Senior UX Researcher

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Senior UX Researcher

Company: Anaplan

Location: New York City, United States

Job Type: Full-Time

Category: User Experience Research / Product Development

Date Posted: April 23, 2026

Experience Level: Mid-Senior (4+ years)

Remote Status: On-site

🚀 Role Summary

• Lead end-to-end User Experience (UX) research initiatives within a dynamic Product and Technology organization, driving product innovation and strategic business goals through deep user understanding.

• Translate complex qualitative and quantitative user data into actionable insights and compelling narratives that foster empathy and influence product strategy and design decisions.

• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, including Product Management and Design, to embed user-centricity throughout the product development lifecycle.

• Champion user needs and advocate for data-driven decision-making by conducting diverse research studies and effectively communicating findings to stakeholders.

📝 Enhancement Note: This role is positioned as a Senior UX Researcher, implying a need for independent ownership of research projects, mentorship potential, and a significant impact on product strategy. The emphasis on "shaping the future of our products" and driving "critical insights" suggests a strategic contribution beyond tactical research execution.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Define research objectives in partnership with Product Managers and Designers, ensuring alignment with product strategy and business goals.

• Develop comprehensive research plans, including methodology selection, participant recruitment strategies, and defining key metrics and desired outcomes.

• Execute a range of qualitative and quantitative user research methods, such as moderated interviews, usability testing, card sorting, workshops, surveys, and diary studies.

• Analyze data from diverse sources, including usage analytics, customer satisfaction surveys, support tickets, and direct user feedback, to synthesize actionable insights.

• Utilize compelling storytelling techniques and creative delivery formats to present research findings, effectively building empathy and inspiring cross-functional teams to prioritize design decisions and product requirements.

• Develop and maintain key research artifacts, including task flows, user personas, journey maps, and detailed research reports, to communicate user needs and behaviors.

• Contribute to the continuous improvement of research processes, tools, and best practices within the global UX team.

• Provide guidance and education to designers and product managers on research methodologies, their benefits, and effective application within the product development process.

• Manage participant recruitment logistics, including scheduling, consent, incentives, and ensuring ethical research practices are maintained.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities highlight a blend of strategic planning, hands-on execution, and communication. The expectation to "contribute to evolving our research processes" indicates an opportunity for leadership in shaping the UX research function. The emphasis on "storytelling" and "creative delivery formats" points to a need for strong presentation and communication skills beyond just reporting data.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education:

• Bachelor's degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, or a related social science discipline.

Experience:

• Minimum of 4+ years of progressive experience leading UX research projects from inception to delivery.

• Demonstrated experience in applying both generative (e.g., discovery interviews, contextual inquiry) and evaluative (e.g., usability testing, A/B testing) research methods.

Required Skills:

• Proficiency in leading user studies and research projects independently.

• Expertise in core UX research methodologies including usability testing, in-depth user interviews, journey mapping, persona development, and survey creation.

• Strong analytical and critical thinking skills to interpret complex data sets and identify underlying user needs and pain points.

• Exceptional communication, presentation, and storytelling abilities, with a talent for making research findings engaging and persuasive.

• Highly organized, methodical, and detail-oriented approach to research planning and execution, with a commitment to quality.

• Proven ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams (Product Management, Design, Engineering) and build alignment.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience working within B2B or SaaS environments, particularly on complex enterprise software initiatives.

• Exposure to research related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications or technologies.

• Familiarity with enterprise SaaS platforms, financial systems, or planning software.

• Willingness to travel within the UK and occasionally internationally, suggesting a global team dynamic.

📝 Enhancement Note: The requirement for 4+ years of experience, coupled with the "Senior" title, suggests that candidates should be prepared to discuss their leadership in research projects, their ability to mentor junior researchers, and their strategic influence on product roadmaps. The preference for B2B/SaaS experience is crucial for understanding Anaplan's complex product ecosystem.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• Demonstrate a robust portfolio showcasing end-to-end UX research projects, clearly illustrating your role, methodologies used, and the impact of your findings.

• Include examples of how you have translated research insights into actionable recommendations that influenced product strategy, design decisions, or feature prioritization.

• Showcase your ability to analyze both qualitative and quantitative data, with specific examples of how you derived insights from mixed-methods research.

• Present artifacts such as personas, journey maps, user flows, and research reports, highlighting their clarity, detail, and utility for cross-functional teams.

Process Documentation:

• Provide examples of detailed research plans, outlining objectives, hypotheses, methodologies, participant criteria, and timelines.

• Showcase your approach to participant recruitment and management, including any strategies for ensuring diverse and representative participant pools.

• Illustrate your methods for synthesizing research data and communicating findings effectively, emphasizing clarity, impact, and actionability.

• Detail your experience in embedding research into agile development workflows, demonstrating collaboration with Product Managers and Designers at various stages.

