Staff Product Researcher

Role overview

Staff Product Researcher at Nelnet Business Services (NBS). You’ll be a founding research seat, turning product questions into actionable evidence. You’ll lead end-to-end research, define NBS’s research process and standards, and build an AI layer that enables a small team to deliver at a high scale.

Responsibilities

• Lead research end to end: user interviews, usability testing, focus groups, surveys, and mixed-methods studies (plan, recruiting, moderation, analysis, and reporting).
• Choose the right research approach based on decision needs and risk—know when quick feedback is enough vs. when a full study is warranted.
• Build AI research capability: create/refine agents that draft study plans, synthesize results, and produce reports; support autonomous research when human-in-the-loop isn’t required.
• Set standards and scale templates: produce reusable, high-quality templates (surveys, study plans, test plans, reports) for consistent use by humans and agents; define best practices.
• Mine signals from internal data: use Pendo and review call transcripts, support data, and qualitative/quantitative feedback to surface trends that shape the roadmap or trigger deeper research.
• Get into the field: travel to partner schools for a few days to conduct interviews, focus groups, and feedback sessions with teachers, staff, administrators, parents, and board members.
• Partner cross-functionally: collaborate with marketing, operations, sales, product strategy, and design to translate insights into product, roadmap, and UX decisions.
• Own research data collection and retrieval: work with data governance to store research data so teams can find past studies and findings.
• Communicate and present findings to teams and leadership to drive confident decisions.

Requirements

• 5+ years in applied research (product, UX, or academic).
• Hands-on with the full range of research methods, including:
  • interviews
  • usability testing (moderated/unmoderated)
  • contextual inquiry
  • surveys
  • focus groups
• Experience owning every stage of research: study design, recruiting, moderation, analysis, and reporting.
• Strong quantitative aptitude and comfort with behavioral analytics (not only qualitative research).
• Excellent presentation skills for both peers and executives.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.
• Willingness to travel to partner schools.

Preferred

• Master’s or PhD in Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science, Psychology, Statistics, Anthropology, or a related field.