Director of UX Research, Dating Outcomes & Platform

About the Role

We are hiring a Director of UX Research to lead research across our Dating Outcomes and Platform product areas. You will set the vision and strategy for how research informs product decisions across the core product experience at Hinge, focusing on some of Hinge's most complex research questions – understanding what's getting in the way of people forming real connections, and what Hinge needs to become to fundamentally shift how dating works online. The work is ambitious, high-stakes, and directly shapes how Hinge invests.

This is a senior leadership role with significant scope: you'll manage a team of researchers, own the research strategy and roadmap for Dating Outcomes and Platform, and operate as a strategic partner to group-level product, design, data science, and engineering leadership. This is an ideal role for a proven research leader who synthesizes user insights and data science findings into clear product strategy, builds the organizational conditions for teams to execute well, and thrives on ambiguous, high-impact problems.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the UX research vision, strategy, and roadmap for Dating Outcomes and Platform — prioritizing the questions that need to be answered before roadmaps are locked
• Lead, coach, and grow a team of seasoned, experienced researchers, setting a high bar for craft, rigor, and impact
• Operate as a strategic partner through synthesizing UXR and DS insights into POVs that shape product vision and strategy and inform executive decisions
• Represent Dating Outcomes and Platform insights clearly to senior leadership and cross-functional stakeholders, communicating roadmaps, tradeoffs, and product implications
• Drive cross-team synthesis and frameworks that unify insights across teams and product groups
• Identify structural and organizational gaps; proactively design ways of working that improve team velocity, cross-functional collaboration, and research quality
• Build a team culture grounded in curiosity, rigor, deep user empathy – and fun!

What We're Looking For

• 10+ years of UX research experience in consumer-facing industries, with 4+ years managing and developing professional researchers across multiple levels.
• Proven track record of leading research across complex, multi-team consumer product portfolios with clear examples of research directly shaping product strategy and measurable outcomes
• Deep expertise across qualitative and quantitative research methods — able to set the methodological bar across a team, partner fluently with Data Science, and integrate quant and qual into a unified research strategy
• Ability to operate at both the strategic and craft level — setting research vision while holding a high bar for rigor and execution across the team
• Experience managing and mentoring highly senior ICs — able to establish clear roles and responsibilities, protect independent scope, and support researchers who are deeply embedded in product strategy and operating at a level that may match or exceed their manager's domain depth
• Demonstrated ability to do the organizational glue work: identifying when teams aren't functioning well, diagnosing root causes, and driving the interventions to fix it
• Confident, clear communicator who can represent research strategy at VP-level forums, influence without authority across product, engineering, design, and data, and present complex tradeoffs accessibly…