Making the Move From Government to UX Research
Thinking of switching from government research to tech? Here’s what we’ve learned as former government researchers who now conduct UX research for Facebook.
As Facebook UX researchers with backgrounds in government work, we’ve encountered plenty of differences between the two worlds, but also some surprising similarities. If you’re a government researcher thinking of making a move, we hope our experiences will help you decide if the tech industry might be right for you.
Research Is Research
The good news: What you’re doing now can be translated to tech UX research without much change. You’ll need to learn some new buzzwords and “alphabet soup,” but research is research. Statistics are statistics. And a regression is still called a regression, even in Silicon Valley. So the bulk of your actual work will be fairly similar to what you currently do — write study proposals; consider different designs, methods, and implementations; collect and analyze data; and write research reports. Still, there are some important differences to highlight.
Resources: In our experience at government agencies, red tape and other constraints often came between us and the resources we needed. In tech, researchers often have access to any needed resources to get their job done in an effective and efficient way. If you need a specific software tool, you can get a license for it very quickly. If you need to do research in another country, we have a long list of resources available to you, including vendors who can help you run your study from afar.
Participants: While government research may focus on a small set of specifically targeted and invested individuals, Facebook is a global product, so your user population often is, too. That can mean big impact and an opportunity to learn from people all over the world. Because of the wealth of potential participants, lot of the upfront work for research is deciding who are the right people to talk to for your product team’s goals. Thankfully, there is a lot of support for making these decisions so you can feel confident.
External collaboration: Another major difference is the level of external collaboration we do. In government research, we worked a lot with external collaborators, whether they were different companies or academic institutions. While there are specific processes in place for external collaborations at Facebook, most of us work independently or with other researchers at Facebook.
Autonomy: In government, most of the research we did was dictated by roadmaps and directives from above. Most of the time, the “what we need to understand” part was handed down from leads and directors several levels above us. At Facebook, while we often get requests from our product teams, decisions about what to research are ultimately in our hands. We have the freedom to work on questions and problems no one has asked yet, simply because we believe they’re important to understand in order to improve our products and user experience. We set our own research roadmap and lead our team down new paths.
Product Team Culture
If you’re used to focusing on improving programs or policies, doing research to improve a product can be quite a shift. But ultimately, government and industry share the same fundamental goal: to deliver effective products, programs, or policies to people who’ll benefit from them. The main difference is how you work within a team to produce that result.
Cross-functional collaboration: Most (but not all) Facebook researchers are embedded in or attached to a product team, which includes folks like engineers, product designers, data scientists, and product managers. These are the people you’ll be working with day in and day out to get a product from concept to end user. Of course, cross-functional collaboration also happens in government research, where you might work with people in different roles both within and across your agency, as well as specialists and subject matter experts. But we’ve found it more rewarding to work closely with the kind of fully staffed, collaborative teams that are common at Facebook.
Time horizons: Product and research work at Facebook typically focuses on 6-month increments, or “halves,” as opposed to a fiscal year or 5–10 years like some government projects. At Facebook, most “long” research programs take 1–2 halves and require a proportional amount of work. That is, you’re not expected to produce 2 years’ worth of research in 6 months. You learn to learn quickly and to get your results out in front of the team incrementally as you go. This timeline can be demanding, but the upside is that you often get to see your findings implemented in real time, rather than hoping someone benefits from your insights 10 years from now.
Organizational Culture
Organizational rhythms, norms, and beliefs can easily tip you from “this isn’t for me” to “I love it here.” You’ll find some cultural similarities between Facebook and your government background, but there are also some stark differences to digest.
