Lead UX Researcher

Job Introduction

As a Lead UX Researcher, you will be the strategic anchor for research at Lollypop. You won’t just lead efforts; you will architect the research frameworks that allow our teams to uncover deep behavioral insights and translate them into high-stakes product strategies.
You will act as a bridge between high-level business objectives and design execution, ensuring that research is not a checkbox but the North Star for our UI, UX, Marketing, and Sales teams. This is a high-impact leadership role where you will scale research maturity, championing a culture of evidence-based design across a diverse global portfolio.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Strategic Research Leadership: Oversee end-to-end research strategy across multiple high-priority client accounts simultaneously.
• Consultative Scoping: Partner with clients to translate ambiguous business problems into rigorous research roadmaps, managing expectations, timelines, and high-level constraints.
• Advanced Methodological Execution: Lead complex qualitative and mixed-method studies, including longitudinal studies, ethnography, and expert-led evaluative research.
• Synthesis & Narrative Building: Move beyond basic reports to create Strategic Artifacts—North Star frameworks, service blueprints, and mental model maps—that redefine a client’s product vision.
• Outcome-Driven Outputs: Ensure research deliverables (personas, journeys, opportunity maps) are “designer-ready” and directly influence the Figma canvas and the product roadmap.
• Operational Excellence: Standardize research repositories and tools (Dovetail, Notion, etc.) to ensure insights are searchable, reusable, and impactful long-term.

Collaborative Impact & Leadership

• Design & Business Integration: Work at the intersection of UX/UI and business strategy to ensure user needs align with ROI and technical feasibility.
• High-Stakes Stakeholder Management: Present findings to CXOs and Founders, defending research integrity while remaining empathetic to business pressures.
• Mentorship & Growth: Formally mentor Senior and Junior Researchers, conducting “Research Crits” to elevate the rigor and quality of the entire team’s output.
• Thought Leadership: Represent Lollypop in the design community through case studies, whitepapers, or speaking engagements regarding the future of UXR.

Must-Have Skills & Experience

• 8–10+ years of hands-on experience in UX or Design Research, with at least 2-3 years in a leadership or lead-level role within an agency or fast-paced consulting environment.
• Advanced Academic Background: Graduate or postgraduate degree in Psychology, Anthropology, HCI, Cognitive Science, or a related behavioral field.
• Methodological Mastery: Deep expertise in choosing the right tool for the job—from RITE testing to Diary Studies and Generative workshops.
• Strategic Thinking: Proven ability to connect “user pain points” to “business revenue” and “product scalability.”
• Tooling Command: Expert-level proficiency in Figma/FigJam, Miro, and specialized UXR tools like Dovetail, EnjoyHQ, or usertesting .com.
• Communication Excellence: Exceptional storytelling skills; the ability to turn dry data into a compelling human narrative that inspires action.

Nice-to-Have

• AI & Future-Tech: Experience researching AI-native products or implementing AI-assisted research workflows (synthetic users, automated transcription/tagging analysis).
• Domain Expertise: Proven track record in complex sectors like Fintech (WealthTech/Neobanking), HealthTech, or B2B SaaS.
• Multilingual Capabilities: Fluency in regional Indian languages (Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada) to lead diverse, pan-India field studies.
• Community Presence: Active participation in the global UXR community (ADPList mentoring, Medium blogging, or conference speaking).

Join the Lollypop team and shape the future of digital experiences—Apply Today!