Head of User Research (San Francisco) Job at AfterShip in San Francisco

About Us

AfterShip, a Great Place to Work Certified company, is transforming the global eCommerce landscape. Our mission is to empower retailers to create the world's best online shopping experiences, from postpurchase and beyond.

We've powered more than 8billion shipments for over 20000 leading brands including Samsung, Gymshark, Mejuri, and TOMS. Our AIdriven postpurchase solutions span shipment tracking, returns management, personalized product discovery, and delivery predictions with industryleading accuracy.

Backed by a $66million SeriesB and over a decade of innovation, were accelerating growth and defining the future of the postpurchase experience. With 450+ team members across the globe, were building a diverse, collaborative culture that encourages agility, ownership, and impact.

Your Mission

We are seeking a Head of User Research to build our research function, blend market and design research, and turn insight into decisions that shape strategy, product experience, pricing, and gotomarket.

You will report to the CPO and work closely with teams in North America and Asia. Youll partner with Product Marketing, Product Management, and Design. The scope spans market research, strategic research, largescale redesign, and enabling PMs and Designers to selfserve for concept/design validation.

What You'll Do

• Build and lead the research function stand up a lean, highimpact team; hire and mentor senior researchers; set up tools, processes, and infrastructure to scale research globally.
• Create a unified customer understanding framework align Product, Design, and Product Marketing on customer needs and segments to guide decisions across SMB to Enterprise.
• Drive strategic insight for big bets partner with Product and PMM on discovery and zerotoone validation; translate findings into multiyear strategy and roadmap choices.
• Reimagine the product experience elevate onboarding, activation, and postpurchase experiences through structured research (e.g., card sorting, tree testing) that leads to actionable recommendations.
• Accelerate activation and onboarding combine research and analytics to identify funnel dropoffs, generate hypotheses, and run rapid evaluative studies.
• Operationalize continuous feedback build VoC and NPS programs; create an insights library and maintain ongoing customer touchpoints with clear incentives.
• Enable selfserve research provide templates, guides, and playbooks so PMs and Designers can run lightweight validation across time zones and languages.
• Inform pricing and packaging decisions lead research to validate pricing and packaging redesigns, ensuring insights drive business outcomes.

Who We're Looking For

• 10+ years in user research or customer insights with leadership experience in complex B2B or B2B2C products.
• Depth across mixed methods (foundational and evaluative) including discovery, usability, journey mapping, card sorting, and tree testing.
• Proven track record of translating insights into measurable product and business outcomesparticularly for design systems, onboarding, and market expansion.
• Skilled in partnering with Product Analytics to connect what is happening (quant) to why its happening (qual).
• Experienced in enabling global teams to conduct effective studies across geographies and languages.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills; able to drive alignment across executive and functional teams.
• Capable of managing both quantitative and qualitative research, including internal validation and external market studies.

Bonus Points

• Experience in eCommerce, logistics, shipping, or postpurchase journeys.
• Background supporting pricing and packaging research for subscription products.
• Fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

Youll be a great fit if you

• Are excited to build a new user research function from the ground up.
• Thrive in a role where research reports to the CPO, driving product and company strategy, not just design validation.
• Are scrappy and resourceful creative, fast, and practical, delivering highquality insights on lean budgets.
• Know how to leverage AI to scale research and empower selfserve validation for PMs and Designers.
• Set a high bar for clarity, usability, and measurable impact.
• Can turn insights into action, synthesizing and storytelling in ways that influence real decisions.

At AfterShip, we know great talent doesnt always fit every requirement. If youre passionate about our mission and believe you can make an impact, we encourage you to apply.

Why You Should Join Us

• Great Place to Work Certified: Weve been recognized for our inclusive, valuesdriven culture that celebrates diversity and collaboration.
• Innovative & Inclusive Culture: Started by our software engineerturnedCEO, AfterShip is built on curiosity, creativity, and collaboration. Were a passionate, global team of problem solvers who put egos aside to innovate together.
• Ambitious Mission with Real Impact: Join us in transforming eCommerce by making buying and selling easier for everyone. Its one of the most dynamic spaces in tech, with limitless opportunities to innovate and grow.
• Thrive & Grow: Theres no ceiling to what you can achieve or learn here. Were committed to empowering your career while advancing together as a company.
• Flexible Work Setup: Were a remotefirst team, meaning by default that employees work from home or on a hybridflexible basis in our hub locations. Youre empowered to choose a work setup that works best for you and your team. With flexible hours depending on your time zone, youll have a schedule that fits your working style and the requirements of your role.

Perks

• Competitive compensation
• Remotefirst/hybridflexible work setups
• Healthcare coverage offered from day 1
• Retirement plans including company match
• Annual learning & wellness benefit
• Monthly book perk
• Career progression & professional development
• Inoffice lunch and commuter benefits for those located in our hub locations

We are an equalopportunity employer and provide accommodations upon request throughout the recruitment process, in accordance with local legislation. Please let us know if you require any support, and well work with you to meet your needs.

Salary range for this role: $245,000 $290,000

Seniority level

• Executive

Employment type

• Fulltime

Job function

• Research, Analyst, and Information Technology

Industries

• Software Development

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