34.  What are the career paths of a UX Researcher?

Joe Marcantano: Drew, how you doing today?

Drew Freeman: I am doing well. Listeners will give you a little peek behind the curtain. This is the third episode in a row that we were recording, so hopefully we're not too delirious and our voices aren't too scratchy.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, I know I've got, a couple of weekends where I'm gonna be traveling, and I think you have one or two as well. And so it was.

Drew Freeman: I've got a vacation coming up. I'm going to be sitting by a pool in a, on a tropical beach. Super exciting.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah. So this was a moment where we decided, let's go ahead and record ahead.

Drew Freeman: A little bit because we won't be able to record for the next couple of weeks if we don't.

Joe Marcantano: And if I'm on my game, if we stick to the release plan, this episode.

Drew Freeman: Fingers crossed.

Joe Marcantano: Fingers better. This episode should be coming out, early to mid March. And I want to take a second to remind folks that I'm gonna be speaking at the UX Insight conference in mid April. And so I wanted to kind of remind everybody that if you like, hear me talk on the podcast here, I've got a whole new topic, a whole new, thing that I'm gonna talk about at this conference at the UX Insight conference. And you should check it out. Uxinsight.org. i will also point out that while this is a live conference, there are online tickets available as well. And the online tickets are much more modestly priced. So maybe travel'not in your budget right now, either personally or you can't get your company to pay for it, but you might be able to get them to pay for, an online seed. And then you'll get to see me and all the other speakers as we, address a variety of UXR topics.

Drew Freeman: I was gonna say this conference is being held in the Netherlands, correct?

Joe Marcantano: It is. It's being held, I believe the city is called Leen, which is about 30 minutes by train outside of Amsterdam.

Drew Freeman: That sounds like an excellent excuse to go visit a wonderful place I've never been, but it's certainly on my wish list.

Joe Marcantano: I am definitely making a trip out of it. I am not going toa see just.

Drew Freeman: The conference site as you should. The Other thing I wanted to mention is I feel like you're being a little humble about this. You were, if I'm remembering correctly, you were like the star or like highlighted speaker on some promotional material that they had.

Joe Marcantano: Right. I was. That was a little unexpected. you know, before the speaking lineup got released, all of the speakers, we had kind of a zoom call where a lot of us met each other. And I remember going into that zoom call and thinking, I know several of these names and several of these names have really big followings. And so I did not expect to be on the promotional email. But that was really cool when that came through and I saw that.

Drew Freeman: Yeah, that's awesome for you. And you know what, that reminds me, we both still suffer and deal with imposter syndrome Plug, for a previous episode. Go back and listen to that imposter syndrome episode if you're interested.

Joe Marcantano: For sure. Yeah. We said it in that episode. I don't know that it ever goes away.

Drew Freeman: No.

Joe Marcantano: Well, let's dive into today's topic. this is one that I think is going to resonate with a lot of folks and I think that you, in what you do in your role now, kind of makes you the perfect person to talk to about this. And so the question for this week is what career paths exist for me as a UX researcher?

Drew Freeman: You're right that my kind of role that I have now is, is perfect for this. I think so much about career development, career growth, professional development. For those who don't know, I am both a senior researcher, but I'm also a user research trainer. So I'm training folks on how to one, how to be researchers, but also how to level up their research skills. So this is definitely a topic that I'm excited and passionate about.

Joe Marcantano: So why don't we dive in? My first thought to this is that, you know, oh, the career path is just junior, mid, senior principal lead, whatever the titles are at that specific company. But I think that that's a little bit of a narrow view for

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Joe Marcantano: what, a UX researcher can do and can become as they progress in their career.

Drew Freeman: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the, like you said, the junior, mid, senior, principal lead, whatever is the quote, unquote, standard career path. But even once you become a senior, okay, what kind of senior are you going to be? Are you going to be a senior who focuses on a specific industry? Are you maybe going to be a senior who really likes to be kind of a jack of all trades and likes to bounce around a lot between methods or projects? Or whatever. And this is nothing to mention the difference between what a senior at an agency might do as opposed to a principal or a lead at where they are embedded within a design team or a product team at a company. There's a lot of different options and a lot of different things that we can talk about.

