Backed by SoftBank VF and IVP.
About the role
Provide strategic leadership for the design research team, ensuring alignment with key stakeholders and organizational priorities. Evangelize the importance of user insights and the role of design research in the product and hardware development lifecycle to WHOOP senior leadership.
What they're looking for
- Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field such as human factors, design research, user experience research, design anthropology, psychology, or a related discipline
- 5+ years of experience conducting user research for physical products, ideally within hardware, health, or consumer product environments
- 5+ years of people management experience, including coaching, feedback, and performance development
- Strong mixed-methods research background, with demonstrated application of qualitative and quantitative approaches to real-world products
- Experience working within or alongside hardware development lifecycles (not software-only)
- Experience managing or partnering with external research vendors, including project scoping and execution
More about this role
At WHOOP, we’re on a mission to unlock human performance and healthspan. WHOOP empowers members to perform at a higher level through a deeper understanding of their bodies, behaviors, and daily lives.
WHOOP is hiring an Associate Director of Design Research to lead and scale the Design Research practice at WHOOP. This role will oversee Design Research, shaping how user feedback and experiences inform product innovation from early-stage insights to pre-launch validation studies to post-launch feedback. As a people-first leader, you will balance strategic direction, team development, and leadership evangalism—ensuring research rigor, creativity, and impact across the product lifecycle.
Provide strategic leadership for the design research team, ensuring alignment with key stakeholders and organizational priorities.
Evangelize the importance of user insights and the role of design research in the product and hardware development lifecycle to WHOOP senior leadership.
Scale research impact, working closely with cross-functional leaders to identify opportunities for research and set expectations for mixed-methods research, ensuring research is positioned as a critical input to...
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