📝 Enhancement Note: For a Senior UX Researcher role, the portfolio should emphasize strategic impact and leadership. Candidates should be ready to discuss how their research directly informed product strategy, influenced roadmap prioritization, and contributed to business outcomes, rather than just showcasing a collection of research artifacts.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range: $163,000 - $220,000 USD per year.

Benefits:

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance plans.

• Retirement savings plan with company matching (e.g., 401(k) in the US).

• Generous paid time off (PTO), including vacation, sick leave, and holidays.

• Opportunities for professional development, including training, conferences, and certifications.

• Potential for performance-based bonuses or stock options.

• Employee assistance programs and wellness initiatives.

Working Hours:

• Standard full-time work schedule, typically 40 hours per week, with flexibility offered around core business hours.

• Potential for extended hours during critical project phases or when collaborating with global teams across different time zones.

📝 Enhancement Note: The provided salary range of $163,000 - $220,000 USD for a Senior UX Researcher in New York City is competitive and aligns with industry benchmarks for experienced professionals in major tech hubs. The benefits are standard for a large, established tech company like Anaplan, with an emphasis on comprehensive health and retirement plans, common for US-based roles.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Enterprise Software, specifically focusing on AI-infused scenario planning and analysis platforms. Anaplan operates in the competitive space of business planning and performance management software.

Company Size: Anaplan is a large, established company, indicated by its extensive customer base (Fortune 50 companies), global presence, and likely a significant employee count.

Founded: While not specified, Anaplan was founded in 1998, giving it a long history and deep expertise in its domain. This suggests a company with established processes and a mature product offering.

Team Structure:

• The UX team is global, with members in London, San Francisco, and New York City. This role is based in NYC.

• The UX Researcher will be part of the Global Product and Technology organization, working within a global UX team of designers and researchers.

Methodology:

• Anaplan emphasizes a "strategy-led, values-based and disciplined in execution" operating principle.

• The UX team operates to "advocate for the user experience across our ecosystem by enabling data-driven decisions rooted in a deep understanding of user needs, behaviors, and pain points."

• Research findings are intended to drive "customer delight" and create "powerful 'aha' moments."

• A key aspect of the UX team's work is "embedding research into the product development process."

Company Website: https://www.anaplan.com/

📝 Enhancement Note: Anaplan's emphasis on a "Winning Culture" suggests a performance-oriented environment that values ambition, collaboration, and diversity of thought. The company's focus on AI and scenario planning places it at the forefront of business analytics technology, requiring researchers to understand complex enterprise workflows.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: This role is a Senior UX Researcher, indicating a mid-to-senior level position. It requires independent execution of research, strategic contribution to product development, and potentially mentoring or guiding junior team members. The scope involves driving significant product initiatives and influencing strategic decisions.

Reporting Structure: The UX Researcher will report into the Global UX team within the Global Product and Technology organization. They will collaborate closely with Product Managers and Designers on specific product initiatives, implying a matrixed reporting or strong project-based collaboration structure.

Operations Impact: The research conducted will directly impact the Anaplan platform's usability, user satisfaction, and overall market competitiveness. By understanding user needs and pain points, the Senior UX Researcher will influence product strategy, feature roadmaps, and design decisions, ultimately contributing to customer success, retention, and acquisition.

Growth Opportunities:

• Specialization: Opportunity to deepen expertise in specific research methodologies or in areas relevant to Anaplan's platform (e.g., B2B SaaS, AI applications, financial planning).

• Leadership: Potential to grow into a Lead UX Researcher or UX Research Manager role, overseeing research strategy, managing a team, and influencing broader organizational UX practices.

• Cross-functional Influence: Develop stronger strategic partnerships with Product, Design, and Engineering leadership, becoming a key advisor on user-centricity.

• Skill Development: Continuous learning opportunities through workshops, conferences, and exposure to Anaplan's complex enterprise product suite.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "Senior" designation suggests a path towards leadership, either through managing research projects, leading a sub-team, or specializing in a critical area of Anaplan's product. The global nature of the team also presents opportunities for cross-cultural collaboration and understanding.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: The role is based in Anaplan's New York City office, indicating an on-site work environment. This suggests a need for physical presence for team collaboration, meetings, and accessing office resources.

Office Location(s): New York City, United States. Specific details about the office amenities or location within NYC would be beneficial for candidates.

Workspace Context:

• The NYC office likely provides a modern, collaborative workspace conducive to cross-functional interaction.

• Access to standard office technology and potentially specialized UX research tools and software.

• Opportunities for direct interaction with designers, product managers, and potentially other researchers within the NYC hub, fostering a sense of community and shared learning.

Work Schedule:

• A standard 40-hour work week is typical, with flexibility often provided to accommodate individual needs and team collaboration across time zones.