Joe Marcantano: Or even maybe they're at a company and they're in house, but the structure is such that they are not specifically embedded with a team. You know, there's I think we've talked about this. There are several ways to set up as a UX research team.

Drew Freeman: There's no right way as a profession. I don't think that we've landed on this is the best practice. I don't know that we ever will because I think it's so context dependent.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, I agree. So why don't we start with junior? Let's say I'm a junior researcher, I'm in my first year, second year or whatever. what are the things I'm presuming I don't have to have my whole career mapped out at this point? What are the things that I do need to think about? What are the things that I do need to be starting to make decisions on? What basic advice would you give to somebody who's just starting out in their career?

Drew Freeman: For a junior, I would be really thinking about what are my options. And that means am I interested in being a people manager or is that not something that interests me and I want to focus on being the best researcher that I can be. Am I interested in working for an agency and working with a lot of different companies or am I more excited by the prospect of being embedded within a particular design or product team and really becoming a, deep expert in that particular product? I think when it comes to career paths and juniors in particular, it's really about dipping your toes in as many different waters as you can and trying to figure out, oh, I like this one. I'm less excited about this one.

Joe Marcantano: I would agree. I don't think that. I suspect as we build ins seniority here, what we'll get into the is leadership right for you. I don't know that that's something you need to quite worry about as a junior. it can certainly be in the back of your mind, but I think you're right. Your goal should be exposing yourself to as much as possible, figuring out the areas that really excite you and kind of going from there.

Drew Freeman: Yeah. If nothing else, think about what am I excited to do when you're Planning your day versus what are you dreading? And just pay attention to what your brain is telling you in those regards.

Joe Marcantano: Totally agree. What about somebody who's more at that mid level? Maybe they're at the mid. On the cusp of senior. what are the things that this person should be thinking about?

Drew Freeman: I think you're right that I think this is the level at which you should start thinking about. Is people management or people leadership, something that I'm interested in and take and that can take a lot of different forms. That could be your traditional manager, but maybe that's more in a mold of mentorship. That's another perfectly valid option.

Joe Marcantano: Totally agree. I think that the first thing I'll hit on here is the word leader and the word manager are not. They do not have the same definition.

Drew Freeman: 100%.

Joe Marcantano: Think about that.

Drew Freeman: Yeah, I'm an example of that. I am at my company, I'm a part of our quote UNOTE leadership team. But I am not a people manager and I want it that way. I like the leadership aspect. I love mentoring. But I'm not interested in being, I'm not interested in being someone's boss or someone's direct manager and having direct reports. That's just, I've, you know, I've learned enough about what that looks like and what that would look like for me in particular and'it's something I would be good at, I think, but it's not something I'm looking to do.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, I think that you can be a leader in a lot of ways without being a manager. That, that could mean a role like yours where your job is really more in helping folks develop.

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Joe Marcantano: It could be either formalized or less formalized mentorship. Or it could just be you looking at problems and saying, nobody's tackling this yet. I'm going to start finding ways to address it. You know, you don't need to have people below you in an org chart to be a leader.

Drew Freeman: 100%. I would even say another way that you can be a leader without being a manager is by being someone that does such, a kick butt job with everything that they're given, that people look up to you and try to emulate you and people come to you with questions and try to learn from you. That's an excellent way to be a leader.

Joe Marcantano: Absolutely. And I know we talked about, you know, this is the time where you start thinking about it. I would hazard that it's going to be fairly unlikely to go from kind of a mid level role to a Management role. If that's something you want to do.

Drew Freeman: Yeah. This is not the time where you're going to take that exit, but it is the time when you should start deciding, you know, do I want to be in that lane where I can take it or do I want to continue down the highway. To use a very tortured metaphor that I wasn't planning on using.

