Lead UX Researcher

Vio.com believes travel is the one thing that opens minds to new ideas, cultures, and ways of thinking. Our mission is to get every traveler the best accommodation deal, worldwide. From adventure travel and backpacking to honeymoons and family vacations, we genuinely care so that every traveler can make the best-informed accommodation choice at the absolute best conditions for every trip.

As a company that values user-centered design and innovation, we are looking for a Lead UX Researcher to expand and elevate our UX research capabilities. In this role, you will lead a team, drive impactful research initiatives, and shape the direction of our product and user experience strategies

We work in a flexible, results-oriented, data-driven and customer-centric team structure, focusing on shipping value in a collaborative fashion, with hopefully just the right amount of bureaucracy. We encourage people from all ethnic groups, genders, sexuality, age, and abilities to apply. If this job description resonates with you, we want to hear from you!

What you will do:

Leadership

• Build, lead, and mentor a high-performing UX research team, focusing on each researcher's professional development.

• Define team objectives, establish robust research capabilities, and cultivate a collaborative environment emphasizing user needs and innovation.

Research Strategy and Execution

• Enhance the impact of customer-centricity throughout the organization.

• Formulate and oversee research strategies that are in harmony with business objectives, shaping both immediate design choices and long-term product strategies.

• Strategically plan, scope, and implement research projects utilizing both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, including usability testing, diary studies, surveys, and data analytics.

• Articulate research questions, choose suitable methods, and guarantee actionable insights that tackle user challenges and capitalize on business opportunities.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Collaborate closely with UX designers, product managers, engineers, and data analysts/scientists to ensure that research insights are seamlessly integrated throughout all stages of the product lifecycle.

• Enhance collaboration and understanding among cross-functional teams by guiding and educating them on effective communication with the UXR team. This approach ensures alignment throughout every phase of the research process.

• Work in partnership with other insights teams to leverage learnings from past research, enhancing the quality of insights shared across departments.

• Serve as a research advocate by effectively communicating findings to stakeholders across various departments, including senior leadership.

Operational Excellence

• Oversee research budgets, timelines, and relationships with external vendors to guarantee efficiency and high-quality outcomes in all research initiatives.

• Innovate and adapt research methodologies to align with the demands of a dynamic, fast-paced environment.

Insights-Driven Impact

• Generate actionable insights from research activities to shape product roadmaps, improve user experiences, and stimulate business growth.

• Create user personas, journey maps, and metrics to foster empathy and inform decision-making across teams.

• Assess and critically analyze incoming research requests, suggesting robust research solutions that align with both business objectives and user needs.

Who you are:

• A Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Psychology, Social Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Information, or a related field is required.

• Over 6 years of experience in UX research roles focused on consumer-facing domains, supported by a robust portfolio that highlights impactful projects.

• More than 3 years of demonstrated success in managing and expanding UX research teams and their capabilities.

• Proficient in qualitative research methods such as interviews, usability testing, diary studies, and quantitative methods, including survey design, statistical analysis, product analytics, and data synthesis.

• Experience in setting up research communication with customers. E.g., creating and sending research invitations and setting up effective communication pipelines that provide meaningful and stable response rates.

• Hands-on experience in product analytics, ability to independently conclude the data, even if running queries.

• Exceptional storytelling and communication skills, with the ability to present insights effectively to designers, engineers, product managers, and senior stakeholders.

• Strong capability to collaborate in a dynamic, data-driven, and creative environment.

• Demonstrated ability to assess business needs, define research priorities, and propose impactful solutions.

• Proficiency in various tools is essential, including Figma, Optimal Workshop, Fullstory, data visualization platforms (such as Looker, Microsoft Power BI, Tableau), survey design tools (such as Alchemer, Qualtrics, or SurveyMonkey), and research recruitment platforms (like Prolific, Respondent, or Ethnio).

• Experience in evaluating and negotiating with external research vendors.

• Experience in evaluating and negotiating with external research vendors and driving alignment on in-house research solutions (e.g., intercept surveys embedded into the product) with developers, product analysis, and data scientists.

Why join us now?

• We are one of the fastest-growing accommodation booking platforms in the world today, having grown our bookings 30x between 2017 and 2022, and catering to the needs of over 100 million unique visitors worldwide each year. We do that by harnessing the power of advanced algorithms and an innovative suite of power features and managed to overcome the corona crisis remarkably fast;

• The mobile applications (iOS and Android) we launched in 2023 are already a big success in the US, and we are aiming at 10M global app installs by the end of 2024, as we are beginning to build Vio.com as the brand for value-seeking travellers worldwide;

• We are a passionate and diverse team of tech enthusiasts and creatives with a commitment and focus on the traveler above all else - and it shows in our industry-leading TrustPilot score;

• We place huge importance on rewarding our employees for the value they generate by giving Stock Appreciation Rights to all employees.

Do you want to know if Vio.com is the right place for you? Find out by reading about the attitude that thrives at Vio.com.

What we offer: 

• Plenty of chances to learn and grow within an open, diverse culture which promotes knowledge sharing, trust and transparency;

• A great compensation package, perks and benefits (including significant stock appreciation rights);

• Flexible time off (take as many holidays as you need) and a chance to work remotely;

• You will be part of a highly international team that enjoys working, eating and playing together in one of the best office locations in Amsterdam;

• We value good food and offer catered lunches from various cuisines, great coffee, ice-cream in the fridge and the occasional barbecue in our garden;

• We enjoy getting together to celebrate our wins with company events in Amsterdam and abroad;

• A budget for your dream home office;

• Access to free mental health support via OpenUp.

Blog posts worth reading: 

• Our hiring process

• How we survived the Covid Crises as a Travel Startup 

• Why we offer Share Appreciation Rights 

• Our Rebrand 

Follow us on Instagram to see what life at Vio.com looks like!