Job Summary  

BlackLine is a technology-based company with a sense of adventure and a vision for the future. Since being founded in 2001, BlackLine has become the world’s most trusted name in financial automation and defines the cutting-edge category of Modern Finance. We are a named Leader in the 2019 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Financial Corporate Performance Management, and one of the country’s best workplaces in Technology by Fortune™ Magazine.  

The Research team is growing at BlackLine, supporting design, product, and other departments to help them make better informed decisions. We are looking for someone not afraid to voice ideas and give their input into how to best grow research at BlackLine, as the organization is looking to transform the finance space with novel technologies.  

This role will collaborate and align with design, product, engineering partners, and more, to plan out research projects to answer important research questions. The ideal candidate will have a passion for collaborating and finding new ways to streamline and grow the research practice. 

The Mid to Sr. User Researcher will contribute to the standardization of process and best practices within the growing research team and between cross-functional teams. This role will also participate in planning, goal, and success metrics creation in the research team as well as helping the team to reach the next level. The candidate should be competent in various UX methodologies, workshop facilitation, principles of design and UX best practices with superb hands-on skills. The candidate should be a UX evangelist who has a passion for helping bring user empathy to the forefront of all that BlackLine does.  

Responsibilities include stakeholder engagement, research method selection, tool selection, user recruitment, test creation, analysis and reporting. 

Roles and Responsibility (list in order of importance)   

• Plan, design and execute end-to-end user research studies, utilizing qualitative and quantitative methodologies 
• Engage and collaborate with various stakeholders to define research questions and finding the right mix of methods to answer those questions with rigor 
• Collaborate and align with product and design to form actionable insights from research 
• Plan and facilitate workshops with various members within and outside the organization 
• Create deep empathy and understanding of BlackLine users and represent their voice in product discussions with product managers, designers, engineers, and key stakeholders 

• Promote the value of human-centered design with research 
• Analyze and report out on both quantitative and qualitative data  
• Contribute to research strategy, vision and roadmap 
• Help build a stronger research team by process and best practices optimization and continually improve the level of research and best practices 
• Support a culture of research evangelization & democratization 

• Consistently groom Blackline user personas and critical user journeys 
• Evaluate third-party vendors to bring in new research tools to our growing team 

Required Qualifications  

Years of Experience in Related Field: 3–6 years of applied user research  

Education:  

• Bachelor’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Information Science, Data Science, Statistics, Human Factors, or another related field. Master’s degree preferred. 

Design/Specialized Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:  

• Competent in variety of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, including but not limited to, interviews, usability testing, card-sorting, field studies, surveys 
• Experienced in conducting user research studies end-to-end, from defining research questions and goals, method selection, to analyzing and sharing out results 
• Competent in user needs evaluation, usability evaluation, metrics and measurements, stakeholder management, workshop facilitation 
• Experience in working in agile environment 
• Experience working with large data sets/volumes of information 

• Excellent written and verbal skills to articulate concepts, feedback and rationale and promote research-led initiatives 
• Kind, assertive, positive, easy to work with, and a team player 
• Statistical analysis is a plus 
• Experience scaling research processes and operations within an organization is a plus 
• Formal portfolio presentation is required during interview 

Preferred Qualifications  

• Enterprise SaaS experience 
• Experience with FinTech products / Finance Automation 

Working Conditions 

• Work is primarily sedentary in nature; no special demands are required. 
• Working with Customers on site maybe required as part of this role