Joe Marcantano: While this is not the spot where you're going to kind of switch lanes, so to speak, it does not mean that we said junior, mid, senior, principal, lead, whatever. It does not mean you have to go all the way through all the bands to the tippy top. No. To eventually change lanes. The example I always give is there's salesmen and there'sales managers. And what makes somebody an excellent salesperson is not what makes them an excellent sales manager. Those are two different skill sets. And so if you are somewhere that is saying that you need to go through all the bands before you can be considered for leadership, I would suggest that they are looking at it a littlear, a little more narrow than they should be.

Drew Freeman: Yes. But it is really important to be able to have a good understanding and a good grasp of all of those stages, for sure. To be able to manage people in each of those phases. So yes, a.

Joe Marcantano: Yes, absolutely. you know, I am someone who, when I got into management, I absolutely had people who were on my team who were more skilled in certain things than I was. And that means. That doesn't mean that I can't be their manager, I can't be their leader. It means that when there's specifics about the nitty gritty of that particular scope of work, I might defer to their expertise. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Drew Freeman: Yeah, that's a really good point. Just because you're managing someone doesn't mean that you need to have all the answers. It's an unrealistic expectation that you will.

Joe Marcantano: And I think that's something that newer managers might get a little intimidated by. You know, the first time I took steps into people management was in my previous career when I was a still a police officer and I became a sergeant. I was a sergeant with about 10, 12 years of experience on the police department. And I had guys and gals on my squad who had 20 and 25 plus years that they are going to be more experienced in certain things than I am. And it's just a matter of recognizing that, recognizing other people's expertise and knowing when you can trust your people.

Drew Freeman: That's something that I have always appreciated in the people who manage me is a manager who really knows where their strengths are, but is also very unafraid to say, oh, I don't know, I don't have experience in that. Let's figure it out together.

Joe Marcantano: So we've kind of talked about the leadership management detour here. but let's go back to the UX Research kind of path. As somebody's in that senior role, maybe they're in a senior principal role. What are the things they need to think about or should be thinking about or the decisions they should be making?

Drew Freeman: So I think this is kind of where an earlier path or an earlier choice that you made might influence your path a little bit more here. And that choice is, are you in an embedded role within a company or are you working for an agency? If you're working for an agency, you've got, I would say a couple of different paths. You can focus on being the best individual contributor, the best UX researcher that you can possibly be. That is a completely valid and valuable choice

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Drew Freeman: that you can make. If you're at an agency, you might think about maybe you're interested in going into a, sales kind of role. I think it's, especially with UX research consulting, I think it's really valuable to have a, pretty deep knowledge of the research process and what that looks like to be a good salesperson.

Joe Marcantano: The thing that I think about is, you know, if somebody's in that senior, that lead, that principal role, they don't want to go into people leadership. What is the next step, you know, what's the next thing that they can do? And as much as it pains me to say this because I love UX Research, I've kind of found my niche in my fit here. Maybe in order to continue to grow, a person might consider something like sales, they might consider something like product management. They might consider a related but slightly different next step.

Drew Freeman: Product management was going to be a path that I touched on when we jumped to the embedded, you know, person. So yeah, I 100% agree with you. So jumping to that person, that senior researcher who's embedded within a company and embedded within a specific team because if you are hired by one specific company and you're not working as a consultant or at an agency, a lot of the same kinds of thoughts and paths that apply at an agency can apply to you. If you're bouncing around from team to team within one single company, but assuming that you are embedded within one single design or product team, there's a Couple of different paths. And I think like you mentioned, I think a product manager is a really natural place to look and see if that might be a good fit for you.

Joe Marcantano: I totally agree. I know several researchers who have gone on to become product managers. I would also let folks know that the path is not kind of linear in one way because I also.

Drew Freeman: Know no path ever is.

Joe Marcantano: I know product managers who found that the research was their favorite part and they kind of took the step to become researchers.

