Senior UX CX Designer - UX Researcher

Optum is a global organization that delivers care, aided by technology to help millions of people live healthier lives. The work you do with our team will directly improve health outcomes by connecting people with the care, pharmacy benefits, data and resources they need to feel their best. Here, you will find a culture guided by inclusion, talented peers, comprehensive benefits and career development opportunities. Come make an impact on the communities we serve as you help us advance health optimization on a global scale. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Research Strategy and Planning
  • Define and lead research strategies aligned to product priorities and roadmap decisions
  • Identify key knowledge gaps and opportunities across complex enterprise workflows
  • Design and execute mixed-method research (qualitative and quantitative)
  • Advocate for user-centered thinking across cross-functional teams
• User Research Execution
  • Conduct a wide range of research methods, including:
    • In-depth interviews and contextual inquiry
    • Usability testing (moderated and unmoderated)
    • Concept and prototype validation
    • Surveys and quantitative studies
  • Synthesize findings into clear insights, themes, and opportunity areas
  • Translate insights into actionable recommendations for product and design teams
• Insight Generation and Storytelling
  • Deliver compelling research artifacts such as:
    • Research reports and executive summaries
    • Personas and journey maps
    • Experience principles and opportunity frameworks
  • Communicate findings effectively to influence product strategy and prioritization
  • Connect research insights to business outcomes, KPIs, and UX quality metrics
• AI, Data & Emerging Research Practices
  • Conduct research on AI-driven experiences (e.g., copilots, automation, decision support tools)
  • Evaluate trust, explainability, and user adoption of AI systems
  • Use AI-assisted tools for synthesis, pattern recognition, and insight generation
  • Partner with data teams to triangulate behavioral analytics with user research
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
  • Partner with Product Managers to define hypotheses and validate product direction
  • Collaborate with designers to inform interaction and experience decisions
  • Align with engineering and data science to ensure feasibility and measurement
  • Mentor designers and junior researchers on research methods and best practices
• Operational Excellence & ResearchOps
  • Contribute to research processes, templates, and standards
  • Support participant recruitment strategies and vendor partnerships
  • Help scale research practices through reusable frameworks, libraries, and insights repositories
• Advocate for ethical research practices, privacy, and compliance
• Comply with the terms and conditions of the employment contract, company policies and procedures, and any and all directives (such as, but not limited to, transfer and/or re-assignment to different work locations, change in teams and/or work shifts, policies in regards to flexibility of work benefits and/or work environment, alternative work arrangements, and other decisions that may arise due to the changing business environment). The Company may adopt, vary or rescind these policies and directives in its absolute discretion and without any limitation (implied or otherwise) on its ability to do so

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related field
• 5+ years of experience in UX Research, Human Factors, or related field
• Demonstrated experience in enterprise or complex software environments
• Experience influencing product and design decisions through research insights
• Solid expertise in qualitative and quantitative research methods
• Familiarity with regulated domains (e.g., healthcare, finance, compliance-driven systems)
• Proven ability to independently plan, execute, and synthesize research
• Proven solid storytelling and communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences

Core Skills:

• Systems thinking and service design mindset
• Stakeholder influence and facilitation
• Data storytelling and visualization
• Research Ops and scaling research practices

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience researching AI-powered or data-intensive applications
• Experience supporting design systems with research-backed usability standards
• Experience evaluating trust, transparency, and usability of AI systems
• Experience contributing to research strategy at a program or portfolio level
• Experience working in Agile or PI planning environments
• Background in behavioral science, HCI, cognitive psychology, or related disciplines
• Familiarity with accessibility standards (WCAG) and inclusive research practices

AI-Enabled Research Capabilities:

• Prompting and AI-assisted synthesis (e.g., clustering insights, summarizing interviews)
• Using AI tools for rapid analysis of qualitative data sets
• Evaluating human-AI interaction patterns and feedback loops

Tools & Skills (Desired):

• Research Platforms & Tools
  • User research platforms: Dscout, UserTesting, UserZoom, Maze, Optimal Workshop
  • Survey tools
• Design & Collaboration
  • Figma (Make, FigJam), Miro, Mural for synthesis and workshops
  • Collaboration tools: Teams, Confluence, SharePoint

At UnitedHealth Group, our mission is to help people live healthier lives and make the health system work better for everyone. We believe everyone-of every race, gender, sexuality, age, location and income-deserves the opportunity to live their healthiest life. Today, however, there are still far too many barriers to good health which are disproportionately experienced by people of color, historically marginalized groups and those with lower incomes. We are committed to mitigating our impact on the environment and enabling and delivering equitable care that addresses health disparities and improves health outcomes - an enterprise priority reflected in our mission.