• Candidates should be prepared for potential peak periods requiring extra effort, especially when collaborating with global teams or working towards product launch deadlines.

📝 Enhancement Note: The on-site requirement in New York City implies a preference for in-person collaboration, brainstorming, and team cohesion. Candidates should assess their comfort with this environment and its potential benefits for networking and mentorship.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

• Initial Screening: A brief call with a recruiter to assess basic qualifications, experience, and cultural fit.

• Hiring Manager Interview: A more in-depth conversation with the hiring manager to discuss your background, research philosophy, and experience with specific methodologies.

• Portfolio Presentation: A critical stage where you will present selected UX research projects from your portfolio. This is an opportunity to showcase your process, insights, and impact. Expect to discuss your role, challenges, and how your work influenced outcomes.

• Cross-functional Interviews: Interviews with Product Managers, Designers, and potentially engineers. These sessions will assess your collaboration skills, ability to communicate research effectively to different audiences, and how you integrate research into the product development lifecycle.

• Final Interview: Potentially with a senior leader in Product or Technology to discuss strategic alignment and overall fit.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Curate Strategically: Select 3-4 projects that best represent your senior-level experience, showcasing a range of methodologies (generative, evaluative) and impact. Prioritize projects where you can clearly articulate the problem, your approach, the insights, and the resulting actions or outcomes.

• Focus on Impact: For each project, clearly articulate the business problem or user need, your specific contribution, the research methods used, key findings, and most importantly, how those findings led to tangible improvements in the product or business metrics. Quantify impact where possible.

• Tell a Story: Structure your presentation like a narrative. Explain the context, the challenges, the journey of discovery, the "aha!" moments, and the resolution. Use visuals effectively to illustrate your points.

• Demonstrate Empathy & Strategy: Show how you understand users deeply and how your research informs strategic product direction, not just tactical design tweaks.

• Prepare for Q&A: Anticipate questions about your decision-making process, how you handled conflicting data, how you communicated difficult findings, and how you collaborated with teams.

Challenge Preparation:

• Be prepared for potential case studies or hypothetical research scenarios. These might involve analyzing existing data, outlining a research plan for a given problem, or interpreting ambiguous user feedback.

• Practice articulating your thought process clearly and concisely, even when faced with incomplete information. Focus on demonstrating your strategic thinking and methodological rigor.

• If asked to present a research plan, ensure it's well-structured, considers ethical implications, and aligns with agile development timelines.

📝 Enhancement Note: The portfolio presentation is paramount. Candidates should treat it as a strategic showcase of their ability to drive product decisions through research, not just a review of past work. Emphasis on storytelling, impact, and strategic influence will be key.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

• User Interview & Usability Testing Platforms: Tools like UserTesting.com, Lookback, Maze, or internally developed solutions for conducting remote moderated and unmoderated studies.

• Survey Tools: Platforms such as SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics, Google Forms, or specialized survey tools for quantitative data collection.

• Analytics & Data Visualization: Familiarity with tools like Google Analytics, Amplitude, Mixpanel, Tableau, or Power BI for analyzing usage data and customer feedback trends.

• Collaboration & Documentation: Proficiency with tools like Jira, Confluence, Miro, or other platforms for project management, documentation, and collaborative ideation.

• Persona & Journey Mapping Tools: Experience with tools like Figma, Adobe XD, Miro, or dedicated UX design/mapping software.

Analytics & Reporting:

• Experience analyzing data from product analytics platforms to identify user behavior patterns, friction points, and opportunities for improvement.

• Ability to synthesize findings from various data sources (usage analytics, NPS/CSAT surveys, support tickets) into comprehensive reports.

CRM & Automation:

• While not directly a CRM role, understanding how user feedback and research insights can inform CRM strategies or customer segmentation is beneficial.

• Familiarity with how research findings can drive automation opportunities or optimize existing workflows within product development or customer success.

📝 Enhancement Note: Anaplan is a B2B SaaS company, so proficiency with tools commonly used in enterprise software development environments is expected. The emphasis on data analysis suggests a need for comfort with both qualitative data synthesis and quantitative analytics platforms.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values:

• User-Centricity: A deep-seated commitment to understanding and advocating for the user in all product decisions.

• Data-Driven Approach: Relying on evidence from user research and analytics to inform strategy and validate hypotheses.

• Collaboration: Working effectively across Product, Design, Engineering, and potentially Marketing/Sales to achieve shared goals.

• Impact & Actionability: Focusing research efforts on generating insights that lead to concrete changes and measurable improvements.

• Continuous Improvement: A proactive mindset towards refining research processes, methodologies, and the overall user experience.

• Innovation: Embracing new methods and technologies to uncover deeper user insights and contribute to cutting-edge product development.

