Principal User Researcher, AI

Job description

from Autodesk careers

26WD98050

Position Overview

Autodesk is exploring ways to help customers work more effectively across complex design and make workflows, including how agentic capabilities can better connect user intent to outcomes.

Reporting to the Sr. Manager, AI User Research, the Principal User Researcher will define and lead research strategy for emerging customer experiences that incorporate agentic capabilities into Autodesk workflows and platforms. This role operates at the intersection of research, product, design, engineering, and AI evaluation—ensuring customer insight meaningfully shapes how new experiences are researched, prototyped, evaluated, and evolved over time.

This role will help establish a modern approach to user research for adaptive, AI-enabled systems by integrating qualitative insight, behavioral analysis, experimentation, and continuous feedback mechanisms into product development. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in human-centered research, systems thinking, and ambiguity navigation, with the ability to influence both near-term product decisions and long-term strategic direction. You will operate with a high degree of autonomy in ambiguous and evolving problem spaces. Success requires not only excellence in research craft, but the ability to define new practices, influence system-level decisions, and connect customer insight directly to product and business outcomes.

The Principal User Researcher will play a key role in helping Autodesk design experiences that are intelligent, reliable, trustworthy, and grounded in real customer needs.

Location: Bay Area, hybrid/remote.

Travel: Some light travel across North America for meetings and conferences.

Responsibilities

Research Strategy & System-Level Impact

• Define and lead end-to-end research strategy for emerging AI-enabled and agentic customer experiences

• Establish research as a core input into product, evaluation, and system design decisions—not solely downstream validation

• Translate customer cognition, trust, behavior, and workflow patterns into actionable signals that inform roadmap and experience optimization

• Help shape how Autodesk defines and measures customer value within agentic systems and workflows

• Influence long-term product and experience direction through research-backed insights and frameworks

Agentic AI Evaluation & Feedback Systems

• Design and operationalize user-centered evaluation frameworks that extend beyond technical accuracy into trust, ambiguity handling, usability, and cognitive outcomes

• Partner with Product, Engineering, and AI/ML teams to align technical performance with customer experience quality

• Build and evolve continuous feedback loops that connect real-world usage signals to product iteration

• Help define evaluation as an ongoing product capability that supports adaptive, learning-oriented experiences

• Ensure evaluation frameworks are scalable, reusable, and aligned with iterative product development cycles

Behavioral Insight & Workflow Intelligence

• Lead research that uncovers latent customer needs through behavioral data, workflow analysis, and real-world usage patterns

• Identify high-impact workflow and automation opportunities across design and make experiences

• Design research approaches that support continuous learning and iterative product improvement

• Translate insights into product opportunities that reduce friction, improve efficiency, and strengthen customer outcomes

• Partner cross-functionally to embed insight generation into product experiences and systems

Trust, Adoption & Human-AI Interaction

• Define and lead research on trust formation, calibration, and recovery within AI-enabled customer experiences

• Identify interaction patterns that drive adoption—or create barriers to adoption—across different customer segments

• Develop frameworks and guidance for human-AI collaboration experiences that evolve with users over time

• Partner with Product and Design teams to ensure onboarding, interaction design, and system behavior support sustained engagement

• Translate trust and adoption research into actionable product principles and measurable success criteria

Human Capability & Workforce Impact

• Lead research initiatives exploring how AI-enabled systems influence customer learning, decision-making, and long-term capability development

• Define and operationalize approaches for evaluating skill development and workflow transformation within Design + Make industries

• Design and test interaction patterns that support learning, professional growth, and effective decision-making

• Ensure product decisions consider accessibility, equitable AI use, and broader workforce impact considerations

• Contribute to strategic thinking around the future of AI-enabled workflows and industry evolution

Cross-Functional Leadership & Influence

• Serve as a strategic partner to Product, Engineering, Data Science, and Design teams in shaping priorities and decisions

• Drive alignment across research, product development, experience readiness, and optimization efforts

• Elevate research impact through clear and compelling communication with senior and executive stakeholders

• Contribute to thought leadership around human-centered AI research and adaptive customer experiences

• Mentor and guide researchers while helping scale research quality and organizational influence

• Shape how Autodesk approaches research for next-generation customer experiences and agentic capabilities over time

Minimum Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in user research, human-computer interaction, cognitive science, or a related field, with a demonstrated track record of driving product impact

• Proven ability to define and lead research strategy in complex, ambiguous domains—particularly within AI-enabled, data-driven, or systems-oriented products

• Deep expertise in mixed-methods research, including qualitative, quantitative, and behavioral data analysis

• Experience designing and operationalizing research frameworks that influence product direction and decision-making at scale

• Strong understanding of human-AI interaction, trust, decision-making, and/or cognitive systems

• Experience working cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Design, and Data Science teams

• Demonstrated ability to translate research insights into meaningful product, system, or business outcomes

• Excellent communication, storytelling, and stakeholder influence skills

• Ability to thrive in fast-evolving environments focused on experimentation, prototyping, and discovery

About Autodesk

Welcome to Autodesk! Amazing things are created every day with our software – from the greenest buildings and cleanest cars to the smartest factories and biggest hit movies. We help innovators turn their ideas into reality, transforming not only how things are made, but what can be made.

We take great pride in our culture here at Autodesk – it’s at the core of everything we do. Our culture guides the way we work and treat each other, informs how we connect with customers and partners, and defines how we show up in the world.

When you’re an Autodesker, you can do meaningful work that helps build a better world designed and made for all. Ready to shape the world and your future? Join us!

Benefits

From health and financial benefits to time away and everyday wellness, we give Autodeskers the best, so they can do their best work. Learn more about our benefits in the U.S. by visiting https://benefits.autodesk.com/

Salary is one part of Autodesk’s competitive compensation package. For U.S.-based roles, we expect a starting base salary between $117,000 and $210,540. Offers are based on the candidate’s experience and geographic location, and may exceed this range. In addition to base salaries, our compensation package may include annual cash bonuses, commissions for sales roles, stock grants, and a comprehensive benefits package.

Equal Employment Opportunity

At Autodesk, we're building a diverse workplace and an inclusive culture to give more people the chance to imagine, design, and make a better world. Autodesk is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and considers all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status or any other legally protected characteristic. We also consider for employment all qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.

Diversity & Belonging

We take pride in cultivating a culture of belonging where everyone can thrive. Learn more here: https://www.autodesk.com/company/diversity-and-belonging

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