AfterShip · 10 hours ago
Head of User Research
San Francisco, CA
Full-time
Hybrid
Director/Executive
$245K/yr - $290K/yr
10+ years expAfterShip is a Great Place to Work Certified company transforming the global eCommerce landscape. They are seeking a Head of User Research to build their research function and blend market and design research to shape strategy and product experience.
Customer ServiceE-CommerceSaaSShipping
Responsibilities
Build and lead the research function - Stand up a lean, high-impact team; hire and mentor senior researchers; set up tools, processes, and infrastructure to scale research globally
Create a unified customer understanding framework - Align Product, Design, and Product Marketing on customer needs and segments to guide decisions across SMB to Enterprise
Drive strategic insight for big bets - Partner with Product and PMM on discovery and zero-to-one validation; translate findings into multi-year strategy and roadmap choices
Reimagine the product experience - Elevate onboarding, activation, and post-purchase experiences through structured research (e.g., card sorting, tree testing) that leads to actionable recommendations
Accelerate activation and onboarding - Combine research and analytics to identify funnel drop-offs, generate hypotheses, and run rapid evaluative studies
Operationalize continuous feedback - Build VoC and NPS programs; create an insights library and maintain ongoing customer touchpoints with clear incentives
Enable self-serve research - Provide templates, guides, and playbooks so PMs and Designers can run lightweight validation across time zones and languages
Inform pricing and packaging decisions - Lead research to validate pricing and packaging redesigns, ensuring insights drive business outcomes
Qualification
Required
10+ years in user research or customer insights with leadership experience in complex B2B or B2B2C products
Depth across mixed methods (foundational and evaluative) including discovery, usability, journey mapping, card sorting, and tree testing
Proven track record of translating insights into measurable product and business outcomes—particularly for design systems, onboarding, and market expansion
Skilled in partnering with Product Analytics to connect what is happening (quant) to why it's happening (qual)
Experienced in enabling global teams to conduct effective studies across geographies and languages
Strong communication and stakeholder management skills; able to drive alignment across executive and functional teams
Capable of managing both quantitative and qualitative research, including internal validation and external market studies
Preferred
Experience in eCommerce, logistics, shipping, or post-purchase journeys
Background supporting pricing and packaging research for subscription products
Fluent in Mandarin Chinese
Benefits
Competitive compensation
Remote-first/hybrid-flexible work setups
Healthcare coverage offered from day 1
Retirement plans including company match
Annual learning & wellness benefit
Monthly book perk
Career progression & professional development
In-office lunch and commuter benefits for those located in our hub locations
Company
AfterShip
We help e-commerce businesses grow and make buying and selling accessible to everyone, everywhere.
201-500 employees
H1B Sponsorship
AfterShip has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (1)
Funding
Current Stage
Growth StageTotal Funding
$69MKey Investors
Tiger Global Management10Fund
2021-04-22Series B· $66M
2019-06-25Series A· $2M
2014-05-20Series A· $1M
Leadership Team
Teddy Chan
Software Engineer, CEO and Co-Founders
Recent News
2025-10-11
Company data provided by crunchbase