Collaboration Style:

• Partnership: Working as a close partner with Product Managers and Designers, providing research expertise to guide their work.

• Facilitation: Leading workshops and research sessions, ensuring inclusive participation and constructive outcomes.

• Communication: Proactively sharing insights and findings through engaging presentations and documentation, tailored to different audiences.

• Feedback Integration: Open to receiving and providing constructive feedback to refine research approaches and deliverables.

• Cross-functional Alignment: Building consensus and driving alignment on user needs and product direction across various departments.

📝 Enhancement Note: Anaplan's "Winning Culture" likely translates to a collaborative yet high-performance environment. The UX team's specific values emphasize user advocacy and data-informed decision-making, requiring researchers to be both empathetic and analytically rigorous.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

• Complexity of B2B SaaS: Navigating the intricate needs and workflows of enterprise users and diverse stakeholder groups within customer organizations.

• Global Collaboration: Effectively conducting research and communicating findings across different time zones and cultural contexts, especially with a distributed UX team.

• Balancing Generative & Evaluative Research: Ensuring a consistent pipeline of both exploratory research to uncover new opportunities and evaluative research to validate and refine existing features.

• Driving Action: Translating research insights into tangible product changes within an agile development cycle, which can sometimes be challenging due to competing priorities.

• Measuring Impact: Quantifying the direct impact of UX research on business metrics and product success can be challenging but is crucial for demonstrating value.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• Advanced Methodologies: Opportunities to explore and implement cutting-edge research techniques and tools.

• Domain Expertise: Deepen understanding of enterprise planning, financial modeling, and AI applications within the business context.

• Cross-functional Leadership: Develop skills in influencing product strategy and leading research initiatives that span multiple product areas.

• Mentorship: Potential to mentor junior researchers or be mentored by senior leaders within the Product and Technology organization.

• Industry Exposure: Attend relevant conferences and training sessions to stay abreast of UX research trends and best practices in the SaaS industry.

📝 Enhancement Note: The challenges associated with B2B SaaS complexity and global team collaboration are significant. Candidates should be prepared to discuss strategies for overcoming these hurdles and highlight how they leverage their skills to drive impact in such environments.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

• "Describe a time you had to influence product strategy based on your research findings. What was the challenge, your approach, and the outcome?" (Focus on strategic impact, communication, and persuasion.)

• "How do you prioritize research requests when multiple teams have competing needs?" (Assess your prioritization framework, stakeholder management, and ability to align research with business goals.)

Company & Culture Questions:

• "What interests you specifically about Anaplan and our approach to product development?" (Research Anaplan's platform, recent news, and its mission.)

• "How do you see UX research contributing to Anaplan's 'Winning Culture'?" (Connect your work to Anaplan's values of innovation, ambition, and customer success.)

Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

• Context is Key: Start each project by clearly defining the business problem or user need and the scope of your involvement.

• Methodology Justification: Explain why you chose specific research methods and how they were best suited to answer your research questions.

• Insight Synthesis: Clearly articulate the key insights derived from your data. Go beyond surface-level observations to reveal deeper user motivations, behaviors, or pain points.

• Actionable Recommendations: Detail the specific, actionable recommendations that stemmed from your insights. Show how these recommendations directly addressed the initial problem.

• Demonstrate Impact: Where possible, provide evidence of the impact of your recommendations – e.g., improved usability metrics, increased conversion rates, positive user feedback, or influence on product roadmap.

• Visual Storytelling: Use clear, concise visuals (e.g., personas, journey maps, quotes, key data points) to support your narrative and make your findings memorable.

📝 Enhancement Note: Be prepared to discuss your thought process behind every decision made during your research projects. The interviewers will want to understand how you think and problem-solve, not just what you did.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this Senior UX Researcher position:

• Submit your application through the Anaplan careers portal via the provided link.

• Portfolio Customization: Tailor your portfolio to highlight 3-4 of your most impactful UX research projects that align with B2B SaaS environments and demonstrate end-to-end research leadership. Focus on projects where you drove significant product improvements or strategic decisions.

• Resume Optimization: Ensure your resume clearly articulates your 4+ years of experience in UX research, emphasizing your expertise in both generative and evaluative methods, data analysis, and cross-functional collaboration. Quantify achievements and impact wherever possible.

• Interview Preparation: Practice presenting your portfolio projects, focusing on storytelling, clarity of insights, and demonstrated impact. Prepare specific examples for behavioral questions related to collaboration, problem-solving, and influencing stakeholders.

• Company Research: Thoroughly research Anaplan's platform, target market, competitive landscape, and stated company values ("Winning Culture"). Understand how your UX research skills can contribute to Anaplan's mission and business objectives.

⚠️ Important Notice: This enhanced job description includes AI-generated insights and operations industry-standard assumptions. All details should be verified directly with the hiring organization before making application decisions.