Lead UX Researcher
Now, more than ever, the Toast team is committed to our customers. We’re taking steps to help restaurants navigate these unprecedented times with technology, resources, and community. Our focus is on building the restaurant platform that helps restaurants adapt, take control, and get back to what they do best: building the businesses they love. And because our technology is purpose-built for restaurants, by restaurant people, restaurants can trust that we’ll deliver on their needs for today while investing in experiences that will power their restaurant of the future.
We’re looking for a Lead UX Researcher dedicated to the relationship between restaurants and their guests. You will work on products intended to facilitate and deepen those relationships, as well as the tools and processes restaurants use to acquire, market to and serve their guests. As a Toast UX Researcher, you’ll join a diverse, multidisciplinary team of problem solvers creating with purpose; to enable restaurants with the tools they need to do what they love and thrive.
About this roll* (Responsibilities)
- You will collaborate with Product team leadership (Product, Design & Engineering) to identify areas of confidence & risk in the roadmap and craft a plan to address them
- You will scope, plan and conduct high-value UX research throughout the product development process, from generative to evaluative, crafting multi-method approaches to inform solutions to hairy problems, employing your quantitative and qualitative expertise as needed
- You will evangelize research insights & create a shared understanding of user needs (both restaurant & guest) across teams in your domain to drive user-centered strategy and decision-making
- You will exemplify great research practices for your cross-functional teams; delegate, mentor, coach and provide guidance to others as needed to level up everyones’ learning competencies
- You will collaborate with the Research team to establish and promote consistent, rigorous research practices and standards; model and advocate for those standards on your Product team and promote research excellence across the organization
Do you have the right ingredients*? (Requirements)
- Demonstrated ability to use collaboration & influence to lead the research strategy for a product area and connect that to a broader product vision, including identifying & prioritizing research needs
- Demonstrated ability to use systems thinking to build out research infrastructure, defining cadences, processes and best practices
- Demonstrated ability to bring research insights “home,” using persuasion & communication to drive user-centered strategy & design
- Deep and broad research toolkit - experience with generative research, workshop facilitation, concept testing, unmoderated methods, evaluative research and measurement, with deep expertise in at least one method
- Experience with unmoderated testing tools (ex., UserTesting) & survey tools (ex., Qualtrics)
- Experience conducting research in B2B2C environments with an ability to prioritize the relationship between customer and consumer
Special Sauce* (Nonessential Skills/Nice to Haves)
- Your collaborative style inspires others to the point where people ask to work with you and your expertise and confidence have others seeking out your informed perspective.
- You’re passionate about maintaining a healthy work-life balance by scoping, setting expectations and maintaining your boundaries.
- You have a growth mindset - you see challenges as opportunities, believe feedback is a gift and can speak confidently about failures & what you learned from them.
*Bread puns encouraged but not required
At Toast, we believe that the success of our business and our customers comes only with the success of our employees. Our employees are our secret ingredient. When they are empowered to succeed, Toast succeeds in achieving our mission to enable our community of restaurateurs to delight their guests, do what they love, and thrive. The restaurant industry is one of the most diverse industries. We embrace and are excited by this diversity, believing that only through authenticity, inclusivity, high standards of respect and trust, and leading with humility will we be able to achieve our goals. At the heart of this is our hospitality mindset of ensuring everyone feels welcomed and included, and our Toast values and behaviors that best define who we are as Toasters.