Lead Design Researcher - Capital One Software

201 Third Street (61049), United States of America, San Francisco, California
Lead Design Researcher - Capital One Software
Ever since our first credit card customer in 1994, Capital One has recognized that technology and data can enable even large companies to be innovative and personalized. As one of the first large enterprises to go all-in on the public cloud, Capital One needed to build cloud and data management tools that didn't exist in the marketplace to enable us to operate at scale in the cloud. And in 2022, we publicly announced Capital One Software and brought our first B2B software solution, Slingshot, to market.
Building on Capital One's pioneering adoption of modern cloud and data capabilities, Capital One Software is helping accelerate the data management journey at scale for businesses operating in the cloud. If you think of the kind of challenges that companies face - things like data publishing, data consumption, data governance, and infrastructure management - we've built tools to address these various needs along the way. Capital One Software will continue to explore where we can bring our solutions to market to help other businesses address these same needs going forward.
We are seeking top tier talent to join our pioneering team and propel us towards our destination. You will be joining a team of innovative product, tech, and design leaders that tirelessly seek to question the status quo. As a Capital One design research lead, you'll have the opportunity to be on the forefront of building this business and bring these tools to market.
As a leader and maker, you'll be asked to handle responsibilities, including:
Strategy & Planning

• Establish and scale a research program: Build processes and frameworks for ongoing user research across the product lifecycle, ensuring research efforts are repeatable, reliable, and actionable.
• Develop and maintain a research learning agenda and roadmap that takes into account strategic and tactical needs for the business
• Stakeholder engagement: Collaborate closely with product managers, designers, engineers, and executives, guiding them with research-backed recommendations
• Translate findings into impactful insights that guide the experience and product decisions
• Lead and shape early product definition with formative and foundational research
• Manage through open-ended, ambiguous problems and support early product definition in a fast-paced work environment
• Champion the prioritization of research & analysis as a basis for making design centered product enhancements

Lead & Develop Teams

• Mentor, coach, and elevate others
• Navigate conflict resolution within your team as well as within projects, teams and partner relationships
• Participate in hiring by reviewing resumes, conducting interviews and attending consensus
• Practice and help evolve the team's research techniques, toolset, best practices to work effectively in cross-team collaboration, including training non-researchers to do research on their own to help scale our small team

Execution & Delivery

• End-to-end research execution: Oversee the design, planning, and execution of qualitative and quantitative studies,discovery to validation, using a variety of methods to understand customer needs and define opportunities which can include in depth/empathy interviews, field studies, prototype testing & usability benchmarking, contextual inquiry, surveys, card sorts, heuristic review and participatory design
• Synthesize insights: Translate complex research data into clear, actionable insights that directly impact product roadmaps and design decisions.
• Advocate for users: Serve as the voice of the user, ensuring user-centric thinking is integrated into every stage of the product development process.
• Collaborate with design, technology, product, and business teams across various geographies to create intuitive and engaging customer experiences across multiple projects simultaneously, start to finish
• Stay agile: Work efficiently in a fast-paced, evolving environment, managing multiple projects and deadlines while adapting to shifting priorities.
• Demonstrate fluency of research tools and techniques to measure success, present opportunities, and support decision-making and prioritization utilizing qualitative and quantitative research method
• Facilitate synthesis and knowledge mapping and workshop sessions to help align with business needs
• Present and communicate research and analysis clearly and effectively across various organizations in any format required. Must be able to sell, support, explain, and simply present usability approach and research to various audience types

Basic Qualifications:

• At least 5 years' experience as a Design Researcher in a business or consulting capacity
• At least 5 years' experience in qualitative and quantitative research methodologies
• At least 5 years' experience utilizing tools such as UserTesting, Optimal Workshop, Lucid and Google Analytics

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master's degree or equivalent professional experience
• Experience teaching: design thinking, human centered design, design research
• Comfortable working with agile and legal teams
• Familiarity with conducting and analyzing research for cross channel SaaS experiences

At this time, Capital One will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization for this position.
The minimum and maximum full-time annual salaries for this role are listed below, by location. Please note that this salary information is solely for candidates hired to perform work within one of these locations, and refers to the amount Capital One is willing to pay at the time of this posting. Salaries for part-time roles will be prorated based upon the agreed upon number of hours to be regularly worked.
New York City (Hybrid On-Site): $163,300 - $186,400 for Manager, Design
San Francisco and San Jose, California (Hybrid On-Site): $173,100 - $197,500 for Manager, Design
Illinois (Hybrid On-Site): $152,300 - $173,800 for Manager, Design
Candidates hired to work in other locations will be subject to the pay range associated with that location, and the actual annualized salary amount offered to any candidate at the time of hire will be reflected solely in the candidate's offer letter.
This role is also eligible to earn performance based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonus(es) and/or long term incentives (LTI). Incentives could be discretionary or non discretionary depending on the plan.
Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial and other benefits that support your total well-being. Learn more at the Capital One Careers website . Eligibility varies based on full or part-time status, exempt or non-exempt status, and management level.
This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.
No agencies please. Capital One is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex (including pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions), race, color, age, national origin, religion, disability, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender reassignment, citizenship, immigration status, protected veteran status, or any other basis prohibited under applicable federal, state or local law. Capital One promotes a drug-free workplace. Capital One will consider for employment qualified applicants with a criminal history in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable laws regarding criminal background inquiries, including, to the extent applicable, Article 23-A of the New York Correction Law; San Francisco, California Police Code Article 49, Sections 4901-4920; New York City's Fair Chance Act; Philadelphia's Fair Criminal Records Screening Act; and other applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations regarding criminal background inquiries.
If you have visited our website in search of information on employment opportunities or to apply for a position, and you require an accommodation, please contact Capital One Recruiting at 1-800-304-9102 or via email at [email protected] . All information you provide will be kept confidential and will be used only to the extent required to provide needed reasonable accommodations.
For technical support or questions about Capital One's recruiting process, please send an email to [email protected]
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Capital One Financial is made up of several different entities. Please note that any position posted in Canada is for Capital One Canada, any position posted in the United Kingdom is for Capital One Europe and any position posted in the Philippines is for Capital One Philippines Service Corp. (COPSSC).