Senior UX Researcher for Defense & Industrial Tech

Optics11 Life; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

Optics11 Life, Amsterdam, is seeking a Senior Customer Experience Designer to lead research across hardware and software for defense partners, shaping experiences that meet high-stakes user needs.

You will collaborate with Product Management, R&D, Engineering, Data Science, Sales and field teams to translate insights into practical improvements and establish personas, journey maps, and structured insights that guide product priorities.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in engineering or design, or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of experience in Customer / User Experience Research, with a proven track record of conducting research in technical fields, preferably in defense, or similar industries.
• Strong understanding of both hardware and software products, particularly in complex and regulated environments, e.g., industrial environments.
• Proficiency in qualitative and quantitative research methods and tools, with the ability to translate data into actionable insights.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, capable of conveying research findings to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Demonstrated critical thinking, adaptability to challenges, and a problem-solving mindset to creatively address user pain points.
• Proficiency in industry standard tooling for user experience research and visualization such as Jira Product Discovery, Dovetail, Miro, Figma
• Willingness to travel and do field research.
• Drivers’ license B (or international equivalent)

Responsibilities

• Lead customer and user research by planning and conducting qualitative, quantitative, and field studies across installation, operation, and maintenance, translating findings into product and design decisions.
• Own customer journey and service design by mapping end-to-end customer experiences and supporting internal processes, designing repeatable hardware and software demo flows, and facilitating workflow validation with responsible teams.
• Develop personas and manage customer insights by leading the persona lifecycle, maintaining a central research repository, providing reusable research frameworks, and synthesizing learnings collected across the organization.
• Translate customer needs into product solutions by creating product/service blueprints, journey maps, experience maps, prototypes, and workflow diagrams, and by collaborating with Product and R&D on hardware and software recommendations.
• Validate and measure customer experience outcomes by testing whether features meet defined user needs and success criteria before and and reporting impact to stakeholders.
• Provide cross-functional CX leadership by partnering with Product Management, System Engineering, Product Ownership, Sales, Business Development, Application Engineering, Support, and Marketing to priorities development, reduce product risk, and advance user-centered practices within the Underwater Security team.
• Shape and propose enhancements and collaborate with product managers to ensure enhancements align with business objectives.

Skills

UX research

Qualitative research

Quantitative research

Stakeholder communication

Field research

Travel willingness

Jira Product Discovery

Dovetail

Miro

Figma

Education

Master’s degree in engineering or design

Tools

Jira Product Discovery

Dovetail

Miro

Figma

Job description

Optics11 Life, Amsterdam, is seeking a Senior Customer Experience Designer to lead research across hardware and software for defense partners, shaping experiences that meet high-stakes user needs.

You will collaborate with Product Management, R&D, Engineering, Data Science, Sales and field teams to translate insights into practical improvements and establish personas, journey maps, and structured insights that guide product priorities.