User Experience Researcher (Short-term)

Job Description

Niantic’s mission is to use emerging technology to enrich our experiences as human beings in the physical world. We build games that encourage movement, exploration, and face-to-face social interaction.

We are seeking an expert User Experience Researcher to advance our knowledge and understanding of Pokémon GO players, the way they play our games, and work with our product teams to integrate these insights into our products. You will work closely with other researchers, product managers, designers, and more to impact the experience of millions of players globally.

This is a 1-year remote contract position for someone based in Japan or Europe. The work should be performed based on service agreement and statement of work. Niantic will not offer the Contractor a direct employment contract, salary, benefits, equities, or any compensation associated with employment.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate closely with Niantic's UX teams and their cross-functional partners to craft quantitative and qualitative research to better understand Niantic's game and product landscape, user bases and their needs.
• Apply appropriate analysis methods to turn the data captured into meaningful and concrete insights with recommendations for the team that includes data analysis, organizing research activity logistics, recruiting participants, writing detailed reports, summarizing existing research, and communicating insights.
• Keep up with UX-related standards, research methods, trends, and tools.

Qualifications

Required

• Background in Human Factors, Human-Computer Interactions, Cognitive Science, Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, Information Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 2+ years of experience applying UX Research, Human-Computer Interaction, Human-Centered Design to develop products.
• Experience using a range of techniques and tools to conduct studies, including but not limited to in-person/remote interviews, playtests, concept testing, participatory design, usability studies, in-home visits, diary studies, surveys, and/or logs analyses.
• Expertise in various qualitative analysis methodologies, such as content, thematic, and narrative analysis, interpretive phenomenological analysis, discourse analysis, and grounded theory.
• Strong understanding of descriptive and inferential statistics, the principles of good UX design, and the fundamentals of experiment and survey design
• Proficiency in telling stories, crafting presentations, and conveying relevant findings to inspire change.
• Ability to manage team expectations and professionally interact with players.
• Experience producing multiple reporting artifacts from research (e.g. video highlights, data visualizations, summarized reports with supporting quotes/examples, etc.).
• Excellent communication, negotiation, collaboration, organizational, and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to operate in a fast-paced and evolving team with attention to detail.

Preferred

• Experience working on video games or related experiences, or a strong intrinsic interest in video games (especially Pokémon GO and/or other Niantic games)!
• Understanding of considerations and incorporating best practices when conducting research with global populations.
• Technical savviness and familiarity with using recording equipment/software.
• Professional fluency in Japanese (writing, speaking, & listening) to conduct research

The hourly rate for this role is up to £36/hr (UK).

The hourly rate for this role is up to ¥4,440/hr (Japan).

This is a contractor position and the work should be performed based on service agreement and SOW. Niantic will not offer Contractor direct employment contract, salary, benefits, equities, or any compensation associated with employment.

About the Company

Niantic is the world’s leading AR technology company, sparking creative and engaging journeys in the real world. Our products inspire outdoor exploration, exercise, and meaningful social interaction.

Originally formed at Google in 2011, we became an independent company in 2015 with a strong group of investors including Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, and Alsop Louie Partners. Our current titles include pioneering global-control game Ingress, record-breaking AR game Pokémon GO, and recently released third title, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.

We're a hard-working, fun, and exciting group that values intellectual curiosity and a passion for problem-solving! We have growing offices located in San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Bellevue, Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, Hamburg, and Zurich.