User Experience Researcher

e&e is seeking a Senior User Experience Researcher for a remote contract opportunity in Harrisburg, PA!

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior User Experience Researcher to design and lead discovery and usability testing sprints that identify opportunities to improve the experience, efficiency, and workload of caseworkers operating under new eligibility and compliance requirements. This role focuses on uncovering operational pain points across federally funded benefits programs and producing actionable research artifacts that inform a prioritized roadmap for automation and modernization. The Senior User Experience Researcher will serve as the voice of the user, partnering closely with product, design, development, and program teams to ensure insights are translated into production-ready enhancements. This is a hands-on role requiring deep domain expertise in benefits delivery environments and user-centered design practices.

Responsibilities:

• Lead end-to-end UX research initiatives including discovery sprints, usability testing, contextual inquiry, interviews, shadowing, and observation of frontline staff.
• Analyze current systems, workflows, data flows, and caseworker processes to identify inefficiencies, pain points, and opportunities for innovation.
• Develop detailed journey maps, personas, user stories, service blueprints, and other research artifacts to support product and engineering teams.
• Translate research findings into clear, actionable recommendations and a prioritized roadmap of automation and modernization opportunities.
• Collaborate with project managers, product owners, designers, developers, and program leadership to support implementation of approved changes.
• Represent the voice of the user by building strong, trusted relationships with stakeholders across business, technology, and program operations.
• Facilitate workshops and design sessions to build alignment and validate concepts with cross-functional teams.
• Communicate complex findings in a clear, compelling manner to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Support iterative, agile delivery models by continuously validating solutions through testing and feedback loops.

Requirements:

• Minimum of two (2) years of professional UX experience designing and researching products, platforms, or services at scale.
• Demonstrated experience delivering technology solutions for federally funded programs such as SNAP, Medicaid, TANF, or Unemployment Insurance.
• Deep technical expertise in UX research methodologies and user-centered design practices.
• Proven success designing products based on research-driven insights.
• Experience across the full UX lifecycle, including information architecture, low-fidelity and high-fidelity design, design systems, accessibility prototyping, and usability research.
• Strong ability to build alignment with diverse stakeholders in complex, public-sector environments.
• Experience leading UX or product design for a major product, platform, or service.
• Hands-on experience working within iterative or agile development methodologies.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to convey complex concepts clearly and influence acceptance of findings and recommendations.