User Researcher

About FT Product & Technology

Here at the Financial Times, gold-standard journalism is just the beginning. 500-people strong, our Product & Tech team keeps us ahead of the ever-changing digital landscape by delivering cutting-edge products to over one million digital subscribers every day. Our plans for growth rely on a diverse, dedicated and dynamic group of product, tech, delivery and data specialists - everyone’s welcome in this friendly, forward-thinking team. And with entrepreneurial spirit, intelligence and opportunity at every turn, there’s no limits to where your FT career will take you.

Overview of the role and team structure

We’re looking for a Mid User Researcher to join the Product Research & Design team in our Sofia Office.

You’ll be working on our Experience team using a wide range of research methods to help us get a deeper understanding of our audiences.

You’ll work alongside a fully empowered squad of engineers, designers, product managers, with support from and access to relevant collaborators from around the FT such as data, editorial and marketing etc.  

You’ll help deliver end-to-end product experiences, from exploratory research into opportunity definition, from ideation into concepting, from testing into shipping, measuring and iterating.

You’ll receive regular guidance and support from your squad, your line manager, our Director of Product Research & Design, and of course the whole research team. We work hard to foster a safe environment where we share and discuss our work proactively, to inspire, support and guide each other.

What you’ll be doing week to week:

Planning and prioritising. You’ll have an equal stake in your squad’s direction. You’ll always be learning, planning and prioritising your areas of focus and approach together.

• Collaborating with product manager, designers, engineers etc through all stages of the discovery and development process to create a shared understanding of customer needs, motivations and behaviours in relation to product and business goals
• Researching and learning about users. Designing, planning and conducting relevant generative research activities suited for the objectives and the timelines of the team.  To uncover the behaviours and motivations of customers and users, using different and relevant methodologies. 
• Empathy and experience mapping. Understanding user attitudes, motivations and expectations. Mapping experiences, journeys and flows, to help us unearth and prioritise struggles and opportunities taking the team along with you and offering PMs a higher level picture to make more strategic decisions.

Ideating, iterating and testing. Working with teams  to help evolve ideas into concepts, to shape these concepts with research and iterate based on the findings.

• Synthesising takeaways and sharing insights creatively. Taking what you've learnt and disseminating knowledge in the most appropriate format for your squad and throughout the business.  
• Evolving! We strive to continually improve and evolve. Evolving our process by adding new techniques and abandoning obsolete ones. Evolving our product until we achieve objectives, rather than stopping once we’ve shipped.

What we’re looking for from you

We welcome applications from people who can demonstrate strong end-to-end user research competencies. 

• You’ll have shipped multiple features and iterations perhaps across several products. You’ll probably have been a practising user researcher for 4+ years or more 
• Proven research skills, experience of using a range of methods and techniques to deliver insights that impact product strategy and direction
• Clear communication and presentation skills, able to tell a compelling customer narrative with qual and quant results
• Good initiative, to solve problems, manage workload and set expectations
• Strong collaboration skills, knowing how to contribute and influence through finding common ground and building rapport with team members
• Natural curiosity, a desire to understand how and why people use digital products and how FT can best meet their needs
• A degree or strong interest in psychology, anthropology, sociology, HCI or other related fields are a bonus

Career progression and growth

We have a transparent, measureable progression framework, which will outline all of the skills FT user researchers need, and detail on how to progress in each skill category. We will use this as a basis for your biannual reviews, where you’ll self assess against the progression framework, track progression, and agree areas of focus with your line manager. 

We invest in our people to allow them to grow both personally and professionally whilst working at The FT. We offer a variety of ways in which you can progress your career with us, some of which are highlighted below: 

• Career coaching - Career coaching is time spent focused on you and how you can achieve your career aspirations. 
• Mentoring programme - The mentoring programme aims to connect people across the business to support professional and personal growth through knowledge sharing and guidance.
• Learning and development - The FT offers a host of learning and development opportunities that will not only help you build the skills you need to grow in your profession or field, but will also help you improve your own personal development, with courses such as self-coaching, productivity, presentation confidence, research techniques and much more.

Package and benefits

• Annual bonus scheme

• 24/7 Employee Assistance Program

• 25 days annual paid leave

• Private Health Insurance

• Life Insurance

• Enhanced Parental Leave policy

• Food Vouchers

• Multisport Card

• Work-life balance and work from home practice

• Both in house and external training programs

• Your own training dedicated budget (for conferences, courses etc.)

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion in the workplace

The FT is committed to providing an inclusive working environment for all. We are an equal opportunities employer who seeks to recruit and appoint the best talent regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We believe that a supportive workplace is one where employees feel they can be themselves at work and have the flexibility they need to meet their personal needs. 

Please let us know if you require any adjustments as part of the application process or to enable you to attend an interview. If you would like to discuss your requirements, or have any questions, please contact a member of our HR team who will be happy to help.

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