Staff User Experience Researcher, Khan Academy
Foundations and Enablement
$152.9-172k
For Canadian applicants the range is $206,626 - $232,455 CAD
Nonprofit online education platform
Open for applications
Nonprofit online education platform
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$152.9-172k
For Canadian applicants the range is $206,626 - $232,455 CAD
1001+ employees
Company mission
Khan Academy's mission is to provide a free, world‑class education for anyone, anywhere.
Role
Who you are
- Mastery of research methods and rigor: 12+ years of UX research experience in complex enterprise software or SaaS environments. You have a deep command of the craft that allows you to spot flaws in research design or AI-generated summaries
- Coaching skills: Proven experience in mentorship, coaching, or building "Research Ops" programs. You find as much professional fulfillment in enabling others to do great as you do in conducting the research yourself
- Responsible AI fluency: Deep technical curiosity regarding GenAI and LLMs, with a practical understanding of their limitations. You know how to leverage AI for speed while acting as the ultimate guardrail for quality and ethics
- Operational architecture: A track record of building scalable systems, templates, and workflows that have successfully improved the velocity and quality of a design organization
- Design and product fluency: A sophisticated understanding of the product development lifecycle (PDLC) and software development lifecycle (SDLC), enabling you to integrate research checkpoints into the existing workflows of designers and engineers seamlessly
- Communication and influence: Exceptional communication skills and "executive presence," with the ability to convince cross-functional leaders of the value of democratized (yet governed) research
- Motivated by the Khan Academy mission “to provide a free world-class education for anyone, anywhere."
- Proven cross-cultural competency skills demonstrating self-awareness, awareness of other, and the ability to adopt inclusive perspectives, attitudes, and behaviors to drive inclusion and belonging throughout the organization
- Qualities we value in ourselves, and those who join our team:
- Introspective, mature, low-ego, and emotionally intelligent
- Growth mindset, willingness to learn and to teach others
- Proactively seek out the people and info you need to move work forward and unblock yourself
- High comfort level working within a strong top-down product vision led by our CEO, Sal Khan
- Able to balance the immediate tactical needs of helping deliver and ship features with scouting ahead for what’s next
- Comfortable with ever-shifting priorities and ambiguous situations, like you’d experience in a startup
- Willing to roll your sleeves up and pitch in when a project goes off-script
- Excited about education and engaging learning experiences, deeply curious about how and why people learn
What the job involves
- We’re looking for a Staff UX Researcher to join our Design team
- The heart of this role is not just conducting research, but building the high-performance engine that powers user understanding across our entire product
- You will be the architect of our "People Who Do Research" (PWDR) program, empowering our Design team to conduct their own tactical research while you provide the methodological rigor, technical guardrails, and strategic oversight
- We are looking for an expert who can lead our transition into AI-enhanced research operations—acting as the essential "Human-in-the-Loop" to ensure that as we accelerate our workflows, our insights remain grounded, ethical, and highly actionable
- You will play a vital role in scaling our impact, serving as a coach and consultant to product teams as they navigate the complexities of U.S. school districts
- By building the playbooks and knowledge systems that turn raw data into institutional wisdom, you will help us fulfill the mission of the organization: to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere
- PWDR Program leadership and enablement: Refine and scale our "People Who Do Research" program
- You will empower designers and product triads to conduct high-quality tactical UXR research (both qual and quant) by providing the playbooks, training, and mentorship necessary to maintain rigorous standards across the team
- AI strategy and research operations: Design, propose, and manage a research tech stack (including Dovetail) powered by responsible AI
- You will implement automated workflows for recruiting, synthesis, and insight distribution, serving as the UXR "Human-in-the-Loop" authority to ensure AI-generated outputs are grounded, ethical, and accurate
- Cross-product research, synthesis, and leadership: Act as the Design Leadership Team’s expert on customer and user profiles, end-to-end user journeys, and forward-looking research
- You will synthesize insights that span multiple product surface areas to identify "connective tissue," strategic gaps, and opportunities that go beyond the scope of individual embedded researchers or designers on product teams
- Strategic advisory and methodological governance: Serve as a high-level internal consultant, guiding teams on the selection of lean vs. rigorous methodologies
- You will lead or co-facilitate complex mixed-method studies when business needs require, providing the foundational frameworks (blueprints, journey maps) that keep teams aligned with the "big picture."
- Support the design team with on-site research in schools, providing guidance and ethical scaffolding, and ensuring legal compliance. U.S. based travel up to 20%
- Responsibilities may change as business and team needs evolve
Application process
- NOTE: Submitting a portfolio with your application is required. We're looking for a portfolio that highlights the parts of your background and experience that are relevant to the job description. Applications without a portfolio link or attachment (plus password if required) will not be considered
Our take
Khan Academy is a non-profit that provides free online education materials, including teacher tools, instruction videos, and practice exercises to support users of all ages. It has over 10 million users a month and covers subjects all the way up to college level.
With nearly a quarter of American adults unable to use mathematics in daily life, Khan Academy’s interactive quizzes, instructional videos, and teacher tools are timely. Khan Academy started life as a series of educational YouTube videos, before building a full-scale platform after receiving an influx of donations from Silicon Valley philanthropists. This background has led it to embrace rather than reject the educational possibilities of new tech such as AI, with the founder regarding traditional institutions' banning of tools like ChatGPT as a mistake.
The company offers its tools completely for free, instead of relying on donations and volunteers. A key focus is tackling wealth inequality in education. A partnership with the College Board (who produce entrance examinations for higher education) has made access to SAT prep materials free for millions. 2024 saw a partnership with Microsoft for Khan Academy's Khanmigo product, now free to use for Microsoft customers.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
23% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Jul 2020
$3m
GRANT
Oct 2017
$3m
GRANT
Total funding: $16.2m
Company benefits
- Flexible spending account (FSA)
- Dental insurance
- Optical insurance
- Life insurance
- Performance bonus
- 401K plan
- Family medical leave
- Diversity program
- Pet friendly workplace
- Work from home opportunities
- Health insurance
- Affinity groups where Parents, Black, Hispanic/Latino, Women and Gender Minorities, and LGBTQIA+ identified folks come together
Company HQ
Mountain View, CA
Leadership
Caroline Hu Flexer
(Co-Founder & CEO)Holds a BA in Architecture from Stanford and Harvard University. They also have an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and formerly co-founded Duck Duck Moose, a mobile educational platform for children.
Salman Khan
(Co-Founder & Executive Director)They graduated from Harvard Business School and have previously worked in Finance.
Salary benchmarks
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