UX Researcher

Company Overview

At Motorola Solutions, we believe that everything starts with our people. We’re a global close-knit community, united by the relentless pursuit to help keep people safer everywhere. We build and connect technologies to help protect people, property and places. Our solutions foster the collaboration that’s critical for safer communities, safer schools, safer hospitals, safer businesses, and ultimately, safer nations. Connect with a career that matters, and help us build a safer future.

Department Overview

Understanding the people who use these technologies, the environments they work within and the challenges they face is fundamental to building products that are useful, trustworthy and effective.

Job Description

About the role

We are looking for a curious and thoughtful UX Researcher with strong foundations in social or behavioural science. This role is well suited to someone who wants to apply rigorous research to complex, real-world problems and grow their career in applied UX research.

You may already have some experience in UX or product research. Equally, you may be completing a PhD, working in academia, government, policy, behavioural research or another applied research environment and looking to move into industry.

What matters most is how you think: asking good questions, challenging assumptions, evaluating evidence critically, designing thoughtful research and turning complex findings into a clear point of view.

What you'll do

Frame complex problems

• Work with stakeholders to turn broad product or business questions into clear, answerable research questions.
• Identify assumptions, gaps in knowledge and areas of uncertainty before recommending new research.
• Review existing evidence and understand user behaviour within its wider social, organisational and technological context.
• Look beyond individual features to understand workflows, systems and broader patterns.

Design and conduct rigorous research

• Select research methods that fit the question and the decision being made.
• Plan and conduct qualitative research such as interviews, contextual inquiry, observation, field research and usability studies.
• Design studies that consider bias, validity, ethics and the limitations of the available evidence.
• Adapt research approaches to complex environments and populations that may be difficult to access.
• Use quantitative approaches where appropriate, including surveys, structured studies and analysis of behavioural or product data to help answer research questions and measure user outcomes.
• Partner with other researchers and specialists when a project requires different methodological expertise.

Make sense of evidence

• Analyse qualitative data systematically and identify meaningful patterns.
• Analyse and interpret quantitative data alongside qualitative findings, identifying patterns and relationships while being clear about sample size, uncertainty and the limitations of the evidence.
• Distinguish between evidence, interpretation and assumption.
• Connect individual findings to broader product, user and strategic questions.

Influence decisions

• Translate research findings into clear implications and recommendations.
• Communicate complex ideas in simple, accessible ways for multidisciplinary and senior audiences.
• Help Product and Design teams understand how evidence should influence priorities and decisions.
• Work collaboratively with stakeholders while maintaining an independent research perspective.
• Contribute to the research community
• Share methods, learning and evidence with other researchers.
• Contribute to reusable research knowledge rather than treating every project as an isolated study.
• Participate in critique, peer review and research planning.
• Develop your own methodological expertise through coaching, collaboration and practice.

Basic Requirements

What we're looking for

We are particularly interested in candidates with a background in social or behavioural science and strong evidence of critical thinking. You should be able to demonstrate:

• Strong research and analytical skills.
• Experience designing and conducting empirical research.
• The ability to take an ambiguous problem and break it into answerable questions.
• Strong critical-thinking skills and a willingness to question assumptions.
• The ability to evaluate the quality, strength and limitations of evidence.
• Experience analysing qualitative research systematically.
• The ability to identify patterns across complex or sometimes contradictory information.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• The ability to explain research clearly to people without a research background.
• Intellectual curiosity and a genuine interest in understanding human behaviour.
• Comfort working independently while collaborating closely with others.
• A willingness to learn new research methods and work across different problem spaces.

Academic background

A postgraduate qualification in a relevant social or behavioural science is preferred. We would particularly welcome applications from candidates with a PhD, or equivalent research experience.

Relevant disciplines may include:

• Psychology, sociology, anthropology or behavioural science
• Cognitive science, Human-Computer Interaction or Human Factors
• Criminology, public policy, political or social science
• Education, organisational psychology or occupational psychology
• Science and Technology Studies or another empirical social-science discipline

Your exact discipline matters less than the research skills and way of thinking you have developed through it.

Quantitative research

Quantitative research experience is desirable, but not essential. We are interested in candidates who are curious about developing mixed-methods capability and using qualitative and quantitative evidence together.

Useful experience could include:

• Survey design and analysis
• Experimental or quasi-experimental research
• Statistical analysis or quantitative usability research
• Behavioural or product-usage data
• Data visualisation or working with structured datasets
• Tools such as R, Python, SPSS, SQL or similar
• We are not looking for a statistician or data scientist. Candidates with strong research foundations and an interest in learning will have opportunities to develop deeper quantitative and mixed-methods expertise within the team.

How research works at Motorola Solutions

Our researchers work across different kinds of questions. Some work closely with a product domain, building a deep understanding of its users, workflows and technology. Other work begins further upstream, investigating emerging behaviours, technologies, societal changes and unmet needs that may shape future opportunities.

Across both settings, the skills are closely connected: curiosity, critical thinking, rigorous research and the ability to turn evidence into better decisions.

Travel Requirements

Relocation Provided

Position Type

Referral Payment Plan

Company

EEO Statement

Motorola Solutions is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status or any other legally-protected characteristic.

We are proud of our people-first and community-focused culture, empowering every Motorolan to be their most authentic self and to do their best work to deliver on the promise of a safer world. If you’d like to join our team but feel that you don’t quite meet all of the preferred skills, we’d still love to hear why you think you’d be a great addition to our team.