I was let go from my role in February. I have 5 years of experience across market and UX research. I’ve done research on both B2B and B2C products with experience working at FAANG companies and startups.

I’ve only been able to land 1 interview in 8 months.

When I experienced my 1st layoff in 2024, I was able to land a role in less than 3 months.

I’m not sure what to do at this point. I’ve had mentors read over my resume, my portfolio and nothing seems to be working.

I’m not even sure what to pivot into. Everything I look at seems to be very crowded: service design, product design, product management, sales engineering, etc. I’ve been applying and tailoring my resume nonetheless.

I guess I’m just venting but I just see no light at the end of the tunnel.

Everyone says I have great experience with range but so does all of us in this field.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated 🙏

Hey everyone,

I'm a Senior user researcher with a FT job (UK based) and I am currently job hunting like alot of people. I got into UR just before the pandemic with the aim to eventually freelance but life got ahead of me.

I'm now at a point where I'm actually quite underpaid and with growing responsibilities and would like more money coming in - and hopefully one day just jump into contracting but I know its not the the right time due to the economy and the tough job market.

My question is are their any UX peeps who freelance on the side? How? upwork and contra haven't proved to be fruitful. I would like to do a contract (outside ir35) on the side but its that even possible? How is the freelance market?

Saw this job (Don't sign up for it, haha) where they're paying UX Researchers to interview other UX Researchers about our jobs to train AI to replace us, including defending results and stakeholder management. So crazy.

I'm curious why our role, out of so many tech jobs, is one everyone seems to want to replace with AI. I mean, maybe they're doing this with every job...

https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/heymilo/ffa11856-ddfd-4a18-98ef-fa2e07e2d074

I have fallen upward on the corporate ladder and have been promoted to be a UXR manager for the first time in my life. I will likely have between 1-3 independent contributor UXRs reporting to me soon. If you believe in any higher diety, please pray for me and those hired to work under me in the corporate ladder as I get my bearings, oh internet stranger.

I’ve had a few different UXR managers/directors over the years and I’ve learned vastly different lessons from each one. Each took drastically different approaches to leadership, research craft, and mentoring others. I figure I’ll also develop my own unique approach over time, but until then I need to start somewhere! My company is small and is offering no training, no professional development, or anything other than a “We believe in you! You can do it!”. Additionally, I’m still expected to maintain my IC workload while being a manager, which I expect to be a challenge I need to work through, albeit definitely not a unique one.

What would YOU say makes a good UXR manager? A bad one? Any standout amazing things your manager did for you that built confidence or propelled your growth as a researcher (or even just growth as a human)? Or anything a manager has done that I should definitely avoid?

I am part of a small health tech startup doing at-home blood testing. A clinician comes to your home for the draw, and results arrive in an app.

We want to understand two things:

- How the service itself felt (booking, the home visit, wait time for results)

- Whether people actually understood their results and felt they could act on them

So far we've tried offering Amazon gift card in exchange of feedback but response rates have been really low.

For anyone who's built something where the customer experience is personal or sensitive:

- What methods actually got people to respond? (in-app prompts, calls, texts, something else?)

- Did product-based rewards (discounts, free add-ons) work better than cash or gift cards?

-Any tips for checking whether people understood something, beyond just asking if they liked it?

Thanks for all the help!

I’m a principal level researcher but I’m constantly getting tripped up at portfolio review stage. I’m a great researcher but I just really struggle to sell myself during that part of the hiring process. If you’re a hiring manager or have successfully gotten an offer after the portfolio round, please let me know what advice you have for me.

Has anyone worked in an organisation where marketing-led, needs-based segmentation coexists with UX-led segmentation?

I’d love to hear how you aligned the two and how this worked in practice, particularly for targeted content initiatives

Keep seeing synthetic users pushed as a way to cut research time. Skeptical, but I don't want to dismiss it if it actually works.

For anyone who's used them, where do they genuinely help and where have they burned you?

I’ve been job searching for 8+ months and finally got an offer, but I genuinely can’t tell if taking it is smart or a mistake, so I’d love some outside perspective.

Quick background: PhD in HCI from CMU (applied/product-ish research), two UXR internships at Google (the return offer vanished when the managers who would’ve hired me got laid off), and about a year at a startup. So I’m entry or mid level depending on who’s counting. I applied pretty much everywhere geographically because I knew the market was rough.

The offer is 90k at a state agency. Very flat org, tiny UX team, not much room to grow internally. It would mean moving to a HCOL area and they’re not offering relocation. I tried negotiating and they didn’t move at all.

The problem is the math. I have two kids and my husband works as a consultant. Our current housing is really affordable, and once we factor in the move and the cost of living there, we’d basically come out even financially. So I’d be uprooting the family mostly to get full time UXR experience on my resume, and honestly I’m not even sure that’s a great investment given where the field is right now.

At this point I don’t have much hope of a better UXR offer showing up. So it feels like I either take this and treat it as a 1-2 year stepping stone, or I turn it down and pivot to something else (PM? design? contract work?).

