Job Description

*Note: This application will close on Monday, January 13, 2020 @ 5pm EST.

In a nutshell:

Design Thinking begins with deep empathy and the understanding of people’s needs and motivations. IDEO New York is searching for an experienced Design Researcher who’s curious and inspired by people; who’s able to surface, crystallize, and communicate great insights; and who can collaborate with design teams to create world-class human-centered products, services, experiences, and more.

We’ve found that great Design Researchers can come from many different backgrounds. Innumerable paths can lead here, and we’re open to—and excited about—candidates with a wide array of past roles and experiences. You might be a journalist or an anthropologist, an analyst or an activist, a musician or a psychologist, or something else. The most important qualification is that you’ve had professional experience connecting with people deeply; surfacing and articulating insights to fuel design, and creating action plans and strategies based on your learnings.

Why is this role important for IDEO’s work?

Great design connects deeply to human needs, and Design Researchers craft the expedition to uncover them. Design Researchers bring to life the voices of the people for whom we’re designing.They lead clients and teams through a journey of human-centered research and inspiration to discover, interpret, and communicate insights and opportunities in an inspiring way.

As a Senior Design Researcher at IDEO New York, you’ll:

• Structure rigorous and inspiring human-centered research and lead the internal and client teams through fieldwork, synthesis of findings, and insight development.
• Identify the most powerful, interesting, and relevant questions to ask, and collaborate with a multidisciplinary team to imagine and create the most appropriate methods to answer them
• Connect insights to design and collaborate with teammates to create innovative products, services, spaces, interactions and experiences.Go out into the field to build empathy for users' needs first-hand, and to find patterns from other fields.
• You might conduct interviews in people’s homes, shadow someone through their day, interview a financial expert, watch a surgical procedure, explore the house of a hoarder, or fly a flight simulator
• Craft and share stories from the field to inspire teams and clients, and to provoke smart and passionate design
• Work with a diverse set of stakeholders (co-workers, clients and mentors) to communicate complex concepts and to complete projects
• Travel to diverse regions inside and outside the U.S. to explore diverse human behavior and lives

Relevant experience and mindsets:

• 3-5 years of relevant work experience with demonstrated comfort bridging qualitative and quantitative research
• Experience planning and leading research activities, such as interviews, group sessions, and observations
• Exceptional communication skills with fluency in various media for storytelling — i.e. writing, audio, video, and photo documentation and production
• Demonstrated inspiration by people: the ability and passion to uncover both explicit and tacit needs, dig into motivations, and identify patterns
• Experience bringing others along in research processes and communication of insights; comfortable collaborating and seeking alignment with others who may have different perspectives, needs for research, and information processing styles
• Experience translating and applying insights to inform both creative solutions and strategic decision-making
• Demonstrated curiosity to learn from a spectrum of perspectives and active seeking of new experiences
• Demonstrated comfort and openness with adapting or pivoting when an approach needs to change

What does IDEO offer you?

At IDEO you can solve diverse, complex challenges alongside thoughtful, intelligent individuals who lead with curiosity, empathy, and optimism. Most of us feel that we get to do the best work of our lives at IDEO. Sure we work hard, but we also intentionally craft moments that allow our community to pause, create, and connect. We encourage our community to bring their whole selves to work, we respect the need for work-life balance, and we allow for autonomy in the design process and people’s career development.

Some previous projects to check out:

J.M. Smucker Company: Embracing Customer Centricity to Build a Culture of Innovation

Ascensia: Designing the Connected Future of Diabetes Management

Application requirements and instructions:

Please submit a resume, cover letter, and answers to the two required questions around design principles. If you have a portfolio and/or website, please make sure to include those in your application as well.

We know that many of you are coming from fields outside of design. We think of design very broadly! So, include examples of products, services, programs, businesses, organizations, or other experiences to which your research has contributed.

Equal Opportunity Employer

IDEO is an equal opportunity employer; applicants are considered for all roles without regard to race, color, religious creed, sex, national origin, citizenship status, age, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, marital, parental, veteran or military status, unfavorable military discharge, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state or local law.