Lead User Experience Researcher

ADP

$100K — $130K *
Information Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience required.
  • 5+ years of research experience in related roles.
  • Strong expertise in UX research methods including qualitative and quantitative evaluations.
  • Proven ability to deliver actionable insights in regulated industries.
  • Demonstrated creativity in researching emerging technologies like ML/GenAI.

Responsibilities

  • Define and drive the research agenda focused on user needs and critical workflow gaps.
  • Conduct experimental research, particularly in machine learning and generative AI contexts.
  • Implement the Generative UX workstream through immersive user experiences.
  • Translate user data into actionable insights tied to product and business strategies.
  • Design and execute comprehensive research studies, including qualitative and quantitative methods.
  • Develop robust analysis and narrative reports for diverse audiences.
  • Identify misalignments in research objectives relative to business goals and propose actionable solutions.

Benefits

  • Courageous team collaboration emphasizing open dialogue and idea challenges.
  • Opportunities for delivering impactful user outcomes at scale.
  • Environment fostering continuous learning and growth.
  • Encouragement to take ownership and tackle complex challenges.
  • Commitment to community service through ADP's Philanthropic Foundation.
  • Focus on equality and equity within the organization.
Full Job Description
ADP is hiring a Lead UX Researcher.

ADP is hiring a Lead User Experience Researcher to join the team working on ADP's next-generation SMB HCM/Payroll platform. You will extract market and behavioral truth via a robust research roadmap, translating evidence into product, business, and strategic impact. You will ensure a high capacity and high value research agenda that reveals critical insights through testing and learning. User and market truth is the essential ingredient that will enable the product to move with growing confidence toward commercial scale.

Your mandate: own the research agenda supporting the product's evolution, running end-to-end programs (from research framing to synthesis, not just fieldwork mechanics) and ensuring evidence steers both design priorities and executive alignment.

Like what you see? Apply now!

Learn more about ADP at jobs.adp.com.

What you'll do:
  • Define, prioritize, and drive the research agenda to expose user needs, segment risks, and critical workflow gaps. Adapt scope and methodologies as the context shifts with various phases of SDLC, from concept explorations to scaled pilots and post-launch feedback initiatives.
  • Run ambiguous and experimental research, with emphasis on ML and GenAI-powered features where novel methodologies and logistics may be required to achieve the learning goals.
  • Co-own and operationalize the team's Generative UX workstream: scope, plan, and run immersive client/user visits that include SBS and Innovation Lab team members.
  • Connect user data to business, product roadmap, and engineering choices. Make findings actionable, not just insightful.
  • Plan and run end to end studies: design the learning agenda, screeners and guides, recruit, execute qualitative/quantitative/generative/evaluative studies.
  • Build clear, defensible, evidence-driven analysis and findings narratives that can withstand pressure-testing and critique from various audiences, from engineering ICs to senior business and technology executives.
  • Identify when the research arc is misaligned with business or roadmap constraints. Spot strategic gaps and risks, identify mitigation strategies, and propose recommendations.
  • Exemplify best practices, open-mindedness, a love of collaboration, grace under pressure, and an action orientation with your peers and the cross-functional roles around you. Bring to life best-in-class standards among our user research team and the broader ADP user research community.
  • Take nothing at face value: stress-test signals, challenge consensus, and tenaciously pursue evidence and proof from the market.


Requirements:
  • A Bachelor's degree or equivalent in relevant experience.
  • 5+ years of firsthand research experience and skills gained and developed in the same or similar roles.
  • Expertise across the UX research toolkit: from exploratory and generative work to rapid usability and evaluative methods (interviews, surveys, analytics, prototype testing, workflow observation, etc.).
  • Track record of delivering clear, actionable research in complex, highly regulated industries. Ability to translate technical and behavioral data for the spectrum of our market (DIY micro-SMBs to upmarket SMBs with larger workforces and more complex needs, as well as COI personas).
  • Demonstrate creativity and rigor in research involving emerging technology (ML/GenAI). Creative problem-solving to invent or adapt new research methods where standard ones prove insufficient. Unafraid to experiment and fail to increase the pace and volume of learning.
  • Successfully, productively integrated GenAI / LLM tooling into your professional workflows and are on top of the latest developments with this technology.
  • Effective with current technical platforms and tools (Figma, Dovetail, UserInterviews, Qualtrics, Maze, etc.), but not bound by process. Bias for action: a willingness to apply unorthodox methods to move things forward is an asset.
  • Precise, unsentimental, direct communication, but tailored to varying audiences: exec, peer, business, and technical.
  • Both naturally optimistic, but inherently skeptical. Thrive and even driven by ambiguity. When encountering conflicting or uncertain signals, integrate as evidence to refine the research plan, not view as blockers.
  • Experience collaborating and influencing in distributed, multi-team environments; able to handle friction without noise or drama.
  • Plus if you possess an advanced degree in HF/HCI, psych, or related discipline, but academics alone are not a substitute for commercial and strategic judgment built over years of experience.


YOU'LL LOVE WORKING HERE BECAUSE YOU CAN:
  • Have courageous team collaboration. Courage comes from how associates are willing to have difficult conversations, speak up, be an owner, and challenge one another's ideas to find the best solution.
  • Deliver at epic scale. We deliver real user outcomes using strong judgment and good instincts. We're obsessed with the art of achieving simplicity with a focus on client happiness and productivity.
  • Be surrounded by curious learners. We align ourselves with other smart people in an environment where we grow and elevate one another to the next level. We encourage our associates to listen, stay agile, and learn from mistakes.
  • Act like an owner & doer. Mission-driven and committed to leading change, you will be encouraged to take on any challenge and solve complex problems. No tasks are beneath or too great for us. We are hands-on and willing to master our craft.
  • Give back to others. Always do the right thing for our clients and our community and humbly give back to the community where we live and work. Support our associates in times of need through ADP's Philanthropic Foundation.
  • Join a company committed to equality and equity. Our goal is to impact lasting change through our actions.


What are you waiting for? Apply today!

Find out why people come to ADP and why they stay: https://youtu.be/ODb8lxBrxrY

(ADA version: https://youtu.be/IQjUCA8SOoA )

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