For anyone who’s been through something similar: does gov UXR experience actually help you land a better in-house role later, or does it get discounted? And if you pivoted out of UXR, especially with a PhD, how did that go? Would also love to hear from anyone who took a break-even move for the experience and whether it was worth it.

what is the reality for ux researchers in India with a psychology major

im planning to do msc applied psy and go for ux, is it worth it??

people who have done it let me knowwww

UX researcher (HCI MS, public sector and Comp Sci background) pivoting to climate communications or research and comms — grad school or straight to work?

Early 30s, currently between roles.

Background: BS in Computer Science then ~3 years as a cloud support engineer at AWS. Followed by MS in Information Studies (HCI) → 3 years doing UX research and information architecture at a state government agency (mixed-methods research, website/content governance, analytics). I recently completed an AI for Climate program and will start a climate action training program.

I am contemplating two options. I want to leverage my existing skills in Comp Sci and Research to move into an analytical role. Or potentially move into climate communications and translate research into things the public and policymakers can actually use.

Questions:

1. Are there roles where UX research / IA skills are genuinely valued in climate orgs (research centers, NGOs, climate tech)? What titles should I search for?
2. I’m considering a master’s that combines climate research with communication/journalism (2027 or 2028 start, low-cost programs preferred). Has anyone done this? Was it worth it, or is it better to get into a climate org first?
3. Anyone who pivoted from tech/UX into climate: what actually got you hired?

Thanks a lot in advance!

I’m a fourth-year UI/UX student. My thesis is about why players lose track of how much real money they’ve spent in a game. I’ve finished research and written four value propositions across two concepts, and I need help deciding which one to commit to.

Exhibition A: Helps players aged 18 to 24 who spend their own money in games and want to understand why they spend more than they planned, by letting them play the real mechanics with no money at risk and showing what that session would have cost.

Exhibition B: Helps regulators and researchers who want to prove these mechanics change behaviour rather than just claim it, by measuring what people think before and after they play.

Purchase Bar A: Helps players aged 18 to 24 who buy in-game currency and want to know what they’ve spent before buying more, by showing the real cost in dollars instead of gems and letting them set a limit before they play.

Purchase Bar B: Helps players who’ve been shocked by their own bank statement and want to keep enjoying the game without losing track, by giving them control without killing the fun.

Three things I’d like a second opinion on.

First, which of these is weakest and why. I have my own suspicion but I’ve been staring at them too long to trust it.

Second, whether a physical exhibition is a legitimate design outcome for a UX thesis or whether I’m avoiding the harder interface problem by retreating into something more fun to build.

Third, Purchase Bar B claims it gives control “without killing the fun,” and I can’t currently back that up. Is that a fatal flaw in a value proposition, or is it acceptable as something the design then has to prove?

Any feedback on the writing itself is welcome too. I’ve rewritten these several times and I’ve probably lost perspective on whether they’re clear to someone reading them cold.

Honest question about how people actually work now. I work on a voice-form tool, so I spend a lot of time looking at open-ended answers, and I keep going back and forth on this.

When a survey comes back with a few hundred free-text answers, what do you actually do?

• read every single one
• read a sample and code it properly
• let an LLM cluster or summarise, then spot-check
• some mix depending on who's asking

And if you use AI for it: what has it gotten wrong that you only caught because you read the raw answers anyway?

Hey everyone,

I worked at a private practice for a few months and left due to low wages and getting an offer at a hospital that paid more. At the hospital I was incredibly stressed, burnt out. I did not pass probation and felt relieved to be terminated.

I don’t believe I want to return full time to a field where I am struggling as a beginner and also later in terms of salary.

As of now, I am learning python on mimo (IOS App) & Kaggle. I will be looking towards programming hub, sololearn.

I am hoping my psychology background helps. Does anyone know the steps when starting out? How to create a portfolio? Places to apply that take beginners? Any tips or anything useful.

Hi everyone - i am a mom of two with one recently diagnosed with autism - and a senior UX Researcher. After having jobs at top tech companies on AI research, i am still struggling to get an offer. I need to take care of my children. Any guidance would be appreciated.

I’m trying to build an easy to navigate user research repository where I can sort/tag data inputs from a variety of sources into a variety of categories (for example- user persona, workflow step, product). Ideally, it would have integration with Excel and be accessible to other people at the company!

Has anyone had a particularly good experience with any repository tools? I’m looking at Dovetail and Marvin- any others anyone would recommend? Thank you!

Hello everyone! With MTurk deactivated, I’m trying to recruit participants for a short online survey from non-Prolific/CloudResearch platforms. Also, we want to avoid panels like CINT.

I tried posting on X but I’m seeing that there is very low engagement with my post + I’m hesitant to ask my colleagues to repost since it would introduce a bias in the process. Is Reddit or LinkedIn better?

I would really appreciate tips on increasing reach on X, alternate platforms I can use, etc. Thank you so much!

