Senior User Researcher
Polarsteps · Amsterdam, North Holland
Looking for a new adventure? You’ve come to the right place.
We're an Amsterdam-based team of 100 (and counting) with 25+ nationalities amongst us! A varied bunch of “Citizens of The World” with a wide range of skills and hundreds of thousands of kilometers under our travel belts. And we have something important in common (other than our very well-worn passports): We want to change the way people travel.
And that's exactly what we're doing, with the travel app to plan, track, and relive trips in a smart and beautiful way.
Polarsteps has over 23 million users already, but, for us, this is just the beginning. We have big plans for the future, and so we need even more talented and enthusiastic people to help us on our journey.
Want to know more about us? Here https://careers.polarsteps.com/ you go.
YOUR EXPEDITION: USER RESEARCH AT POLARSTEPS
We’re a small team, doing big things.
We pride ourselves on being user-centric, providing a seamless, top-quality user experience for every one of our travelers. And it is this that has got us ratings of 4.8* and 4.7* on the app stores (where we’ve been featured multiple times).
As the company grows, we need to strengthen our ability to deliver insights to teams through User Research, a core competency of the company. Which is why we need you! We already have a User Research Lead who has been building out our processes and team, and now we are looking to increase our capacity and bring more insights to our product team.
As a Senior User Researcher, you will be part of the Design + Brand organisation, embedded directly into Product teams to ensure insights impact decision-making. You'll act as a strategic navigator, helping teams understand what insights mean for where we are taking the company. You will champion a culture of learning and listening throughout your product area(s) to enable user-centric product development.
We're at an early-mid stage of research maturity. We have good buy-in and some processes in place, but you'll be expected to own your own ResearchOps (recruiting, scheduling, tooling) without dedicated support. If you thrive in a self-directed, low-overhead environment, you'll love it here.
YOUR ITINERARY
What your journey at Polarsteps will look like day-to-day.
You will:
- Be embedded and own relationships with 2-3 product pillars, building enough context to become the insights go-to for those teams and embedding research into their roadmaps.
- Plan and execute all phases of a research project from planning and recruiting to analysing and sharing, for both qualitative and mixed-methods research. Part of this will be selecting the right methodology for the right question.
- Support our product colleagues with setting up their own smaller research activities including helping with unmoderated tests and creating actionable surveys.
- Turn research activities into appealing, actionable, and self-explanatory insights that people within the company can run with.
- Share what you're thinking, doing, and learning while research is in progress, not just at the end. Research at Polarsteps is highly collaborative.
- Contribute to shared research infrastructure: panel management, tooling, and team-wide initiatives.
THE EQUIPMENT IN YOUR BACKPACK
What we’re hoping you’ll bring with you.
- You already live in The Netherlands.
- Experience as a UX or Product Researcher, ideally at a B2C technology company. What matters is depth of craft, not years on a CV. Scale-up or smaller-company experience is a strong plus.
- Great communication skills in English, as well as the confidence to challenge assumptions, and promote and advocate for research findings with product managers, designers, and other stakeholders.
- Leaning more on qualitative research, but great if you have mixed methods (quantitative is a bonus)
- A portfolio of finished research that includes both evaluative work and discovery/generative work to showcase your research & analysis capabilities
- A curious and eager mind, driven by an interest in how people use technology to plan and improve their travel experiences.
- Understanding of how to apply research in a business setting. You know when "good enough" beats "perfect" and can scale scope to meet a deadline.
NICE TO HAVE
- Fluency in Dutch, French, or German.
- Experience working in a B2C context.
- Comfortable doing research with a lean toolset and no dedicated ResearchOps support.
- Quantitative data analysis skills (surveys, not SQL but a bonus if you have it).
1ST CLASS EXTRAS
Some cool things to make the journey extra sweet.
- Salary range: Between EUR 80.000 - 94.000 (senior level) gross per year incl. 8% holiday allowance (based on 40 hours/week). Where you land in the range depends on your experience and skills, to be evaluated during the interview process.
- A yearly free flight or train ride to a random location! Give our Teleporter a spin here. https://www.polarsteps.com/teleporter
- A shiny MacBook to work your magic on.
- Hybrid working. Split your time between the office and your home as you see fit.
- An extensive home office set-up — everything from noise-canceling headphones to a standing desk.
- 30 days of vacation (for adventures or sitting on the couch, it's up to you).
- Two paid Culture Days for days that are important to you but not recognized by the official Dutch calendar.
- The option to switch up your zoom background by working from another country for up to 8 weeks a year.
- A personal development budget for that curious mind of yours!
- A pension plan to help you save for those around-the-world retirement trips.
- Delicious daily team lunches.
- Awesome monthly parties, as well as team trips away.
- A lively office in downtown Amsterdam, with travel costs reimbursed.
- Free Polarsteps Travel Books to contain all your far-flung adventures.
At Polarsteps, we believe the best products are built by people as diverse as the travelers using our apps! That's why we specifically encourage people underrepresented in the tech industry to apply for a role with us. Because we believe that diversity — be it age, race, sexual orientation, physical ability, ethnicity, or gender identity — makes both the world and the workplace better.
Think this is the path for you? Find out more about how we hire. https://careers.polarsteps.com/howwehire