Staff Mixed Methods UX Researcher – Sports

• Staff Mixed Methods UX Researcher - Sports
• United Kingdom

We are on a mission to pioneer the world’s next era of play.

As we grow across Europe and Latin America, we’re building The Playstack - the technology powering the next generation of sports, gaming, and fan experiences.

Join us, and help make it the most widely used platform in the world!

From operations, to marketing, to product, we are looking for talented people who will shape how millions of customers play, watch, and connect every day.

As the

Staff Qualitative Researcher is Super's most senior practitioner of human‑centred inquiry.

This is a hands‑on, high‑output individual contributor role — the person who knows how to get to the truth of a user's experience: their mental models, their anxieties, their unspoken expectations, their moments of delight and frustration.

You will lead qualitative research across the most strategically important and ambiguous product questions Super faces, working closely with the Principal Quant Researcher and the Research Manager to ensure qualitative and quantitative evidence are always richer together than apart.

• What the role involves
• Deep Qualitative Research Execution
• Design and independently execute complex, multi‑method qualitative research programmes spanning generative discovery, concept exploration, and evaluative depth — not just individual studies but longitudinal programmes of inquiry
• Lead the most high‑stakes and ambiguous research briefs: new market entry, new product category launches, trust and safety research, responsible gambling insights, and strategic bets where the organisation has the least existing evidence
• Operate the full qualitative toolkit with mastery: semi‑structured and unstructured in‑depth interviews, contextual inquiry and ethnographic observation, diary studies and longitudinal panels, participatory design workshops, focus groups, co‑creation sessions, and remote moderated/unmoderated studies
• Own recruitment strategy end‑to‑end: define screeners, work with research ops and vendors, build proprietary panels where needed, and ensure participant samples are representative of the diversity of Super's user base across markets
• Produce analysis that goes beyond surface themes, applying systematic coding, grounded theory approaches, interpretive phenomenological analysis, or jobs‑to‑be‑done frameworks — selecting the analytical lens that fits the question
• AI‑Enhanced Qualitative Workflows
• Lead the integration of AI tooling into Super's qualitative research practice as a force multiplier that increases throughput and analytical depth
• Deploy LLM‑assisted transcript analysis pipelines that handle first‑pass thematic coding, anomaly flagging, and cross‑participant pattern detection — freeing analyst time for higher‑order interpretation
• Use AI tools for rapid synthesis across large corpora of qualitative data: customer feedback, support tickets, app reviews, social listening, and interview transcripts
• Critically evaluate the output of AI‑assisted analysis for bias, hallucination, and over‑compression, maintaining methodological integrity whilst embracing efficiency
• Build workflows and documentation that allow the broader team to use AI‑assisted qualitative tools responsibly, and run training sessions that upskill colleagues on both the power and the limits of these tools
• Strategic Insight Generation & Storytelling
• Translate raw qualitative data into insight frameworks that have a life beyond the single study: mental model maps, user need taxonomies, experience principles, and behavioural archetypes that inform multiple product teams over multiple quarters
• Craft research deliverables that move people — evidence‑driven narratives that make stakeholders genuinely see the world through the user's eyes
• Partner with the Principal Quant Researcher to design mixed‑methods programmes where qualitative findings generate hypotheses that quant can test at scale, and where quant anomalies trigger qualitative investigation
• Present research to senior and executive stakeholders with confidence and authority, handling pushback on findings and advocating for the user even when their experience is inconvenient for the business
• Maintain a living qualitative insights repository: tag and cross‑reference findings so that past research informs present decisions and the organisation's qualitative knowledge compounds over time
• Research Quality, Standards & Community
• Set the qualitative methodological bar for the research team: review study designs, discussion guides, and analysis from junior and mid‑level researchers, providing specific, developmental feedback that elevates their craft
• Develop and maintain qualitative research standards documentation: best practices for moderation, coding, synthesis, and reporting
• Act as a qualitative research community builder within

Super: run internal workshops, share cutting‑edge methods from the field, and make qualitative research legible and valued by non‑research partners

• Identify opportunities to democratise qualitative methods across Product and Design teams, building guardrails and templates that enable safe self‑serve research without compromising rigour
• What we are looking for
• 8+ years of UX research experience with a clear depth specialisation in qualitative methods, ideally across both generative and evaluative contexts and the full product development lifecycle
• Mastery of qualitative data collection: exceptional moderation skills across in‑depth interviews, focus groups, diary studies, ethnographic observation, and co‑design facilitation — comfortable in the field, in a lab, and on a video call
• Deep qualitative analysis expertise: systematic thematic analysis, grounded theory, affinity diagramming at scale, interpretive phenomenological analysis, and the judgement to know when interpretive depth is needed versus surface‑level synthesis
• Strong mixed‑methods fluency: experience designing studies that integrate qualitative and quantitative approaches, with the ability to have a credible technical conversation with quantitative researchers
• Demonstrated experience using AI tools in qualitative workflows — real implementation with critical assessment of quality and validity, not just awareness
• A track record of qualitative research that influenced major product or strategy decisions, with specific examples speakable to in depth
• Experience working across multiple markets or cultural contexts
• Deep expertise in mental models, perception, and jobs‑to‑be‑done frameworks, combining them to build rich psychological and workflow design
• Exceptional moderation skills that create the conditions for genuine, unguarded participant responses — knowing when to probe, when to wait, and when to redirect
• Interpretive depth that goes beyond what users say to surface what they mean, defended with analytical rigour rather than instinct
• The ability to use AI to increase speed and depth whilst maintaining irreplaceable analytical judgement — applying AI tools critically, not uncritically
• A generative approach to research: reframing questions where necessary, surfacing adjacent insights the brief didn't ask for, and returning richer evidence than expected
• The ability to advocate powerfully for users within a commercial context, making the business case for user‑centred decisions
• Cultural intelligence — sensitivity to the ways culture shapes how people talk about their experiences, and the ability to adjust research approaches accordingly
• The ability to translate research into tangible, actionable outputs that move teams and work forward
• The ability to drive research impact through both rigorous practice and effective stakeholder engagement, including in challenging collaborative contexts
• Nice to have
• MSc or Ph D in Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, HCI, Cultural Studies, or a related human behaviour field
• Experience in high‑intensity consumer products, marketplaces, gaming, or financial services, with some degree of experience in trust and safety
• Experience with specialist qualitative methods: semiotics, discourse analysis, narrative research, or video ethnography
• Proficiency with qualitative analysis tools: Dovetail, NVivo, MAXQDA, Atlas. ti, or Reduct
• Experience building or managing qualitative research panels or longitudinal participant communities
• Published work or conference presentations in a qualitative research or HCI venue
• Why this role at Super
• Sports is one of the richest contexts for qualitative research: the experience is emotionally intense, socially embedded, culturally specific, and morally complex.

Users have contradictory motivations.

Their stated and actual behaviour diverge.

The moments of joy and frustration are extreme.

Understanding all of this deeply — not just what users click, but why they feel what they feel — is what separates good product decisions from great ones.

• Access to a diverse, passionate user base across 12+ markets — every cultural context brings new research challenges
• A team that values qualitative rigour and won't ask you to reduce everything to a number
• Senior visibility: your insights will be read by the CPO and product leadership, not just deposited in a repo
• A Principal Quant Researcher as a genuine peer — someone to build with, argue with, and create better mixed‑methods evidence with
• Competitive compensation at Staff IC level with equity and a genuine investment in your development as a researcher

What we offer

• Medical / Health Insurance
• Employee Assistance Programme
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