User Research Manager

📍London | 💰£90,000-£125,000 + Benefits | Research at Monzo 

This is 12 month fixed term contract position

About us: 

We’re here to make money work for everyone and we're doing things differently. For too long, banking has been obtuse, complex and opaque.

We want to change that and build a bank with everyone, for everyone. Our amazing community suggests features, test the app and give us constant feedback so we can build something everyone loves.

We're focused on solving problems, rather than selling financial products. We want to make the world a better place and change people's lives through Monzo.

About our User Research Team: We are currently a team of 16 individual contributors, who are embedded into collectives i.e Core Banking, Business Banking etc, working cross functionally with Product Design, Product Management and Engineering teams. Our research organisation is led by Hayley Camille Morgan and Katherine Vaughan, our Directors of Research. 

What you’ll be working on: 

• Managing a team of user researchers across our Borrowing and Business Banking Collectives. 
• Developing sustainable ways of nurturing all talent within the Research team. 
• Leading forums that allow the whole research team to feed into decisions and shape the team. 
• Working with Research Operations and the Research Director to scale team systems and processes as we grow. 
• Continually raising the standard of research through timely feedback, and improved processes and rituals. 
• Scaling research impact across the organisation.
• Increasing visibility of key research insights. 
• Working in partnership with the Director of Research to make sure everyone in the research team is working on the highest impact areas, and individuals have autonomy to make those decisions where possible. Understanding your direct reports well, so you can place them where they fit, for impact, growth and happiness. 
• Hiring brilliant, diverse User Researchers, and ensuring a smooth onboarding process for them. 
• Making sure the team has an active presence in the external community and is appealing to a diverse set of hiring prospects. 
• Working closely with with your collective leadership to shape our product strategies and ensure the teams are solving the right customer problems in the right ways

Your day-to-day 

• Providing support for around 5-7 direct reports, through clear development goals, timely updates and feedback, and regular 1:1s. 
• Work within two critical business areas to develop and deliver a product strategy for the next phase of borrowing and business banking, including building a deep understanding of customer needs and market opportunities, and how we’ll differentiate ourselves and grow. 
• Collaborate with and influence key stakeholders across the organisation, including the wider product teams, company leadership, finance, marketing, compliance, legal, regulatory affairs and more to get alignment and support for the strategy
• Work closely with design, product, marketing data and engineering leadership in your areas to set the right conditions for the teams to do their best work and problem solve our key customer needs
• Help shaping development practices, like and progression frameworks, across the wider team. 
• Taking an active role in our Design Leadership team, alongside our VP Design, Research Directors, Design Directors, and Senior Design Managers. 
• Continually educating everyone at Monzo, including senior stakeholders, on what research can and can’t be used for.

You should apply if:

• You’re an experienced coach, mentor and leader of seasoned User Researchers with at least 5 years experience
• You’re happiest when the people in your teams feel supported, are growing, and can work effectively 
• You have an approachable and supportive leadership style when you’re needed, but you also empower direct reports to work autonomously 
• You’ve managed a team of at least 5 high performers, and resolved performance issues 
• You have experience working as a User Researcher in a high growth product or technology organisation 
• You enjoy bringing momentum to projects, unblocking progress and focusing on achieving the most exciting outcomes, (not the fanciest outputs)
• You care about the quality of the product that sits in our users’ hands, and the overall experience they have with Monzo
• You have experience teaching and coaching non-researchers about research
• You have demonstrable experience making decisions that promote diversity and inclusion 
• Bonus: You have experience making use of marketing insights, quantitative user research, product data and a range of other insights for better decision making

The Interview Process: 

Our interview process involves 3 main stages: 

1. Recruiter call (30 minutes). A video chat with Natalie who is part of our hiring team. This focuses on general suitability for Monzo. 
2. Research Leadership Ways of Working (60 minutes). You will be sent a pre-interview task by the hiring team, which you will discuss in the interview, followed by situation questions.
3. Final loop (Total 1hr 30-2 hours). Split into 2 interviews - Managing teams & People + Teamwork & Impact

Our average process takes around 2-3 weeks but we will always work around your availability. You will have the chance to speak to our recruitment team at various points during your process but if you do have any specific questions ahead of this please contact us on [email protected] 

What’s in it for you: 

💰 £90,000-£125,000 base salary ➕ plus stock options 

📍This role can be based in our London office, but we're open to distributed working within the UK (with ad hoc meetings in London). We cannot support visas or relocation for fixed term contracts. 

⏰ We offer flexible working hours and trust you to work enough hours to do your job well, at times that suit you and your team. 

📚Learning budget of £1,000 a year for books, training courses and conferences 

➕And much more, see our full list of benefits here 

If you prefer to work part-time, we'll make this happen whenever we can - whether this is to help you meet other commitments or strike a great work-life balance. 

Equal Opportunity Statement

We are actively creating an equitable environment for every Monzonaut to thrive.

Diversity and inclusion are a priority for us and we are making sure we have lots of support for all of our people to grow at Monzo. At Monzo, embracing diversity in all of its forms and fostering an inclusive environment for all people to do the best work of their lives with us. This is integral to our mission of making money work for everyone. You can read more in our blog, 2022 Diversity and Inclusion Report and 2023 Gender Pay Gap Report.

We're an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, family or parental status, national origin, veteran, neurodiversity status or disability status.

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