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Senior UX Researcher - Toronto

Glu Mobile (NASDAQ:GLUU), the leader in development of high-fidelity free-to-play mobile games, is seeking a User Experience Researcher. User Experience Research is part of a combined, global, marketing and UxR organization. We are international, collaborative, innovative, efficient, and we love player insights almost as much as we love players. The User Experience Researcher will work directly with our game production teams to provide various games user research services during the entire life cycle of a game’s development – from initial conception to post-launch live ops.

About the Role

We are looking for a passionate user experience researcher who can take on a semi-embedded role with one our studios. By semi-embedded we mean that 3-4 days a week you will be working side by side with studio leads, producers, designers, engineers, artists and product managers helping to inform game feature roadmaps, usability and the overall player experience. You will be able to go deep on one to two products as the sole researcher on those products while also impacting the entire Glu portfolio through cross-product research initiatives in collaboration with a central user research team.

Ideally, the candidate will have a variety of mixed-methods approaches in their toolkit. Most importantly, the candidate must be excited to dig in to the audiences, affordances and economies of the mobile free to play market.

What you will do in this role:

• Influence and support teams in design decisions and product strategy
• Report actionable insights to game development teams that inform product decisions and game designs
• Play games in development regularly and contribute to design discussions and feedback sessions
• Collect and report on qualitative or quantitative data from playtests, diary studies, surveys or data from other games user research methods
• Collaborate with BI analysts in the analysis of large data sets of player behavior
• Lead the full life-cycle of research projects from study design to data reporting to following up with teams on how they are acting on the insights
• Moderate playtest sessions, conduct focus groups and manage diary studies
• Write and code efficient surveys that tap in to both the Glu audience and outside audiences
• Be willing to set up equipment for studies (web cam, streaming media, audio, installing builds on devices)
• Keep track of budgets and product roadmaps in collaboration with studio leads
• Conduct heuristic or expert evaluations of competitor titles
• Liaise with various Glu departments, such as legal, customer service, user acquisition, and analytics for the purpose of research
• Own end to end logistics of projects including recruitment and incentive payouts

What you need for this role:

• Depending on level of education this role would be for someone with 3 years of industry experience leading user experience research projects in the gaming or mobile app space, or equivalent relevant experience
• MS, MBA, MFA or PhD in Computer Science, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, HCI, Human Factors, Design, Media Studies, Interactive Design, Game Design, Symbolic Systems, Entertainment Technology, Digital Culture or related field OR a Bachelor’s degree in one of the above related fields with additional 1-2 years of experience
• Excellent communication skills including the ability to visualize data in unique ways, present evidence and make recommendations to development teams (i.e. PowerPoint, Keynote or other infographic tool)
• Strong data manipulation skills (i.e. Excel, R, SPSS)
• Must possess interest in games, game design and free to play economies for a wide variety of genres including fashion, time management, FPS and sports
• Passion for helping teams create the best possible player experiences by informing great design with great data
• Interest in exploring cutting edge methodologies or applying research methodologies from sciences or humanities to the evaluation of games
• Bonus background in one or more of the above: statistics, market research, quantitative research methods, design strategy, prototype testing, product validation
• Bonus skillsets: Tableau, R, SQL, light scripting
• Demonstrated experience as a leader on multiple user research, game design theory, human factors, psychology, or participatory design project in an academic or industry setting.

Apply

• Please submit a note or letter along with your application on why you want to pursue a career in games user research. Please also submit your resume or CV, and any links to a portfolio website or past work examples if applicable.