Head of User Research (SF, NY, Portland, or remote in US/Canada)

SF, NY, Portland, or remote in US/Canada

Full-time

Mercury

In the 1960s, a chemist named Spencer Silver was working on developing a strong adhesive for a company named 3M. Instead, he accidentally created a reusable adhesive that didn't bond strongly to surfaces — unfortunately, while this was an interesting discovery, it didn't seem to him that it had any practical applications. It was another decade until a scientist named Art Fry, frustrated that the bookmarks in his choir hymnal were always falling out, experimented with applying that reusable adhesive to small pieces of paper — to create better bookmarks for himself.

This is how post-its were invented.

Many times, innovation is not driven purely by technological advancements. Rather, one needs to form a deep understanding of human behavior, frustrations, and needs, for new technology to become practical innovation that improves people’s lives. We are hiring for a Head of Research to help shape a culture of deep user understanding and empathy that drives innovation at Mercury.

As the Head of User Research, you will:

• Be our first research hire and will partner with our VP of Design to create the foundation of our research function
• Advocate for research and support a culture of high quality research across the organization
• Drive strategic user research on fundamental questions that will help shape strategy at the company level
• Provide thought leadership and recommendations to the executive team on product questions, based on insights driven from research
• Support and advise product groups on running their own research or take ownership driving that research yourself when needed
• Partner with product groups to generate strategy, build roadmaps, and define how we measure success
• Introduce and evangelize the right tools for driving high quality user research
• Socialize research insights across the company

We would love to hear from you if you have:

• 10+ years of experience working in User Research
• 3+ years of experience leading research teams in fast growing startups
• Previous experience driving or guiding research that has meaningful business impact
• Experience hiring, managing, and growing researchers
• A track record of building strong cross functional relationships with relevant stakeholders
• Built research organizations from the ground up as the first research hire (not a must, but a big plus)
• A sense of humor (doesn’t have to be a good one)

The total rewards package at Mercury includes base salary, equity (stock options), and benefits.

Our salary and equity ranges are highly competitive within the SaaS and fintech industry and are updated regularly using the most reliable compensation survey data for our industry. New hire offers are made based on a candidate’s experience, expertise, geographic location, and internal pay equity relative to peers.

Our target new hire base salary ranges for this role are the following:

• US employees (any location): $250,700 - $294,900
• Canadian employees (any location): CAD 228,100 - 268,400

We use Covey as part of our hiring and / or promotional process for jobs in NYC and certain features may qualify it as an AEDT. As part of the evaluation process we provide Covey with job requirements and candidate submitted applications. We began using Covey Scout for Inbound on January 22, 2024.

Please see the independent bias audit report covering our use of Covey here.