UX Researcher, Equity

insightsoftware is seeking a User Experience Researcher to join the newly established UX team within the Certent Equity Management (CEM) product organization. Reporting to the UX Manager, Equity, this role is responsible for planning and conducting research that uncovers how equity plan administrators, finance teams, participants, and broker partners interact with the CEM platform — and translating those insights into actionable recommendations that improve usability, reduce friction, and inform product decisions. This is not a generalist research role — it requires meaningful equity compensation domain knowledge to design studies that ask the right questions, interpret findings within the context of real-world equity workflows, and engage credibly with customers and internal stakeholders who operate in a complex, regulated financial services environment. The UX Researcher will partner closely with UI Designers, Product Managers, and Engineering to embed evidence-based design practices across the full product development lifecycle. 

Key Responsibilities 

Research Planning & Execution 

• Plan and conduct generative and evaluative research across CEM product domains — including equity plan administration, ESPP, batch processing, broker integrations, admin reporting, financial reporting, and participant experiences 

• Select and apply appropriate research methodologies based on the question at hand — including usability testing, contextual inquiry, task analysis, card sorting, tree testing, diary studies, surveys, and moderated/unmoderated interviews 

• Design research studies that account for the complexity and specificity of equity compensation workflows — understanding that tasks like configuring a vesting schedule, processing an ESPP purchase, or reconciling an ASC 718 disclosure carry domain-specific nuances that generic UX methods alone will not capture 

• Recruit and screen research participants from relevant user segments, including equity plan administrators, finance and accounting teams, HR stakeholders, plan participants, and broker operations contacts 

• Manage research logistics end-to-end, including study design, participant scheduling, session facilitation, note-taking, and synthesis 

Analysis & Insight Generation 

• Synthesize qualitative and quantitative research data into clear, actionable findings with specific design and product recommendations 

• Develop and maintain persona frameworks, journey maps, empathy maps, and workflow models specific to CEM's core user segments and equity administration contexts 

• Identify usability issues, friction points, and unmet needs across existing CEM workflows, categorizing findings by severity, frequency, and business impact 

• Conduct heuristic evaluations and expert reviews of CEM interfaces, applying both general usability principles and domain-informed judgment about what equity professionals expect from their tools 

• Track and report on UX metrics — task completion rates, time-on-task, error rates, satisfaction scores — to establish baselines and measure the impact of design changes over time 

Product Collaboration 

• Partner with Product Managers across all CEM domains to integrate research into discovery, prioritization, and validation cycles — ensuring product decisions are grounded in evidence rather than assumption 

• Collaborate with UI Designers to translate research findings into design direction, validating concepts and prototypes through iterative testing before engineering commitment 

• Contribute research-informed input during PRD development, helping Product Managers define requirements that reflect real user workflows and pain points 

• Participate in sprint reviews and QA walkthroughs to evaluate whether delivered features align with research findings and design intent 

• Support the platform modernization initiative by conducting foundational research that informs the UX vision and interaction model for the next-generation architecture 

Stakeholder Communication & Research Democratization 

• Present research findings to product leadership, engineering, Professional Services, and cross-functional stakeholders in clear, compelling formats that drive action 

• Create and maintain a research repository — organizing past studies, key findings, persona documentation, and journey maps — so insights are accessible and reusable across the product organization 

• Advocate for user-centered design practices by making research visible, sharing insights proactively, and helping stakeholders build empathy for the end users they serve 

• Coach Product Managers and UI Designers on lightweight research techniques they can apply independently, extending research impact beyond dedicated study cycles 

Customer & Field Engagement 

• Participate in customer advisory sessions, onsite visits, and user group meetings to observe equity administration workflows in context and build direct relationships with end users 

• Partner with Professional Services to understand implementation pain points, onboarding friction, and common configuration challenges that signal underlying UX problems 

• Collaborate with Customer Support to analyze support ticket patterns, identify usability-driven issues, and prioritize research efforts toward the highest-impact problem areas 

• Support Sales in strategic engagements by providing user research insights, persona summaries, and UX case studies that demonstrate insightsoftware's commitment to customer-centered product development 

Required Qualifications 

Experience 

• 3+ years of UX research experience, with a strong portfolio demonstrating end-to-end research across complex, data-intensive enterprise applications 

• 2+ years of experience in equity management, equity compensation, or financial services platforms — either in a UX research capacity, as a practitioner (equity plan administrator, compensation analyst, financial reporting analyst), or in a product role within the equity domain 

• Demonstrated experience planning and executing both generative research (discovery, contextual inquiry, journey mapping) and evaluative research (usability testing, A/B testing, prototype validation) 

• Proven ability to synthesize research into actionable findings that directly influenced product or design decisions 

• Strong facilitation skills for conducting interviews, usability sessions, and workshops with enterprise users who may have limited availability and high domain expertise 

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with experience presenting research findings to senior stakeholders and cross-functional audiences 

Technical & Domain Knowledge 

• Solid understanding of equity compensation principles, including stock options, RSUs, RSAs, ESPP, performance awards, and participant transaction lifecycles 

• Familiarity with equity administration workflows — plan setup, vesting, exercises, terminations, corporate actions, and reporting — sufficient to design research studies that reflect real-world task complexity 

• Proficiency in UX research tools — including usability testing platforms, survey tools, and analysis/synthesis tools 

• Working knowledge of qualitative and quantitative analysis methods, including thematic coding, affinity diagramming, and basic statistical interpretation of survey and metric data 

Education 

• Bachelor's degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology, Cognitive Science, Information Science, Anthropology, or a related field required 

Preferred Qualifications 

• CEP (Certified Equity Professional) certification, any level, is a plus 

• Direct experience with the Certent Equity Management platform or comparable equity administration systems 

• Experience conducting research in regulated financial services environments where data sensitivity, compliance workflows, and audit requirements shape the user experience 

• Experience supporting platform migration or modernization efforts where foundational UX research informed the design direction of a new architecture 

• Experience building or contributing to a research operations practice — including participant panels, research repositories, and insight management systems 

• Experience in a high-growth, fast-paced SaaS company