Principal Quantitative User Researcher

You’ll go beyond surface metrics to uncover the signals that truly define user experience, interpreting behavior and context to inform product and model decisions. Your work will operationalize UX measurement through telemetry, in-product surveys, and experimentation, while triangulating quantitative and qualitative insights to guide decisions end-to-end. This is a unique opportunity to ensure human-centered insights drive innovation at scale.

As a Principal researcher, you will:

• Define best practices and build methodological rigor for quantitative UX research.
• Promote a culture of data-driven decision-making across product, design, and AI teams, while effectively integrating insights.
• Mentor and elevate the research discipline, shaping how we integrate data, evaluation, and experimentation into building world-class enterprise AI experiences.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Responsibilities

• Lead quantitative user research programs for AI in enterprise scenarios, shaping research vision and strategy for user-centric AI solutions.
• Triangulate multiple, large-scale data sources (telemetry, surveys, experiments, qualitative studies, customer feedback) into clear, decision‑ready insights and recommendations.
• Be a force multiplier - act as an enabler and amplifier for the team—building scalable solutions, frameworks, and processes that empower others to do more and achieve impact faster.
• Collaborate deeply with cross-functional teams (product management, design, applied/data science, core AI research) to integrate quantitative insights into product development and model improvement cycles.
• Analyze large-scale telemetry and usage data to uncover user behavior patterns, pain points, and opportunities for improving AI features.
• Evaluate AI models and product experiences using human-centered metrics and scalable evaluation frameworks to ensure alignment with user needs and expectations.
• Plan and analyze experiments - interpret scorecards and guardrails, drive go/no‑go and iteration decisions with product, design, engineering, and data scientist partners.
• Approach ambiguity with confidence - embrace scrappiness and work effectively with messy or incomplete datasets and processes, recognizing that data maturity is an evolving process.
• Drive clarity and momentum in fast-changing environments by aligning teams around shared goals and delivering measurable outcomes. Help team prioritize the "what and where next".
• Champion a culture of learning and inclusion by sharing across the org, Microsoft, and the broader community through presentations, publications, and workshops

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Doctorate in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND 3+ years User Experience Research experience
  • OR Master's Degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND 4+ years User Experience Research experience
  • OR Bachelor's Degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND 6+ years User Experience Research experience
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 8+ years of experience in user research, data science, or a related field, with a strong focus on quantitative analysis and impact on product development