in‑hand with the Lead UX Designer to coordinate design and research capacity across our squads. You’ll also collaborate closely with both of our Learning Experience Product Managers, Technical Leads, the Growth Marketing Lead, and the wider Learning Experience division.

About you:

What you'll bring:

• Generative Research Expertise: Strong skills in foundational research methods, interview design, diary studies, sacrificial concepts, prototyping, Jobs-to-be-Done frameworks, and segmentation research.
• Methodological Rigour: Proven ability to apply structured study design, sampling strategy, and bias mitigation with real methodical precision, and synthesis frameworks that transform messy findings into actionable insights.
• Hands‑on Design Delivery: Comfort dedicating ~30% of your time to executing high‑quality, elegant, and shippable design solutions utilizing design systems.
• Accessibility Standards: Experienced in designing and researching inclusively to meet WCAG standards for diverse access requirements.
• Collaboration & Mentorship: Passionate about sharing knowledge, mentoring peers to raise research maturity, and providing direct, empathetic feedback.

Bonus / Nice to have:

• AI-Driven Experiences: Familiarity researching and designing for AI‑mediated interactions, including balancing AI visibility, user control, and trust‑building.
• AI Tool Integration: Intentional and effective use of AI tools in your own practice for synthesis, prototyping, or exploring directions faster.

Salary and benefits:

£69,000 - £81,000 dependent upon experience

33 days annual leave (Inclusive of bank holidays)

3 gifted days off at Christmas

EMI Share Options Scheme

Generous individual learning and training allowance

Truly flexible hours to suit when you work best

Full home working set up and beautiful collaborative office space

Free Leeds City Centre office parking

Nomad working policy with family travel insurance

Enhanced 26 weeks maternity and 4 weeks paternity (fully paid)

Health cash plan (from glasses to massages)

6% employer pension contribution

Location:

Our beautiful office space in Leeds is our key hub for collaboration, and we love to get together in person. We operate a flexible hybrid working model, including supporting our Genios who are based remotely across the UK. If you are more than 50 miles away from the office, we offer full remote working support, with the opportunity to join colleagues for in‑person collaboration several times a year.