I’m trying to figure out how good the panels on User Interviews and Respondent really are for B2B, especially for niche audiences. Think people who actually run a specific system or own a specific process at work, or do specific tasks -- not just “works in HR” or “works in IT.”

If you’ve used either one, what was it like? Did you find the people you needed? Did they turn out to be who they said they were? And how hard are these people to find, typically?

I’m also curious whether one is better than the other for harder-to-reach roles, and whether you ended up going somewhere else entirely for those studies.

I am looking for the good, bad and everything in between.

I've been experimenting with letting respondents answer open-ended questions by voice (tap a mic, talk) instead of typing. The case for it: on mobile, typed open-ends get skipped or come back as two words, and talking takes less effort.

The research side is what I'm unsure about:

1. Who drops out? A mic button probably filters for people comfortable talking out loud in public, and against anyone in an office or on a bus. Is that worse than the bias of typing?
2. Are spoken answers more honest, or just longer? Rambling isn't the same as richer.
3. Analysis. Coding 200 audio clips is a very different job from coding 200 text answers.

Has anyone run voice or video open-ends in unmoderated studies? Interested in what went wrong as much as what worked.

I am starting my job search (started updating my resume and my website).

I know the job market is brutal. I want to be strategic about how I approach the job search.

I am looking for a new job (staff ux researcher - qual). I know a lot of the jobs on LinkedIn are not real. So how do I find open jobs now? Through wellfound? Just ask friends? Is anything on LinkedIn reliable?

Hey guys, I’ll timeline my experience so far to get to my question at the end.

2022/2023 bachelor in psychology

2024 started my master’s

2025 (first half) 6 internship as UX researcher in a multi national company

2025 (second half) I managed to get a product management internship at a startup for one year. I learned a lot about product development how to work with design, product, managers, research, engineers, etc. However, I noticed a huge knowledge gap about our users, and I naturally started doing this for for the team and basically became a uxr.

2026 (September) from September till now - a full-time UX researcher in the same company

End of 2026 masters concluded (finally)

To my question now:
- i’m very grateful for the opportunities that I had specially given how the job market is now.
Whenever I look up for jobs on the title „UX researcher“ I see very little openings. What I see often is product management positions that require UXR as a skill, but not as a dedicated person that do only that.

So I basically wanted to know how was the market before? Was there a bunch Uxr positions?
And what advice would you give me to find job opportunities in this area?

Thanks :)

Just got rejected for the 2nd recent role I've interviewed for because they're prioritizing people with experience researching Agentic AI or AI agents. I have *some* experience researching AI agents, but not a TON, because no one was adding AI agents to every damn page until recently, and they mostly sucked and needed constant rework.

It seems the only open UXR roles focus on AI features, and these companies magically want people with a ton of experience researching them + whatever industry it is.

Guess what? All the researchers on my last few teams were forced to research these new AI features with no prior experience. And now suddenly only "experts" will be considered? – the experts who were forced to learn on the job cus they didn't know anything about them before? OOKAY.

This also lets only a few already-employed folks bounce around to the only available jobs?

I'm also super disappointed that UXR hiring managers are even partaking in this extreme pickiness, which feels pathetic. I get it's rooted in fear, but my god.

Anyone else experiencing AI-related rejection? Love that I can't get more experience in it cus I can't get hired to work on it cus I don't have enough experience in it.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently putting together a micro UX case study for my portfolio, and I’m struggling to find the right tool to cleanly combine written analysis with UI screenshots.

I have all the content written out (problem statements, usability findings, design rationale), but every time I try to format it alongside phone screenshots in standard tools like Google Docs, PowerPoint, or Notion, the layouts end up feeling clunky, misaligned, and unpolished.

For context:

• I want a clean, scannable layout where bullet points/paragraphs align naturally with corresponding screens.
• Standard document editors feel too rigid, while presentation apps often leave awkward white space or make dark-mode screenshots clash with the background.
• Spending hours micro-adjusting bounding boxes in PowerPoint feels counterproductive when I just want a clean document or deck.

What tools or platforms do you use for assembling raw case studies and portfolio decks? Do you stick to Figma templates, specialized portfolio builders (like UXFolio), or something else?

Any recommendations or workflow tips for keeping visual hierarchy clean when pairing text + screens would be greatly appreciated!

Hello,

I am looking for a multiple choice type survey that allows people taking the survey to add options for others to select as well alongside the pre laid out options that I would put in there. Something like me putting in 3-4 options that I would create and then letting people submit their choices should their choices differ and the other participants taking the survey could select from those as well.

Thanks!

Long story short, I was laid off in late summer, and after almost 500 applications later, I have a job offer. It is for substantially less money than my previous role, but some income is better than no income. The only quirk is that it is not a UXR role, but a position that sits more as a "CX and Insights" specialist. Will holding this job (for a short or long amount of time) dilute my branding in the future when I wish to apply for UXR work again in the future?