Senior Manager, Research & User Intelligence

Senior Manager, Research & User Intelligence
Senior Manager, Research & User Intelligence (Individual contributor)
This is a Hybrid position, 3 days/wk onsite.
Summary:
Capital One's Experience Design (XD) organization is focused on co-creating memorable, meaningful customer and associate experiences that build our brand with humanity and drive business advantage. As the Senior Manager of Research & User Intelligence for a product tower, you are responsible for accelerating learning velocity by defining and executing research programs that generate actionable insights to inform the creation of useful and usable solutions.
Role Expectations:
The XD Research organization is seeking a Senior Manager of Design Research who can enter complex product domains-ranging from deep technical infrastructure and data-heavy platforms to front-end consumer applications-and quickly anchor the product roadmap in human-centered insights. In this role, you are expected to provide a rigorous, behavioral lens to technically dense or abstract problem spaces by conducting multi-method research with diverse cohorts of internal associates, enterprise users, and retail customers. This is an individual contributor role that requires a mastery of human factors , digital product design, information architecture, interaction design principles, product development lifecycle, qualitative and quantitative research methods, data analysis and triangulation, user experience metrics, and research platforms.
The ideal candidate is a clarifier with deep experience navigating ambiguity, quickly building systemic mental models of new product spaces, and establishing research programs that scale. You possess a proactive, consultative approach to cross-functional partnerships, balancing deep expertise in qualitative and quantitative data triangulation with a fast-moving operational mindset.
Responsibilities:

• Optimize and Scale Cumulative User Intelligence: Plan and conduct connected studies and establish data acquisition mechanisms that contribute to a collective body of user intelligence that fuels product teams' planning and decision-making, while maintaining a high degree of governance and risk compliance
• Prioritize and lead rapid testing within the product development lifecycle: Create and evolve research agents and research platforms to accelerate learning velocity: extracting insights from existing intelligence repositories, conducting rapid discovery, concept, content, and usability testing
• Manage and Maintain Continuous Discovery Programming: Drive collaboration with research ops to enable partner teams to access their users to maximize empathy and understanding
• Support UX Measurement and Hypothesis-driven Design: Partner with CX, data scientists, analysts, and designers to identify and track domain-specific UX metrics. Assist in developing mechanisms to collect/measure UX metrics, conduct analysis using UX and other metrics to identify critical correlations between user behavior and business success.
• Conduct and Socialize Data Triangulation & Synthesis: Utilize behavioral analytics, quantitative data, and qualitative insights to produce actionable insights. Establish channels to socialize learnings to stakeholders in order to drive impact.

Leadership Competencies

• Problem Solving: Designs scalable frameworks and vision-backed learning agendas to prioritize high-impact problems across multiple domains; leverages technical and data fluency to navigate complex trade-offs and drive innovative, customer-centric solutions that maximize business value
• Judgment: Prioritizes high-leverage opportunities and eliminates duplicative work to scale impact across the organization; guides teams through ambiguity with empathy while maintaining focus on clear business priorities and consistent delivery
• Influence: Acts as a trusted strategic advisor, leveraging deep expertise and cross-functional partnerships to influence senior-level decision-making and drive the adoption of human-centered strategies in service of high-stakes business outcomes
• Teamwork: Collaborates broadly, and contributes regularly to internal knowledge platforms and events; proactively and effectively aligns work to business needs, focusing on shared goals over their own agenda
• Communication: Translates complex data and behavioral findings into compelling narratives for senior stakeholders; ensures clarity in two-way dialogue across functions

Basic Qualifications:

• At least 4 years of professional experience in User Experience Research, Data Science, or Customer Experience Research
• At least 4 years of experience aggregating, collecting, and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data
• At least 3 years of experience autonomously leading multi-stakeholder projects or research programs

Preferred Qualifications:

• 5+ years of experience in User Intelligence, Human Factors, or behavioral data analysis.
• Background in leading research in enterprise settings
• History of leading small to medium teams of researchers
• Experience conducting structured, quantitative jobs-to-be-done studies
• Experience leveraging AI tools (Gemini, Claude, NotebookLM) to accelerate insight creation
• Experience building automated research workflows with AI tools
• Proven track record of triangulating multiple data sources (behavioral analytics, survey data, and primary research) to inform product roadmaps.
• Advanced degree in Human Factors, HCI, Statistics, Data Science, or Behavioral Economics.

At this time, Capital One will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization for this position.
The minimum and maximum full-time annual salaries for this role are listed below, by location. Please note that this salary information is solely for candidates hired to perform work within one of these locations, and refers to the amount Capital One is willing to pay at the time of this posting. Salaries for part-time roles will be prorated based upon the agreed upon number of hours to be regularly worked.
McLean, VA: $200,700 - $229,100 for Sr. Manager, Design
New York, NY: $219,000 - $249,900 for Sr. Manager, Design
Richmond, VA: $182,500 - $208,300 for Sr. Manager, Design
Candidates hired to work in other locations will be subject to the pay range associated with that location, and the actual annualized salary amount offered to any candidate at the time of hire will be reflected solely in the candidate's offer letter.
This role is also eligible to earn performance based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonus(es) and/or long term incentives (LTI). Incentives could be discretionary or non discretionary depending on the plan.
Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial and other benefits that support your total well-being. Learn more at the Capital One Careers website . Eligibility varies based on full or part-time status, exempt or non-exempt status, and management level.
This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.
No agencies please. Capital One is an equal opportunity employer (EOE, including disability/vet) committed to non-discrimination in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Capital One promotes a drug-free workplace. Capital One will consider for employment qualified applicants with a criminal history in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable laws regarding criminal background inquiries, including, to the extent applicable, Article 23-A of the New York Correction Law; San Francisco, California Police Code Article 49, Sections 4901-4920; New York City's Fair Chance Act; Philadelphia's Fair Criminal Records Screening Act; and other applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations regarding criminal background inquiries.
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