Principal UX Researcher (AI)

TL;DR

Principal UX Researcher (AI): Leading research for AI-powered Commerce and Shopping experiences across Microsoft surfaces, with an accent on uncovering user mental models, trust boundaries, and decision-making behaviors in AI-mediated purchasing contexts. Focus on defining and evaluating agentic commerce scenarios and translating research insights into durable frameworks that guide product strategy.

Location: Hybrid position, 4x a week in office in Redmond, WA or Mountain View, CA, United States

Salary: USD $139,900 – $274,800 per year

Company

hirify.global is a creative community of designers, researchers, prototypers, and writers on a mission to create and deliver holistic, AI-powered customer experiences across apps and the web.

What you will do

• Understand the behaviors, motivations, needs, and aspirations of our customers to create a differentiated advantage in building relevant experiences.
• Lead research across complex commerce ecosystems, including shopping discovery, merchant evaluation, payments, and post-purchase experiences where AI agents act on users’ behalf.
• Define and evaluate agentic commerce scenarios, uncovering user mental models, trust boundaries, emotional expectations, and decision-making behaviors in AI-mediated purchasing contexts.
• Partner with Product Management and Design leadership to inform foundational decisions for AI-native commerce systems.
• Translate research insights into durable frameworks that guide product strategy and platform investments across hirify.global Commerce initiatives.
• Lead research on 0→1 business initiatives with notable risk, complexity, and ambiguity, regularly influencing at the highest organizational levels.

Requirements

• Education and Experience: Doctorate with 3+ years, Master’s with 4+ years, or Bachelor’s with 6+ years of User Experience Research experience, or equivalent.
• High level research skills across methods, including qualitative and quantitative (Mixed Methods researcher).
• Excellent communication and presentation / storytelling skills.
• Demonstrated ability to influence product direction in complex, multi-stakeholder systems.

Nice to have

• Experience conducting research on commerce, shopping, financial transactions, payments, subscriptions, cashback, or loyalty-related user experiences, particularly in trust-sensitive, high-impact flows.
• Experience with commonly used research tools.

Culture & Benefits

• Be part of a creative community passionate about how technology can improve people’s lives.
• Opportunity to explore new ideas and product possibilities with a growth mindset.
• Work collaboratively in a diverse team that moves fast to build useful, usable, and delightful experiences.
• Contribute to creating end-to-end experiences for assistance, shopping, search, ads, news, sports, and gaming for billions of customers worldwide.
• Embody Microsoft’s culture and values.