Drew Freeman: Mmm, Yeah. There is no one size fits all path or career development arc that will fit for everybody. That's just not how this works. The other thing that I would, the other big bucket that I would have folks kind of think about and look into, especially when you're embedded, is that kind of strategy element of things. How do we want to roadmap our research for the product? do we, you know, is there some sort of programmatization that we can do, an optimization that we should be thinking about? Those are the kinds of UX strategy things that someone in that senior embedded role and experience level can have a big impact and big value with.

Joe Marcantano: Drew, what about somebody who is in maybe a high mid or a low senior or even a full on senior role? They love the work they do, they love the spot that they're in. You know, what advice would you have to that person who's not really. Maybe they've got personal responsibilities outside of work that might interfere. They're not really looking to take a jump into leadership.

Drew Freeman: Sure.

Joe Marcantano: What would you say to that person?

Drew Freeman: I would say don't be afraid to live that life. Live that work life. If it's working for you and you don't feel a push or a need to shake things up or try something new, there's absolutely nothing wrong with just being the best. I shouldn't even say just there's nothing wrong with being the best researcher that you can possibly be. That is a very valuable person to have in any organization. What I would say, and I think this applies to anyone at any level of seniority in any position when it comes to UX research. If you see a problem and you have an idea for I might be able to fix this, say something about it. That's how I got this trainer and leadership position that I have now. I saw a problem and I went to my boss and I went to managers and said, I see this problem. Here's how I'm thinking about it, here's the benefits I see if we can make this better and here's how I would go about trying to make it better. And they said, you know, that sounds like an excellent idea. We're going to create this role and have you apply for it.

Joe Marcantano: I totally agree with everything you just said. You know, when I was a manager, that was one of the things. One of my primary goals was always to figure out what my folks wanted and how I could help

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Joe Marcantano: them grow into what they want and the roles that they want. And while that might take some gentle encouraging on my part, I am not going to stand behind somebody who is very, very happy where they are and poke them with a cattle prod to get them to keep moving. If somebody is in a spot that works well for them, that they enjoy, and they are very successful in that spot, then that's fine, and there's nothing wrong with that. So, Drew, regardless of, of where somebody is, the current spot in their journey, let's say this is something that they haven't really thought about. They don't really know where to begin. What resources, how might you direct this person?

Drew Freeman: Yeah, so I found, an article in kind of a guide. It was on, indeed the hiring platform that Talk talks people through, basically how to run a self career development kind of workshop. And basically it comes down to your current state. What are you good at? What do you like? What do you dislike? What gaps do you have? And then what is your future state like? What do you want to be doing more of? Are there things that you're interested in shifting up? And then thirdly, how do you get from point A, where you are today, to point B, where you want to get in the future? So we'll link that, we'll link that article in the show. Notes for people to check out and look at themselves.

Joe Marcantano: Awesome. Anything else you want to touch on before we kind of wrap this episode?

Drew Freeman: I think the thing that I would want to leave people with is, first, there's no right path. The path that works for me is not the path that might work for Joe. I know for a fact the path that works for Joe isn't a path that I'm interested in. So there is no one best way to do this, and you shouldn't feel like there's a path that you should go down. The other thing that I want people to leave with is if you see a problem and you think you have a solution for it, tell someone about it. That's an excellent way. Even if it doesn't lead to a promotion, even if it doesn't lead to a change in your path. That is an excellent way to just have good job satisfaction.

Joe Marcantano: I love that. I think that's a great place to leave this episode.

Drew Freeman: I could talk for hours about this, but we only have so much time.

Joe Marcantano: Well, if people have more questions or more specific questions about this, we could do follow up episodes to this. And if you've got one of those.

Drew Freeman: Please, please send your questions in.

Joe Marcantano: Yeah, if you've got one of those follow up questions, send it over to inside uxrmail.com do give us a like or subscribe wherever it is you get your podcasts. if you are listening to this in kind of the week or two that it's come out and not months later, check out uxinsight.org for the details on the conference that I'll be speaking at. And if you want to support the show, you can do so through the link in the show notes with that. I'm Joe Marantano.

Drew Freeman: And I'm Drew Freeman.

Joe Marcantano: We'll see you next time.

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