Director, UX Research & Customer Insight (San Francisco)

New York, New York, United States; Remote; San Francisco, California, United States; Seattle, Washington, United States

Headway’s mission is a big one – to build a new mental health care system everyone can access. We’ve built technology that helps people find great therapists with the first software-enabled national network of providers accepting insurance.

1 in 4 people in the US have a treatable mental health condition, but the majority of providers don’t accept insurance, making therapy too expensive for most people. Headway is building a new mental healthcare system that everyone can access by making it easy for therapists to accept insurance and scale their practice.

Headway was founded in 2019. Since then, we’ve grown into a diverse, national network of over 45,000 mental healthcare providers across all 50 states who run their practice on our software and have served over 1 million patients. We’re a Series D company with over $325m in funding from a16z (Andreessen Horowitz), Accel, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Spark Capital, Thrive Capital, Forerunner Ventures and Health Care Service Corporation.

We want your time here to be the most meaningful experience of your career. Join us, and help change mental healthcare for the better.

A bout the role:

As the Director of UX Research and Insight at Headway, you'll lead our mission to deeply understand the needs of mental health providers and their patients, transforming these insights into strategic decisions across every part of our business. This is a pivotal leadership role where you'll tackle complex questions spanning product development, marketing strategy, sales enablement, and customer experience, partnering with executives and cross-functional leaders to influence company-wide strategy and roadmaps. You'll build scalable research programs powered by modern tools and methodologies. Your team's work will directly impact thousands of providers and millions of patients seeking accessible mental healthcare while delivering insights with both velocity and rigor.

About the Research Team at Headway:

Research at Headway isn't only a support function. It's a strategic driver of our business. Our lean team has earned credibility through consistent impact on product development. Now, with an explicit executive mandate on building a customer centered company, we're seeking a leader who can scale our influence across the entire organization by accelerating how we collect, share, and drive action on customer insights while transforming how leadership engages in discovery efforts. You'll have the opportunity to build a research function that doesn't just answer questions but shapes the questions we ask, ensuring every major decision is grounded in deep customer understanding.

Core responsibilities include:

Team & Organizational Impact

• Lead and develop a world-class team of researchers with diverse expertise, including qualitative and quantitative research, UX research, market research, and clinical research, as well as program managers.
• Cross-functional leadership for cultivating customer centric culture and programs: Voice of Customers, Touch Grass, Dogfooding.
• Operational excellence in establishing repeatable team processes and forums to facilitate the sharing of insights.
• Balance different research and experiment methodologies to address business needs.
• Implement and oversee a centralized research repository for knowledge sharing.
• Establish scalable and foundational customer insight artifacts: including persona, JTBD, customer journeys, etc.
• Select and manage key research tools and platforms (UserTesting, Qualtrics, etc.).

Strategic Research Leadership

• Drive research initiatives that inform executive decision-making and product strategy with senior ICs.
• Translate business questions into actionable research plans
• Present impactful insights to leadership, highlighting strategic implications

You'll be a great fit if:

• You have 5+ years of experience as a people manager with a track record of building and leading high performing teams that have effectively delivered business outcomes through technical investments.
• You have 5+ years of experience as an IC researcher in a company with mature research practices.
• You are able to see things at a 300-ft view, while driving ground floor initiatives.
• You have a strong product mindset, having built strong cross-functional relationships that build trust with users and influence product strategy and roadmaps.
• You demonstrate executive presence and effectively communicates research value to C-suite and board-level stakeholders.
• You have experience driving Voice of Customer or customer sentiment measured programs.

The expected base pay range for this position is $255,000 - $300,000, based on a variety of factors including qualifications, experience, and geographic location. In addition to base salary, this role may be eligible for performance-based variable compensation and an equity grant, depending on the position and level.

We are committed to offering a comprehensive and competitive total rewards package, including robust health and wellness benefits, retirement savings, and meaningful ownership opportunities through equity. Compensation decisions are made holistically, ensuring fairness and alignment with market benchmarks while recognizing individual contributions and potential.

• Benefits offered include:
• Equity compensation
• Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage
• HSA / FSA
• 401K
• Work-from-Home Stipend
• Therapy Reimbursement
• 16-week parental leave for eligible employees
• Carrot Fertility annual reimbursement and membership
• 13 paid holidays each year as well as a Holiday Break during the week between December 25th and December 31st
• Flexible PTO
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Training and professional development

#LI-RJ1

We believe a team's strength is in its people, and we cannot achieve this mission without a team that reflects the diversity of this problem – across race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, national origin, religion, family status, disability, military status, and experience.

Headway is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, Headway will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided with reasonable accommodations. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please inform the recruiter when they contact you to schedule your interview.

Headway employees work remotely across the US, with the option to work from offices in New York City, San Francisco and Seattle. Headway participates in E-Verify. To learn more, clickhere.

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