Principal User Researcher
Interview Stages
| Stage | Interviewer(s) | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Recruiter Screen | [Recruiter Name] | 30 min |
| Hiring Manager Screen | [Hiring Manager Name] | 45 min |
| Portfolio / Project Review | All Hiring Team | 60 min |
| Round 2: PM | [PM Interviewer] | 45 min |
| Round 2: Designer | [Designer Interviewer] | 45 min |
| Round 2: Engineer | [Engineering Interviewer] | 45 min |
| Final/Culture Round | Executive or Culture Team Member | 30 min |
Recruiter Screen
Focus Areas: Vision, Executive Influence, Strategic Scope
- What kinds of problems or impact are you most excited to drive at the Principal level?
- Tell me about a time your research shaped company-level thinking or planning.
- How do you measure your influence when you're not directly attached to a single team?
Hiring Manager Screen
Focus Areas: Organizational Strategy, Design Partnership, Change Leadership
- Describe how you've shaped strategy across multiple domains or lines of business.
- How do you identify the highest-leverage places to invest research within a large org?
- Tell me about a time you had to guide or influence senior leadership through resistance or misalignment.
Portfolio / Project Review
Focus Areas: Company-Wide Strategy, Legacy Work, Systems Thinking
- The candidate should present two major initiatives where they operated across teams or orgs.
- They should explain how their research framed or redefined direction at scale, how they partnered with senior leadership, and what durable systems or structures they helped put in place.
Round 2 Interviews
PM Interview
Focus Areas: Business Vision, Planning Influence, Product Framing
- Walk me through how you shaped product strategy with a VP or CPO-level leader.
- How do you align research and product around ambiguous long-term bets?
- How do you maintain research rigor when guiding leadership through complex trade-offs?
- Tell me about a time you reframed the company's understanding of a user or market segment.
Design Interview
Focus Areas: Design Systems, Vision Crafting, Culture Setting
- How have you contributed to shaping the UX strategy or vision for a full platform or ecosystem?
- How do you guide design leadership through uncertainty or shifting narratives?
- What role do you play in defining design principles or patterns across teams?
- How do you elevate the strategic impact of content, interaction, or design decisions through research?
Engineering Interview
Focus Areas: Infrastructure Awareness, Research at Scale, Technical Influence
- How have you influenced technical planning or platform investments through research?
- What's your approach to integrating research with engineering roadmaps?
- Tell me about a time you worked with engineering leadership to define scalable systems for user insight.
- How do you bring engineering into discovery or vision work?
Final/Culture Round
Focus Areas: Strategic Presence, Org Evolution, Coaching
- What does Principal-level IC leadership mean to you — and how do you embody it?
- Tell me about a time you helped shape a research team's long-term strategy or charter.
- How do you mentor Staff or Senior researchers to operate more strategically?
- What kind of impact do you want to have on the org's culture, people, and product?