Senior User Experience Researcher

Anduril Industries, Inc.; Irvine (CA); On-site; USD 166,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Anduril Industries is seeking an Air Defense UX Researcher to guide product strategy with rigorous user insights. You will lead studies from planning to synthesis, communicating findings to cross-functional teams and driving actionable improvements for critical operator workflows.

The role requires 5+ years of UX research, strong storytelling, and the ability to work across multiple teams in a fast-paced defense environment. Travel 25–30% is expected.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher in HCI, psychology, cognitive science, design, or equivalent.
• 5+ years of UX research for digital products with actionable insights.
• Ability to design, plan, and execute studies with clear objectives and timelines.
• Portfolio demonstrating research influencing product development.
• Strong communication skills in a fast-paced environment; cross-functional collaboration.
• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. TS clearance.
• Expected travel 25-30%.

Responsibilities

• Provide direction for Air Defense product strategy using rigorous data and insights.
• Lead UX research studies: service blueprints, contextual inquiry, ethnography, workshops, surveys, usability testing.
• Use storytelling to align partners and stakeholders around findings.
• Identify and drive actionable recommendations to improve products.
• Operationalize sharing insights and consolidating research in repositories and workflows.
• Shape end-to-end experiences for critical operator workflows.
• Share UX research best practices across Anduril.

Skills

User research

Communication

Portfolio

Ambiguity tolerance

Travel 25-30%

Education

Bachelor's in HCI/psychology

MS/PhD preferred

Job description

Irvine, California, United States; Seattle, Washington, United States

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

ABOUT THE TEAM

Anduril’s Air Defense team builds autonomous robots that find other robots and knock them out of the sky. At a time when air superiority can no longer be taken for granted, we provide critical force protection capabilities to support the service member operators. As an Air Defense UX researcher you will help provide the rapidly responsive and growing product team with critical user insights that guide tactical and strategic direction to the overall Air Defense portfolio.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• With rigorous data and user insights, contribute to the direction and decision‑making for Air Defense product and program strategy.
• Conduct and lead UX research such as service blueprints, contextual inquiry, in‑field rapid ethnography, focus groups, observations, workshops, surveys, and usability testing.
• Use storytelling to inspire and align partners and key stakeholders.
• Identify and drive forward ideas and recommendations to improve product(s) based off of actionable research insights.
• Operationalize ways to consolidate and share research insights, including ways to communicate quickly and efficiently, synthesize insights into research repositories, create workflows to work more powerfully with internal stakeholders.
• Play an influential role in shaping the end‑to‑end experiences for critical operator workflows.
• Help to shape the UX research best practices in Air Defense and share insights, process, and best practice across Anduril, at large.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in the Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors, Psychology, Cognitive Science, Human Factors, Human-Computer Interaction, Design, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 5+ years of relevant user research experienceworking on digital products. Can work through ambiguity and help define research approaches to deliver impact based on actionable insights that prioritize the needs of the user and the business.
• Research craft: Can expertly design, plan, and execute research studies with clear objectives, goals, and timelines with little or no oversight.
• Portfolio of work demonstrating research and insights which influenced both tactical and strategic product development work.
• Strong communication skills in a fast‑paced environment; ability to drive conversations with cross‑functional partners with user data; helping bring user needs to the forefront while driving empathy through rigorous research findings.
• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. TS clearance
• Expected travel is between 25-30%

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• M.S. or Ph.D. in Psychology, Human Computer Interaction, Anthropology, Statistics, or other related area of study.
• Active Clearance - An active security clearance is helpful, but not required.
• Group facilitation - Can effectively lead co‑creation, planning, and discovery workshops with cross functional stakeholders.
• Comfortable defining UX research capabilities in a fast‑paced start‑up environment. Able to draw from a broad toolkit to integrate research into existing and future product roadmaps.
• Programmatic support - Opinionated about research operations and efforts to increase efficiency and improve decision making.
• Is a good teammate - Demonstrated proactiveness in helping to shape team culture and mentorship participation.
• Hardware and/or Human Factors experience- Experience with development and research for hardware and service design; ergonomics and/or support development of military standard systems
• Quantitative research skills - Experience applying a variety of research methodologies to drive data‑driven conversations and decision making including scaled surveys, max‑diff, and using various programming language to analyze data.

US Salary Range

$166,000 - $220,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top‑tier benefits for full‑time employees, including:

At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits .