Head Of User Research

At Deliveroo, we are customer obsessed, and we get to the bottom of things. The Research & Insights team sits at the intersection of these values. It’s our job to use research to understand what customers need, and to advocate for the customer at all times within the business. For Deliveroo, “customers” doesn’t just mean consumers who use the app, but also the tens of thousands of restaurants on our platform and the riders that deliver with us.

As the Head of User Research your primary responsibility will be to build and maintain a high performance team of User Research practitioners within the Research & Insights function.  As Deliveroo continues to double in size each year it’s necessary for the User Research team to scale to meet greater and greater demand for primary product research - meaning you will join with the pre-allocated headcount needed to realise an ambitious remit.  

On any given day members of your team might be investigating how Deliveroo’s riders make decisions about their working patterns, shadowing members of staff at one of our Editions kitchens or building a set of recommended improvements to the order tracking experience in our consumer app.  The purpose of this work is to help Deliveroo’s Product and strategy teams understand, and act on, the needs of our customers.  The questions the User Research team tackles are typically complex, foundational and socially meaningful.

What you'll be doing:

• As the discipline lead for User Research you will oversee hiring of User Researchers and ResOps specialists - ResOps sits in the Research Programmes team but they heavily support the UR function..  In addition to line managing and resourcing staff within the team, you will define the strategic vision and ways of working.   
• You will oversee the research roadmap and/or project prioritisation for all three sides of Deliveroo’s marketplace.  You will have the autonomy to decide where the User Research team focuses its efforts in order to maximise impact, and advocate most effectively for Deliveroo's customers.
• You will set and maintain standards to ensure a consistently high quality of work is produced across the discipline.  Where colleagues have methodological gaps or development areas, you’ll create learning opportunities. 
• You will own the team’s relationships with senior Product and business leaders and the heads of adjacent disciplines (eg. Content Design and Product Design).  Where these conversations identify areas for User Research to better meet information needs of the business, you’ll put effective course corrections in place.     
• You will be accountable for Deliveroo’s ‘self-serve’ research toolkit & educational materials (e.g Usertesting.com), to ensure colleagues outside the User Research function can effectively and rigorously answer their own questions in the absence of dedicated support.
• You will effectively advocate the work of the User Research Team to senior and Exec level stakeholders, and educate the wider business about how best to engage the team  and responsibly interpret the insights it generates.

Requirements:

• At least 4 years practical experience as an individual contributor in a User or Product research team.
• At least 2 years practical experience line managing research practitioners.  You will have previously owned or participated heavily in the hiring process for your team and have fostered a culture of diversity and inclusion. 
• Demonstrated ability translating research insight into action, and guiding others to do the same.  You will be able to provide examples of your team’s outputs informing decisions ranging from product strategy, to feature prioritisation and the details of design execution. 
• Deep expertise in all stages of the research process: building a roadmap, scoping individual studies, undertaking diverse forms of data collection, analysing and socialising the findings.  You will have a mixed methods toolkit, be able to jump ​into a project when needed and coach members of your team in the craft of research.
• Experience working in high-growth product companies with an international footprint, and/or collaborating with these organisations from the agency side.
• A clear and informed set of opinions about the value of User Research and the qualities of an highly effective/impactful User Research team.
• Strong literacy of product development, innovation, data science, human-centred design and market research.  Practical experience in one or more of these areas would be highly valued. 
• A sincere belief in the importance of ethically and legally compliant research.  For you, good data governance is a table stakes quality of good User Research. 

Why Deliveroo?

Our mission is to be the definitive food company. We are transforming the way the world eats by making food more convenient and accessible. We give people the opportunity to eat what they want, when and where they want it.

We are a technology-driven company at the forefront of the most rapidly expanding industry in the world. We are still a small team, making a very large impact, seeking to answer some of the most interesting questions out there. We move fast, value autonomy and ownership, and we are always looking for new ideas.

Workplace & Diversity

At Deliveroo we know that people are the heart of the business and we prioritise their welfare. We offer a wide range of competitive benefits in areas including health, family, finance, community, convenience, growth, time away and relocation.

We believe a great workplace is one that represents the world we live in and how beautifully diverse it can be. That means we have no judgement when it comes to any one of the things that make you who you are - your gender, race, sexuality, religion or a secret aversion to coriander. All you need is a passion for (most) food and a desire to be part of one of the fastest growing startups in an incredibly exciting space.