What I learned from interviewing for User Experience Researcher roles at Netflix & 3 other high-profile tech companies

TL;DR

Using my experience interviewing onsite at Netflix (where I’m joining in a couple of weeks), and 3 high-profile companies (1 FAANG, 1 top-tier recently-IPO-ed tech company, and 1 big “brand name” media/digital company), with 3 of these turned in offers, I hope to highlight:

• My (continuing) journey as an academic researcher jumping into user experience research. See previous posts on my profile about my journey so far.
• Takeaways from my interview experiences at these 4 companies that are quite different from each other in nature, & discussions with other UXRs to reflect on what some companies consider a good user researcher, and what to consider when choosing a company/team to work for, as a user researcher.

Context

Three months ago was my 6 month anniversary at my first corporate job, contract (full time) user experience researcher (UXR) at Google. I was learning a lot, but was getting more comfortable in my role, and had more time to reflect on my professional growth.

• I could continue staying till the end of the year or more as a contract UXR, which had been rewarding. I could certainly learn a lot more if I stayed.
• However, there was a clock on my time as a contract UXR (1.5 more years). With the positive feedback I’ve gotten from stakeholders, I considered trying out for a permanent role.
• However (welcome to my neurotic mind!), this being my first corporate job, I was really curious to find out what else is out there, what the difference is between working for a company like Google, and other companies. More importantly, I also wanted to evaluate, for myself, what I could offer as a UXR, and where I fit in this new (to me) world.

With these thoughts in mind, and without turning on the “available for job” feature on LinkedIn, I simply waited to see who reached out to me about opportunities, and selectively responded to jobs I was genuinely interested in (and withdrew even after I advanced to later rounds if I didn’t think I was still interested). Occasionally, friends referred me when they thought I was a good fit. This strategy allowed me to think very carefully about what interested me, and about why some companies reached out to me even when I was clearly not available or ready for a new job. It also allowed me to function without stress as a person with a full time job, without eating into my working hours.

The interviews

My interview experiences were all around amazing. I met smart, engaging people, and had stimulating conversations with them. A few observations:

• Overall, the questions I got were very similar to those before me: UXR interviews at Facebook, Google, Slack, Cracking the UX Researcher Interview, 46 questions for UXRs. Specifically, for Netflix, my experience was very similar to what an engineering manager at Netflix described.
• Most companies would also involve a case study presentation or a portfolio review (presentation) before or during the onsite. This could be either about your previous work, or a new prompt. To save time, always have a draft at least of your previous work/portfolio presentation ready, and tailor it to the company you’re interviewing for.
• I would say that having actual working experience helped tremendously in answering interview questions and presenting case studies/portfolio. A lot of the trickier questions do not surround research methods, but how to deal with stakeholders, and how you make impact with your research. Smaller companies with a newer UX function will focus a lot on how you as a UXR influence product partners to advocate for research and users, and how to make insights as actionable as possible.

What companies consider to be a good UXR

There is a baseline consideration for research skills, but from what I can tell, a good UXR to a company that selects their UX team carefully (because I’ve also heard horror stories of very arbitrary selection criteria) is someone who:

• doesn’t have to know all the methods, but should be able to use critical thinking to think through the problem, scope the question, and then figure out — either through what they know, searching the Internet, asking other people etc. — what method to use to best answer the question.
• should have a wide range of skills so that they can be adaptable when the business problems or their team needs change, but should be particularly strong in at least one area. I’m pretty sure I got my first job because I was one of the few non-pure-quant UXRs who could do statistical modelling in R (it was a particular need for my position at Google), and the new job at Netflix because of my extensive international research experience. Those happen to be my strongest areas.
• can identify their strength and professional story, and can articulate it. This could seem reductive to some people, but you should really try describing yourself as a UXR in one sentence, and see what you come up with (and iterate until it sounds like an accurate reflection of your true qualities). For me, it was “multi-lingual cross-cultural researcher who self-taught programming and high-level statistics” (never said it wasn’t a mouthful :-) )
• can make impact with their research — that includes 1/ identify the right problems to solve, since there will always be more work than you as a UXR can handle, and some problems will be more interesting than others without being more important; 2/make your research insights compelling and simplified without being simplistic, 3/socialize the findings/insights with the right stakeholders, 4/ track and ensure that your findings are acted on, in the right way, at the right time.

What to consider when choosing where to work as a UXR

How you evaluate different teams/companies will of course depend on personal preferences, but if you want a starting point, here are a few things to think about when considering where to work. These are points that have come up in my conversations with peers and mentors who have had to make this decision a few times. (I won’t discuss more obvious points like culture fit, size of companies, rapport with manager etc. Points below are specific to UXR, and might not be immediately obvious as you think about your career).

Where does the UXR team sit in the organization? A UXR team can report to design, or can be organizationally equal to design and product, or sometimes sit in marketing, support, etc. Think about the pros and cons of where the UXR team sits, and what it means to you professionally.

What do the UXR team and the product team say about user research and its impact? How much buy-in at different levels will you have as an UXR have? This is particularly important for companies with a new UX function, or companies that are not traditionally tech.

Is this a place you can grow? This includes:

• What other skills — both soft & hard skills — can you pick up if you work here? It’s tempting to think just about research methods you can learn, but that’s just one aspect of being a UXR. If this is a place you think you can learn skills like building a team, or teaching stakeholders about user research, or presenting to C-suite execs, then it’s worth being there to learn.
• Is there space to grow in scope of responsibilities, whether officially through titles or not?

How does this place/job set you up for your future? Earlier in your career, you want to think about your career trajectory and what might or might not come after this job, rather than focus on what this job offers now.

Final word

Hope the insights above help you in your own interviewing process, or just to start you on thinking about your career trajectory as a UXR. Obviously, this is just an informal case study (n of 1!), so if others have experiences they would like to share, I would love to hear about it. This way we can pay it forward by sharing with folks who are just starting this journey.