Senior UX Researcher

Wwshemi; United States; On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive health and medical cover

Paid time off

Structured learning and development

Paid parental leave

Job summary

SOVRA seeks an experienced UX researcher to build a continuous research practice across our buyer products as we develop an AI-native platform for public procurement. You will lead generative and evaluative studies, set protocols and recruitment, and collaborate with product, design and data teams to turn insights into decisions.

Travel ~20% within North America. Candidates should have 7+ years of UX research in enterprise SaaS or complex B2B, experience in regulated domains, and a proven

Qualifications

• 7+ years of UX research in enterprise SaaS or complex B2B environments.
• Experience building or formalizing a research practice including research operations, recruitment and insight repositories.
• Worked in regulated or compliance-heavy domains (govtech, healthcare, finance).
• Proven ability to influence product and design decisions with research.
• Strong mixed-methods judgment and quantitative/qualitative skills.
• Experience mentoring researchers and raising research quality.
• Applied AI in research with attention to accuracy, bias, and privacy.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent hands-on experience.
• Authorization to work in the US (no visa sponsorship).

Responsibilities

• Plan a quarterly research agenda with product leaders tied to the roadmap.
• Establish protocols, templates, consent processes and recruitment and an insight library.
• Lead generative and evaluative studies across procurement workflows.
• Partner with Data to combine behavior data with customer input and define success measures.
• Maintain steady contact with agency buyers and suppliers; ~20% travel in North America.
• Bring evidence to roadmap, design and exec conversations; facilitate workshops.
• Coach product managers, designers and researchers to plan and run sound research.
• Ensure accessibility by default (WCAG 2.2 AA and ADA).
• Study AI features and how buyers trust and correct them; speed up synthesis while keeping traceability.

Skills

UX research

Research ops

Public-sector / govtech

Influence without authority

Mixed-methods

Mentorship

Applied AI in research

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience

Tools

Dovetail

Gong

PostHog

Job description

A note on length - this posting is intentionally longer than most. That is deliberate. It gives you a realistic preview of the role and clear guidance on how to present your application, so we suggest reading it in full.

About SOVRA

SOVRA is a leading public procurement platform trusted by more than 7,000 government agencies and over 1 million suppliers across North America. Our work sits at the intersection of technology, public service, and accountability, helping governments operate more efficiently and transparently on behalf of the communities they serve.

What makes SOVRA unique is our deep focus on the public sector. Our solutions are purpose-built to solve real, complex procurement challenges, balancing compliance with usability and innovation. That commitment has been recognized with the Achievement of Excellence in Procurement (AEP) Certification from the National Procurement Institute, reflecting our high standards and impact on the market.

At SOVRA, the work you do matters. Every improvement we make helps public organizations stretch taxpayer dollars further, operate with greater transparency, and deliver better outcomes for millions of people. We're a growing, mission-driven company where smart, curious people come together to build technology that serves the public good.

This role will build a continuous research practice across the company's buyer products as it develops an AI-native platform. The person in this role makes sure product and design decisions begin with the people who run public procurement: buyers, evaluators and contract managers, and the suppliers who compete for the work.

The role combines practice-building with hands-on research. It sets how research is done at SOVRA, from methods and participant recruitment to a searchable insight library, and it delivers generative and evaluative studies directly, including research on accessibility and on how users check and correct AI features.

The work reaches Product, Design, Customer Experience and the Data team, and informs roadmap decisions across the SOVRA product suite. Public sector audiences expect a high standard of accuracy, so every insight stays traceable to what participants actually said and did.

What will your main responsibilities look like?

• You plan a quarterly research agenda with product leaders, tied to the roadmap decisions that matter most across the suite.
• You establish the protocols, templates, consent processes and participant recruitment that let research run consistently, along with a searchable insight library product teams rely on.
• You lead generative and evaluative studies, including contextual inquiry, interviews, journey mapping, usability testing and surveys, across complex procurement workflows.
• You partner with the Data team to combine behavioral data with what customers tell us, defining success measures that inform product direction.

Continuous Customer Contact

• You keep a steady cadence of contact with agency buyers and suppliers through design partners, customer groups and community sessions.
• You travel within North America, roughly 20% of the time, for agency site visits, contextual inquiry, user groups, planning sessions and one or two industry events a year.

