Job Description

In Mixed Reality, people—not devices—are at the center of everything we do. Our tech moves beyond screens and pixels, creating a new reality aimed at bringing us closer together. To get there, we’re incorporating diverse groundbreaking technologies, from computer vision to machine learning, human-computer interaction, and more. We’re a growing team of talented researchers, designers, and engineers putting technology on a human path across all Windows devices, including Microsoft HoloLens, Windows Mixed Reality headsets, and motion controllers. We believe in success through a compelling end-to-end customer experience for Mixed Reality. If you do too, we need you!

We are looking for an experienced User Research Lead/Manager who’s also highly capable in leading User Experience Design, with a deep understanding of human perception and performance, as well as accessibility. In this role, you’ll help guide our hardware and experience engineering and design teams through user research, activating human insight into our experiences and devices.

Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities

• Identify gaps in our understanding of the human senses—in particular vision and audition—and be responsible for design, execution, and data analysis of related studies to enable data-driven decisions to optimize the user experience in our products.
• Deliver high-impact and actionable user and product insights to inform the next generation of Mixed Reality devices, platform, and services across the Human-centered Design cycle.
• Collaborate and develop continuous improvement practices, leveraging the work of others, for efficient and effective research and insight delivery and communication into our experience designs, software, hardware, and human factors capabilities.
• Collaborate closely with hardware and software teams to identify potential technologies for future products, build protypes, and then run studies to evaluate their effectiveness in a human-centric context.
• Grow and lead a diverse team of researchers to accomplish the preceding objectives.
  

A successful candidate must be able to collaborate well across Microsoft and diverse stakeholders, possess strong technical research skills, have a strong aptitude and interest in creating data-driven strategy, be interested in creating an inclusive environment, and understand how good design can create great products.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Master’s Degree or equivalent practical experience in HCI / Human Factors, psychology, or a related field
• Deep knowledge of human perception, in particular vision science

• 8+ years of research and design work experience
• Knowledge of AR/VR technologies and related comfort/perception topics
• Experience working through complete, complex product cycles with an understanding and application of human-centered design and prototyping approaches
• Strong understanding and experience in the scientific method as it applies to commercial experience development, design of experiments, and creative research approaches.
• Quantitative and qualitative data gathering, analysis, and insight discovery capability.
• Excellent problem-solving skills with a high tolerance for ambiguity and change.
• Experience leading and growing high-functioning teams
  
  

Preferred Qualifications

• Ph.D. in HCI / Human Factors, psychology, or a related field
• Experience from the technology industry
• Strong background in statistics and perceptual experimentation, including psychophysics
• Experiencing coding experiments and data analysis in languages like MATLAB and R
  

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.