User Experience Researcher, Science
Redwood City, CA

Job Description

Founded by Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg in 2015, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is a new kind of philanthropy that's leveraging technology to help solve some of the world's toughest challenges - from eradicating disease, to improving education, to reforming the criminal justice system. Across three core Initiative focus areas of Science, Education and Justice and Opportunity, we're pairing engineering with grantmaking, impact investing, policy work, and movement building, to help build an inclusive, just and healthy future for everyone.

Our Values

We believe we can help build a future for everyone.

* We aim to be daring, but humble: We look for bold ideas - regardless of structure and stage - and help them scale by pairing engineers with subject matter experts to build tools that accelerate the pace of social progress.
* We want to learn fast, but build for the long-term: We want to iterate fast and help bring new solutions to the table, but we also realize that important breakthroughs often take decades, or even centuries.
* Stay close to the real problems: We engage directly in the communities we serve because no one understands our society's challenges like those who live them every day.

Our success is dependent on building teams that include people from different backgrounds and experiences who can challenge each other's assumptions with fresh perspectives. To that end, we look for a diverse pool of applicants including those from historically marginalized groups - women, people with disabilities, people of color, formerly incarcerated people, people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or gender nonconforming, first and second generation immigrants, veterans, and people from different socioeconomic backgrounds.

The Opportunity

Our mission is to support science and technology that will help make it possible to cure, prevent, or manage all diseases by the end of the century. Interdisciplinary teams of physicians, biologists, computational scientists, and engineers can expand our understanding of the human body and illness - the very science behind medicine. CZI fosters collaboration between scientists and engineers, develops tools and technologies, and builds support for basic scientific research.

We are seeking an experienced user experience researcher to join our Science Tools and Platform team within the Science Initiative. You will conduct mixed-methods research to better understand the needs of the scientific community to foster faster-paced and more open, collaborative scientific discovery.

You will

* Collaborate with cross-functional partners to translate their curiosities into actionable research questions
* Design mixed-methods studies to help your teams learn about scientist/researcher behaviors and attitudes
* Involve team members in generative research to identify high impact problems faced by scientists and researchers
* Collaborate with product teams to generate concepts that address problems faced by biomedical and life scientists
* Iteratively evaluate low and high fidelity software concepts with appropriate user groups
* Analyze data and convey insights in clear, illustrative ways that help the product team learn about scientific and research processes, inspire product strategy, and encourage design iteration
* Combine quantitative and qualitative data to determine the success of features during pilots and post-launch
* Participate in critiques by sharing and receiving constructive feedback
* Build a library of insights over time for the organization to continually reference

You have

* A strong background and experience in human-computer interaction, psychology, sociology, or a related field
* 4+ years experience in applied product research
* Experience in selecting and executing qualitative methods: interviews, contextual inquiry, focus groups, diary studies, concept/usability evaluation
* Experience in selecting and executing quantitative methods: surveys, statistical analysis, experimentation
* Demonstrated ability to communicate research insights to cross-functional product teams in a way that promotes impact on product design, development, and strategy
* Demonstrated ability to identify new product opportunities by connecting people problems, analytics, and organizational goals
* A commitment to actively seeking feedback and improving from it
* Passion for impacting the future of science. Prior experience working in a biomedical or life sciences field or working closely with scientists and researchers in biomedicine and life sciences is a plus, but not required.
* Willingness to occasionally travel to meet with scientists and researchers to conduct in-context research
* A curious streak and enjoy learning about new topics and domains (note: we do not expect individuals to be science experts or to become science experts in this role)
* Strong analytical thinking, problem-solving, and ability to prioritize
* Ability to thrive in a rapidly changing, growing organization