Lead UX Researcher (Founding)

Wander is transforming the $100B+ short-term rental industry. We meticulously craft every aspect of our guests’ experiences—from stunning smart homes to a seamless booking platform. Our mission is to help people find their happy place, and our vision is to build the infrastructure enabling people to effortlessly experience the world.

Backed by premier investors and guided by seasoned startup leaders, we’re a passionate team dedicated to travel, innovation, and crafting unforgettable experiences.

As the Lead UX Researcher (Founding) at Wander, you’ll build our research practice from 0→1 and drive insight across the full product lifecycle—discovery to validation to iteration. You’re a systems thinker who is exceptionally strong at both moderated and unmoderated testing and fluent with tools like UserTesting.com, Maze, Hotjar/FullStory. You’ll partner with Product, Design, Engineering, and Operations to turn research into clear decisions that improve conversion, satisfaction, and retention.

• Build the function: Define our research strategy, operating model, and standards; create templates, playbooks, and an insights repository (e.g., Dovetail/Notion/Airtable).

• Plan & run studies end-to-end: Problem framing, method selection, screeners, recruiting, moderation, analysis, and storytelling.

• Execute across methods: Moderated/unmoderated usability, concept & prototype tests, JTBD/qual interviews, diary/field studies, surveys, card sorts/tree tests, benchmark studies.

• Triangulate insights: Combine behavioral analytics (Hotjar/FullStory), product data (e.g., Mixpanel/Amplitude/GA4), and qualitative findings for crisp, prioritized recommendations.

• Scale research ops: Participant panel, incentive workflows, compliance/consent, tagging taxonomy, and knowledge management.

• Influence strategy: Translate insights into roadmaps with measurable outcomes; partner closely with PM/Design on problem definition, hypotheses, and success metrics.

• Champion the customer: Enable non-researchers with training and lightweight toolkits; raise research quality across the org.

• 5+ years in UX Research (consumer product, marketplace, e-commerce, or travel preferred), including leading complex, multi-method projects.

• AI-native: Comfortable and effective using AI for research planning, recruiting, note-taking, transcription, synthesis/tagging, repository hygiene, insight summarization, and lightweight prototyping or survey/script generation. Skilled at prompt design, evaluating model outputs, and applying judgment/ethics around privacy and bias.

• Mastery of moderated & unmoderated testing at speed and scale; confident on camera and excellent at facilitation.

• Tool fluency: UserTesting.com, Maze, Hotjar/FullStory; plus experience with Lookback, UserZoom, dscout, Qualtrics/Typeform/SurveyMonkey a plus.

• Systems thinker & organizer: You’ve built or overhauled research ops and repositories; you make insights searchable and sticky.

• Data-literate: Comfortable pairing qual with product analytics; basic SQL or strong collaboration with Data is a plus.

• Clear communicator: Sharp writing, impact-focused storytelling, strong stakeholder management in an async-first environment.

• Portfolio or case studies demonstrating business impact and decision-making driven by research.

• Experience in travel-tech, hospitality, or two-sided marketplaces.

• Startup 0→1 and/or high-growth environment; you enjoy ambiguity and shipping.

• Strong Figma proficiency; familiarity with experimentation frameworks and A/B testing.

• Willingness to do occasional field visits/user sessions at properties or partner sites.

• Own the founding research charter and shape product direction end-to-end.

• Work in a category with rich, real-world problems and measurable business impact.

• Fully remote, async-first culture.

• Competitive salary, equity, and comprehensive benefits (health, dental, vision, 401(k)) with strong growth opportunities.

If you’re inspired to build a world-class research practice, love turning insight into elegant product decisions, and want your work to directly improve how people travel, we’d love to talk. Apply now and let’s build the future of travel together.