Microsoft · 7 hours ago
Principal UX Researcher
Mountain View, CA
Full-time
Hybrid
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$140K/yr - $275K/yr
6+ years expMicrosoft AI is inventing an AI Companion designed with real personality and emotional intelligence. The Principal UX Researcher will own the quantitative research strategy for core product pillars, partnering with various teams to create a holistic view of the user journey.
Agentic AIApplication Performance ManagementArtificial Intelligence (AI)Business DevelopmentDevOpsInformation ServicesInformation TechnologyManagement Information SystemsNetwork SecuritySoftware
Responsibilities
Bridge the Data Gap: Partner with Data Scientists to triangulate product telemetry with behavioral research, creating a 360-degree view of user health and opportunity areas
Drive Innovation: Design and execute complex quantitative studies (large-scale surveys, longitudinal tracking, MaxDiff, Conjoint, etc.) to identify unmet needs and white-space opportunities for AI features
Metric Definition: Develop and refine "Human-Centered Metrics" that track the success of our AI models from a user perspective
Define "Quality" at Scale: Develop robust, multidimensional frameworks to translate user-needs into quantitative benchmarks
Strategic Influence: Present compelling, data-driven narratives to executive leadership that influence the 12–24 month product roadmap
Mentorship: Set the standard for quantitative excellence within the UXR team, mentoring junior researchers and advocating for rigorous methodologies
Qualification
Required
Doctorate in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND 3+ years User Experience Research experience
OR Master's Degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND 4+ years User Experience Research experience
OR Bachelor's Degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Technical Communications, Information Science, Information Architecture, User Experience Design, Behavioral Science, Social Sciences, or related field AND 6+ years User Experience Research experience OR equivalent experience
Preferred
8+ years of experience in Quantitative UX Research, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), or a related social science field within a high-growth tech environment
You speak 'Data Science' fluently. You know how to marry log data with self-reported data to tell a cohesive story
You are an expert in R or Python for data analysis and have advanced SQL skills to pull your own data. You are comfortable working with large, messy datasets
You are skilled in scale development and validation, ensuring that when we ask a human to rate a response as '3/5,' that data is statistically reliable and valid
You can analyze high-volume interaction logs to find patterns
You understand the lifecycle of an LLM—from pre-training to fine-tuning and inference—and know where human insights provide the most leverage
Company
Microsoft
Microsoft is a software corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells a range of software products and services.
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
Microsoft 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 (9192)
2024 (9343)
2023 (7677)
2022 (11403)
2021 (7210)
2020 (7852)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$1MKey Investors
Technology Venture Investors
2022-12-09Post Ipo Equity
1986-03-13IPO
1981-09-01Series Unknown· $1M
Leadership Team
Satya Nadella
Chairman and CEO
Vukani Mngxati
Chief Executive Officer - Microsft South Africa
Recent News
2026-01-16
Morningstar.com
2026-01-16
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