Staff 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

Focus Areas: Strategic Influence, Systems Leadership, Organizational Impact

Tell me about a time your research shaped long-term product or org-level strategy.
What makes you successful at leading without authority?
How do you define your impact beyond individual projects?

Focus Areas: Cross-Team Leadership, Research Ops, Strategic Insight

Walk me through a time you led research across multiple teams or initiatives.
How do you prioritize and manage multiple research requests at scale?
How do you ensure research maintains quality and strategic alignment in fast-paced environments?

Focus Areas: Systems Design, Multi-Squad Influence, Long-Term Thinking

The candidate should present two projects where they demonstrated cross-team leadership, strategy influence, and scalable research solutions.
They should speak to how they navigated ambiguity, partnered with leadership, and set long-term direction or built reusable systems.

Focus Areas: Vision Shaping, Planning Partnership, Impact

Tell me about a time you helped shape product vision through research.
How do you balance long-term user value with short-term product delivery goals?
How do you advocate for research when it challenges business priorities?
How do you support PMs in developing their own user empathy and insight fluency?

Focus Areas: UX Vision, Collaboration Systems, Craft Leadership

What role do you play in co-creating or evolving the UX vision across product lines?
How do you scale insights and findings to benefit multiple design teams?
How do you mentor or level up senior designers around user understanding?
Describe a time you helped shape the research culture within a design org.

Focus Areas: Long-Term Collaboration, Feasibility Framing, Insight Integration

How do you build strong relationships with engineering leadership over time?
Share a time your research contributed to a technical architecture or migration plan.
How do you make sure your research outcomes are integrated into backlogs or sprint planning?
How do you influence engineering priorities without overstepping?

Focus Areas: Leadership Presence, Culture Contribution, Mentorship