Director, UX Research

At 2U, we are all in on purpose. We are motivated by our mission - to eliminate the back row in education - and connected by our shared passion to deliver world-class digital education at scale. As the parent company of edX, the world's leading online learning platform, 2U powers more than 4,000 online higher education offerings - from free courses to full degrees. Together with more than 230 colleges, universities, and corporate partners, we are helping to unlock human potential.
What We're Looking For:
2U/edX is dedicated to increasing access to high-quality online education to everyone, everywhere. It's a big job-think personalization, accessibility, usability-and we're looking for someone interested in the challenge of understanding our customers to help build great experiences at scale. At 2u/edX, UX design and research team members collaborate closely with larger, cross-functional teams to strategize and shape decisions about what to create for learners.
We're looking for a Research Director to build and manage a high-performing team that defines and designs high-quality research studies in line with business objectives, establishing a robust set of approaches, practices and processes that can continually adapt as needed. The candidate should have a proven stable of research methodologies under their belt, excellent communication skills, great people management skills, and be able to translate research findings into actionable items, while sharing insights that will have a strategic impact on many roadmaps of complex, often interwoven products. They should feel comfortable alternating between project-specific research projects and longitudinal studies that center the customer and deliver ongoing insights. The successful candidate will have a track record of managing across multiple initiatives, and demonstrate a proficiency for socializing insights upwards and outwards to product and executive leadership.
The director will ultimately be setting a vision for the immediate research team, the larger UX design team, and other cross-functional, customer-facing partners throughout the organization in order to establish the truest up-to-date picture of our varied customers. They will be building a team that serves as the engine for many and varied product decisions! It's an exciting time at 2U/edX, and as such they should be a strong and passionate advocate for user research across the entire organization.
Responsibilities Include, But Are Not Limited To:

• Proactively prioritize, manage, and identify opportunities for value-added work through formal and informal channels
• Manage a research area with broad scope in size and complexity, using different methodologies
• Balance short-term and long-term priorities; manage dependencies
• Excellent communication skills (verbal and written) with demonstrated interpersonal capabilities to effectively build and foster collaborative relationships with people at all levels of the organization
• Establishes quality bar on how/why we conduct research through influencing, modeling, and scaling ways of working beyond the local UX team to evangelize and push customer-centric research into the larger organization
• Act as a connector between the teams including Data, Marketing Insights, Support, and UX Research
• Drive the creation of a centralized platform for all existing and new research
• Foster partnerships with the greater UX team, engineering, product management and other stakeholders to craft customer-centric strategies that balance business and user needs in a practical and effective way
• Apply analytical thinking to drive the business value of research in all work
• Comfortable walking through your thinking and processes to show us how you approach your work and the context that motivates it
• Thrive in ambiguity; lead problem-solving within complex systems with ease
• Identify gaps and opportunities for future growth
• Demonstrate deep expertise in planning and executing generative research (i.e. ethnography, contextual inquiry, qualitative surveys, literature reviews) and evaluative user research (i.e. usability, tree tests, card sorts)
• Lead teams, direct work, coach, mentor, and train junior teammates
• Digest existing research and experiment regularly - find and review data, make research plans, run studies, analyze results, and influence the future priorities of the platform
• Understand established interactive technologies and possess an undying thirst to learn about new ones
• Drive large-scale efforts to enhance the overall experience
• Solve problems through systems thinking who can build out research frameworks and assemble tools to enable efficient frequent cycles of user feedback
• Document your thinking using thoughtfully chosen and informed deliverables and artifacts like: sketches, wireframes, site maps/flows, personas, and presentations
• Collaborate with peers in product and engineering
• Use a variety of tools and techniques as appropriate for your team's needs
• Act as a servant leader, mentor, and subject matter expert to help elevate the quality of work of the overall UX team
• Motivate, inspire, and influence others in the org to engage with design thinking and best UX practices

Things That Should Be In Your Background:

• Have 10+ years professional experience in the software/design/digital world
• Bachelor's degree or significant experience conducting UX research with meaningful business impact (Masters or Doctorate preferred)
• Experience in a UX-specific setting ~7+ years
• Experience managing, coaching and/or developing researchers ~4+ years
• Have expertise in usability heuristics, WCAG 2.0 accessibility guidelines, and user research
• Establish governance and drive adoption of UX research best practices to ensure consistency across applications and/or processes
• Successfully engage and manage work within multiple initiatives while operating independently or within a team
• Have a hunger for making customer research results digestible, accessible, and applicable across the organization

Benefits & Culture
Our global employee base is a diverse collection of innovators, dreamers, and doers working together to transform lives through higher education. We believe that every employee can advance our shared purpose, and that life at 2U should be fun and meaningful. If you're excited by the opportunity to provide over 40 million learners and counting with access to world-class online higher education, then join us - and do work that makes a difference. #NoBackRow
We offer comprehensive benefits (unique per country) and excellent work/life balance.
Full-time, U.S.benefits include:

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Life insurance, disability, and 401(k) employer match
• Employee stock purchase plan
• Free snacks and drinks in-office
• Generous paid holidays and leave policies, including unlimited PTO
• Additional time off benefits include: volunteer days, parental leave, and a company-wide winter break

The anticipated base salary range for this role is ($145,000 - $175,000), with potential bonus and equity eligibility. Salary offers are made based on the candidate's qualifications, experience, skills, and education as they directly relate to the requirements of the position, budget for the position and cost of labor in the market in which the candidate will be hired.
2U Diversity and Inclusion Statement
At 2U, we are committed to building and sustaining a culture of belonging, respect, and inclusion. We are proud of the steps we've taken to bring together an employee base that embodies diverse walks of life, ideas, genders, ages, races, cultures, sexual orientations, abilities and other unique qualities. We strive to offer a workplace where every employee feels empowered by what makes us different, as well as by how we are alike.
About 2U Inc. (NASDAQ: TWOU)
For more than a decade, 2U, Inc. has been the digital transformation partner of choice to great non-profit colleges and universities delivering high-quality online education at scale. As the parent company of edX, a leading global online learning platform, 2U provides over 45 million learners with access to world-class education in partnership with more than 230 colleges, universities, and corporations. Our people and technology are powering more than 4,000 digital education offerings - from free courses to full degrees - and helping unlock human potential. To learn more: visit 2U.com.

About edX
edX is the education movement for restless learners and a leading global online learning platform from 2U, Inc. (Nasdaq: TWOU). Together with the majority of the world's top-ranked universities and industry-leading companies, we bring our community of over 45 million learners world-class education to support them at every stage of their lives and careers, from free courses to full degrees. And we're not stopping there - we're relentlessly pursuing our vision of a world where every learner can access education to unlock their potential, without the barriers of cost or location. Learn more at edX.org.
Learn more at https://2u.com/careers/
#NoBackRow
The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work performed by individuals assigned to this position, and are not intended to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties and skills required. All employees may be required to perform duties outside of their normal responsibilities from time to time, as needed.
2U is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate against applicants or employees and ensures equal employment opportunity for all persons regardless of their race, creed, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, national origin, age, marital status, disability, citizenship, military or veterans' status, or any other classifications protected by applicable federal, state or local laws. 2U's equal opportunity policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including but not limited to recruiting, hiring, training, promotion, job benefits and pay.