Internal transparency and discourse: In government, information tends to be disclosed on a “need to know” basis, especially when working for agencies that deal with classified material. This can create a highly structured, siloed environment in which it’s hard to understand, let alone push back on, the bigger picture. Conversely, Facebook prioritizes an open and transparent culture. Facebook has a saying that “Nothing at Facebook is anyone else’s problem.” Employees are empowered to help improve the company, no matter their role or tenure. This can create a firehose of information and an intensity of internal discourse that can be overwhelming for someone coming from a government research background. But it can also be incredibly invigorating. The saying that “this is your company” is a closely held belief that (once you adapt it) can provide a sense of fierce ownership of the efforts you’re supporting.
Juggling perks with work-life balance: When people talk about the perks available at tech companies, they’re usually not exaggerating. While government agencies may provide some on-site amenities such as a gym or cafeteria, tech workplaces tend to offer a wider variety of amenities, both on- and off-site. But you shouldn’t let the perks distract you from the need to manage your own personal work-life balance — not always an easy feat. This balance is generally more “enforced” in government, with a typical 40-hour work week and less working from home. At Facebook, it’s up to you to work with your team, manager, and personal schedule to create boundaries and enforce them. The good news is that this can be done. It’ll take some practice, but you can find a rhythm that lets you get your work done and log off for personal time.
Working toward a common mission: As with our previous government work, our mission is at the forefront of everything we do at Facebook. Government agencies are tasked with carrying out specific missions, whether it’s space exploration, national defense, or coordinating a response to a major emergency or disaster. Our product teams at Facebook also have their own missions and goals. Ultimately at Facebook, the mission is “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” What’s great about working for a mission-driven organization is that you can decide up front if it’s something you believe in — and if it is, you’re one step closer to a work culture where you feel like you belong.
How Government Experience Has Helped Us in Tech
Despite all the differences, we quickly learned that our government experience had prepared us in several ways in our new roles as UX researchers. Here are two of the most important.
Communicating research to non-researchers: Our work with government agencies often required us to find ways to effectively summarize research so that others could understand the method, results, and limitations. Effectively communicating research findings and implications to a variety of non-researcher stakeholders was essential when working with program leadership or policy developers. This experience was immediately useful when we began working with cross-functional team members at Facebook.
Adapting research to constraints: In our previous government work, there was sometimes no way to get additional resources for a project. So we had to be able to figure out how to answer a research question in multiple ways, fill in gaps in the research where we could, document the research choices we made, and communicate with stakeholders about the project options we couldn’t take on. Although more resources are available in tech, other constraints, such as time or changing goals, can be just as pressing. Our experience designing adaptable research has been indispensable in our transition to UX research roles.
Getting started as a UX Researcher
A lack of tech experience isn’t a barrier to becoming a great UX researcher. Many of Facebook’s UX researchers come from traditional social science backgrounds such as sociology, economics, political science, and psychology.
If Facebook research sounds appealing to you, you may be wondering how you can get started. We’re regularly looking for talented researchers. Let our recruiters know you’re open to a career change!
- Check out our Careers page for open researcher roles.
- Make sure you have an up-to-date LinkedIn profile that clearly identifies your methodological research skills. And make sure your “am looking” toggle is on.
- Talk with any former colleagues who currently work at Facebook or who can connect you with researchers at Facebook. Feel free to set up informational interviews with researchers you know or have a connection with.
Check out the other articles in this series: From Nonprofit to UX Research: Making the Hop and From Tenure to Tech: Professors Who Pivoted to UX Research.
Authors:
Sarah Espinosa, UX Researcher at Facebook. Before joining Facebook, Sarah was a human factors engineer, first at NASA’s Ames Research Center and then at Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific.
Maya Greene, UX Researcher at Facebook. Maya worked as a human factors engineer with KBRwyle at NASA Johnson Space Center before joining Facebook
Nick Brown, UX Researcher (alum) at Facebook. Prior to Facebook, Nick was a research psychologist who conducted organizational and personnel research for a federal agency.
With contributor:
China Layne, UX Researcher at Facebook. After completing her PhD, China worked as a survey statistician for the U.S. Census Bureau.
Illustrator: Sarah Lawrence
