UX Researcher, Android XR

At Google, we "Focus on the user and all else will follow." As a User Experience Researcher (UXR), you make this possible. You will join our multi-disciplinary UX team, collaborating with Engineering and Product Management, to gather insights and create industry-leading products.

You’ll play a critical role in helping your team understand user needs and will drive impact at all stages of product development, ensuring products are useful, usable, and helpful. You will explore user behaviors and motivations by conducting primary research, including: field studies, interviews, diary studies, ethnography, surveys, usability testing, and logs analysis. You will also grow within a supportive UXR community offering mentorship, regular meetups, and exclusive internal tools.

For decades, the computing revolution has reshaped our world driven by breakthroughs in compute, connectivity, mobile, and now, AI. Google's XR team is at the forefront of the next major leap – the convergence of AI and XR. This is more than just new devices – it's about reimagining how we interact with the world around us. We're building a future where lightweight XR devices like smart glasses and headsets pair with helpful AI to augment human intelligence, offering personalized, conversational, and contextually aware experiences.

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $132,000-$189,000 + bonus + equity + benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include bonus, equity, or benefits. Learn more about benefits at Google.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to foundational research initiatives that drive Android XR development across different workstreams. Focus on ensuring intuitive and comfortable human connections across visual, manual, haptic, and auditory systems.
• Conduct user research combining HCI, Human Factors, and Psychology to ensure platforms are perceivable by the human sensory system. Establish requirements for multimodal inputs, displays, and attention management.
• Plan and execute experimental designs utilizing psychophysics, motor performance tasks, and subjective workload ratings.
• Measure critical metrics such as detection thresholds, error rates, latency, and Just Noticeable Differences (JND).
• Partner with UX, Product Management, and Engineering stakeholders across specific product areas. Translate foundational human systems insights into actionable impact.

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
  
• 4 years of experience in an applied research setting (e.g., product or academic), or similar.
• Experience with research methods (e.g., usability, studies, contextual inquires, 1:1 interviews, unmoderated research studies).

Preferred qualifications:

• Master's degree or PhD in Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science, Statistics, Psychology, Anthropology, or a related field.
• 3 years of experience working with executive leadership (e.g., Director level and above).
• 2 years of experience conducting UX research on products, managing projects, and working in a large, matrixed organization.
  
• Experience conducting research with emerging technologies and devices (e.g., VR headsets, smartphones, wearables, etc.).
• Applied experience conducting research in AR/VR product environments.
• Understanding of human physiology, human performance, visual processing, attentional demands, or ergonomics.