Principal Design Researcher

MaintainX; Toronto; On-site; CAD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

MaintainX is seeking a Design Researcher to deeply understand users and translate needs into product decisions. You will partner with Product Managers, Designers, and Engineers to turn complex problems into clear insights for an AI-first product.

Ideal candidates have 6+ years of UX research, strong qualitative and quantitative skills, and experience presenting insights to executives. The role emphasizes independent work in fast-paced cross-functional teams and leveraging AI tools to accelerate

Qualifications

• 6+ years of UX research experience.
• Strong methods across qualitative and quantitative approaches.
• Ability to translate ambiguous problems into scoped research plans.
• Experience presenting findings to influence product direction.
• Comfortable working independently in cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Own research end-to-end: scoping, planning, recruiting, sessions, synthesis, and presenting findings.
• Translate complex findings into narratives and actionable recommendations.
• Engage with users through site visits, interviews, and observation with maintenance teams.
• Champion customer empathy across Product, Design, Engineering, and leadership.

Skills

UX research

Qualitative methods

Quantitative methods

AI tooling

Cross-functional teamwork

Analytics tools

Tools

Amplitude

Job description

MaintainX is a leading mobile-first work execution platform for industrial and frontline teams. More than 13,000 customers, including Duracell, McDonald's, Shell, DHL and Volvo, use MaintainX to cut unplanned downtime and run better operations, across 13.9 million managed assets and 79.5 million completed work orders.

In August 2026 MaintainX became part of Autodesk, joining Autodesk Operations Solutions , the organization unifying Autodesk's operations platform alongside Tandem, FlexSim and Fusion Operations. Autodesk's strategy is to converge design, make and operate into one continuous lifecycle: design an asset, build it, run it, then feed what you learn running it back into the next design. Autodesk had design and make. Operate is the phase that tells you what actually happened, and it is ours.

We're growing fast and hiring the Research talent to match.

We're looking for a Design Researcher to help us deeply understand our users and bring their needs, behaviors, and motivations into every stage of the design process.

You’ll partner directly with Product Managers, Designers, and Engineers to turn complex real-world problems into clear insights that move our AI-first product forward. This role is ideal for someone who is curious, methodical, and passionate about translating human behavior into actionable product decisions.

What You’ll Do

• Own research from end to end. Scoping, planning, recruiting participants, running sessions, synthesizing, and presenting findings.

• Translate complex findings into clear narratives and actionable recommendations that product teams can use to make decisions.

• Get close to users through site visits, interviews, and hands-on observation with maintenance technicians, facility managers, and operations teams. Understand how they work, not just how they use the product.

• Champion customer empathy across the organization. Make sure Product, Design, Engineering, and leadership deeply understand who we're building for through storytelling, shared insight repositories, and regular research read-outs.

• Leverage AI tools to accelerate research workflows, from data tagging to pattern synthesis, while maintaining rigor and critical thinking.

• Independently scope, prioritize, and manage research projects aligned with team goals.

• Help shape how research works at MaintainX. Establish the tools, templates, and rhythms that make user insights a consistent part of how we build the product.

About You

• 6+ years of experience in UX research.

• Strong foundation in research methodologies across both qualitative and quantitative methods. You know when to use which method and can explain why.

• Demonstrated ability to translate ambiguous problems into well-scoped research plans and turn findings into recommendations that actually influence product decisions.

• Experience synthesizing research into compelling presentations that influence product direction across PMs, designers, engineers, and leadership.

• Comfortable working independently in cross-functional teams in fast-paced environments.

• Demonstrated ability of adopting AI tooling to accelerate your research workflow.

• Experience with analytics tools (Amplitude, etc.) to complement primary research with behavioral data.

• An expert level of English, both spoken and written, is required, as the individual will need to lead platform engineering managers across multiple teams, present technical priorities to executive stakeholders, and align with engineering leaders outside Québec on a daily basis.

Nice-to-haves:

• Background in industrial, operations, or field-based user populations where context of use matters as much as the interface.

• Background in psychology, HCI, anthropology, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).

• Exposure to service design, journey mapping, or VOC programs.

• Experience working at a B2B SaaS company or on products serving non-desk workers.

Our mission is to keep the physical world running.

Factories, fleets, hospitals and campuses stay up because the people who maintain them have tools worth using. That is what we build.

Compensation and benefits.

Base pay is one part of the package. Depending on the role, compensation may also include commission, an annual bonus and equity. Benefits differ by country. For roles in the United States, Autodesk’s benefits are described at benefits.autodesk.com. For roles in Canada and other countries, the plan differs on health coverage, retirement and leave, and your recruiter will walk you through it.

Belonging.

We take pride in a culture where everyone can thrive. More at autodesk.com/company/global-belonging. More on where this is going: Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost on building the future of connected operations, and AOS SVP Stephen Hooper on welcoming MaintainX to Autodesk.