Research Influence

• You bring evidence to roadmap, design and executive conversations, and facilitate workshops and co-design sessions that turn findings into decisions.
• You coach product managers, designers and researchers to plan and run sound research on their own.

Accessibility

• You make research accessible by default to include people with disabilities and assistive-technology users in research, and help teams design to WCAG 2.2 AA and ADA.

AI

• You study how buyers trust, check and correct AI features, and help decide where a person stays in control.
• You use AI to speed up synthesis, tagging and analysis while keeping every insight traceable to what participants said and did.

What will you bring to this role?

• UX research experience - you have 7+ years of UX research in enterprise SaaS or complex B2B environments, and a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• Research practice building - you have built or formalized a research practice, including research operations, participant recruitment and an insight repository.
• Regulated domain experience - you have worked in regulated or compliance-heavy domains such as govtech, healthcare or finance.
• Decision influence - you have a record of research that changed product and design decisions, and you influence across product, design and engineering without authority, translating findings into clear recommendations for each audience.
• Mixed-methods judgment - you command qualitative and quantitative methods and know when to use each.
• Research mentorship - you have mentored researchers and raised research quality across a team.
• Applied AI in research - you use AI daily and practically in your research work, with sound judgment on accuracy, bias and participant privacy.
• Educational background - you hold a bachelor's degree or equivalent hands-on experience.
• Authorization to work in the US - we are not able to sponsor work visas or transfers at this time.

What are the assets that would make you stand out?

• Public-sector and procurement research - you have researched with public-sector users, or with procurement or ERP and financial systems.
• Accessibility research - you have run usability testing with people with disabilities and assistive technology.
• Research tooling - you have worked with research and call-insight tools such as Dovetail and Gong, and product analytics such as PostHog.

You should apply if

• You are energized by ambiguous problems and want to build a research practice in an organization where research has real room to grow.
• You respect the people who carry out public work and want their reality to shape what SOVRA builds.
• You care more about the decision a study changes than the report it produces.
• You see AI changing how research is done and how products behave, and you want to help define both.

What we look for in applications

We review every application individually and assess it on its own merits rather than screening for keywords. The most impactful applications are specific:

• Describe the studies you led, who the findings reached, and the decision or product change that followed, with numbers wherever you have them.
• When you name a tool, add a brief note on what you used it to do, because a tool list alone says little.
• Specific detail about your own work tells us far more than a general summary of responsibilities.

What does success look like?

• By 3 months: a continuous research cadence is running, product teams are using the insight library, and findings from at least one study are reflected in a roadmap or design decision.
• By 6 months: a quarterly research agenda tied to the roadmap is in place, and steady contact runs across buyer and supplier audiences, with an accessibility research plan underway.
• By 12 months: research visibly shapes roadmap priorities, designs and launch readiness, and product partners plan and run sound research on their own with your coaching.

Our process is designed to be thorough while respecting your time. Three conversations cover the substance of the role and how you would work with the team.

• Conversation with a Talent Acquisition partner
• Panel with the Chief Product Officer and the VP of Product Strategy & Operations
• Panel with the UX/UI Design Lead and a Senior UX/UI Designer

Why you should join us

SOVRA serves the public sector, and the work carries the weight that comes with that purpose. Every improvement to our platform helps government agencies operate more efficiently and deliver greater value to the communities they serve. We are a company in a period of deliberate growth, and we are looking for professionals who want genuine ownership of their work and a direct hand in building the organization around them. In this role, that ownership is real: your work in product research shapes how SOVRA builds for the agencies and suppliers who run and compete for public procurement.

Our benefits include the following, with full details shared during the hiring process:

• Comprehensive health and medical coverage.
• Paid time off.
• A structured learning and development program.
• Paid parental leave.

Thank you for your interest in SOVRA. However, only selected candidates will be contacted.

At SOVRA, we are committed to fostering an inclusive and equitable workplace. We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws. We provide a work environment free from discrimination and harassment. In addition, we are committed to ensuring pay equity across our organization and regularly review our compensation practices.

International Data Base Corp doing business under SOVRA participates in E-Verify. If selected for employment, you will be required to provide your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the United States.