Senior UX Researcher San Francisco, United States

ABOUT RETOOL Nearly every company in the world runs on custom software for critical operations like tracking performance metrics, handling support workflows, building admin dashboards, and countless processes you might never have thought of. But most companies don't have the resources to properly invest in these tools, leading to a lot of old, clunky internal software, or worse, teams still stuck in manual and spreadsheet workflows.

AI has changed who gets to build software. The definition of  developer  now includes analysts, operators, and domain experts creating solutions directly—and the tools they reach for are multiplying by the week. That's both an opportunity and a challenge: as more people build with more AI tools, the risk of shipping ungoverned software into production grows just as fast. At Retool, we're building the platform that makes all of it safe to ship.

Build with any AI tool you want, then deploy into one place that connects to your real business data, enforces enterprise policies automatically, and lets teams create once and reuse everywhere with shared, trusted components. The cost of building software has collapsed. The cost of governing it hasn't—and that's the problem we solve. Developers and domain experts have already automated over 100 million hours of work on our platform, freeing them to focus on creative problem-solving and strategic work that drives real business value.

The people closest to the problem can now build the software to solve it, safely, and within enterprise guardrails. Let’s build the future together.

We’re looking for a Senior UX Researcher to inform our product and design strategy, we’re reimagining how software gets built in the era of AI, and your research will light the way. You’ll be a foundational leading member on a small, strategic research team, with an opportunity to shape the culture of research at Retool, and define how insights drive impact across the organization.

Though a new function, research is already deeply valued across the organization, informing key strategic designs and guiding our expansion into new customer segments and AI-powered experiences. You’ll collaborate with a curious and customer‑centric group of designers, engineers, and product managers who are eager to partner with research to uncover new opportunities to elevate our products.

• Work with stakeholders to identify knowledge gaps, latent assumptions, and open questions to prioritize opportunities for impactful research.
• Plan, conduct, and analyze studies leveraging a range of qualitative and quantitative methods—from tactical usability tests, to in‑depth interviews, in‑product surveys, and more to generate actionable learnings.
• Balance speed with research rigor, creatively leveraging research methods to work within constraints.
• Triangulate insights from across user research, product usage, support, and market signals, to surface meaningful patterns.
• Distill complex data into clear, compelling stories for teams across the org, from product, design, and engineering peers to executive stakeholders.

As an early member of the research team, you’ll also collaborate with your teammates to shape our research practice, evolve our processes, and help embed user‑centered thinking across everything we do.

• 5+ years of experience in UX research, product research, or a related field, ideally in Enterprise Saas or technical platform environments
• Proven ability to own research projects end-to-end, from scoping through to execution and analysis, leveraging a range of qualitative and quantitative methods
• Strong synthesis and storytelling skills, with an ability to distill ambiguity into clarity and make insights resonate with diverse audiences
• Experience shaping product direction through early‑stage generative research and iterative usability testing
• Comfort working in ambiguous problem spaces and a bias toward action—you're as strategic as you are scrappy
• Deep curiosity about how complex systems work, especially technical workflows or developer tools
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills, with an understanding…