Staff Mixed Methods Researcher

The Staff Qualitative Researcher is Superbet's most senior practitioner of human-centred inquiry. This is a hands-on, high-output IC role. You are the person who knows how to get to the truth of a user's experience: their mental models, their anxieties, their unspoken expectations, their moments of delight and frustration. You will lead qualitative research across the most strategically important and ambiguous product questions Superbet faces - from understanding how new markets experience sports for the first time, to uncovering the emotional dynamics of live in-play gambling, to defining what responsible gaming actually feels like from a user's perspective. You will work closely with the Principal Quant Researcher and the Research Manager to ensure qualitative and quantitative evidence are always richer together than apart. You bring methodological mastery, creative curiosity, and the kind of presence that makes participants forget they're being observed and leaders believe you shape company wide narratives. You also bring a future positive mindset: you are actively integrating AI tools into your workflow to do more, faster, without sacrificing the depth that makes qual irreplaceable. You know when AI is helpful and when it is not and can help junior researchers make decisions around when to use them.

• Design and independently execute complex, multi-method qualitative research programmes spanning generative discovery, concept exploration, and evaluative depth - not just individual studies but longitudinal programmes of inquiry.
• Lead the most high-stakes and ambiguous research briefs: new market entry, new product category launches, trust and safety research, responsible gambling insights, and strategic bets where the organisation has the least existing evidence.
• Operate the full qualitative toolkit with mastery: semi-structured and unstructured in-depth interviews, contextual inquiry and ethnographic observation, diary studies and longitudinal panels, participatory design workshops, focus groups, co-creation sessions, and remote moderated/unmoderated studies.
• Own recruitment strategy end-to-end: define screeners, work with research ops and vendors, build proprietary panels where needed, and ensure participant samples are representative of the diversity of Superbet's user base across markets.
• Produce analysis that goes beyond surface themes: you apply systematic coding, grounded theory approaches, interpretive phenomenological analysis, or jobs-to-be-done frameworks - selecting the analytical lens that fits the question, not the one that's familiar.
• Lead the integration of AI tooling into Superbet's qualitative research practice - not as a replacement for human interpretation but as a force multiplier that increases throughput and analytical depth.
• Deploy LLM-assisted transcript analysis pipelines that handle first-pass thematic coding, anomaly flagging, and cross-participant pattern detection - freeing analyst time for higher-order interpretation.
• Use AI tools for rapid synthesis across large corpora of qual data: customer feedback, support tickets, app reviews, social listening, and interview transcripts - triangulating signals that would otherwise require weeks of manual work.
• Critically evaluate the output of AI-assisted analysis for bias, hallucination, and over-compression - maintaining methodological integrity while embracing efficiency.
• Build workflows and documentation that allow the broader team to use AI-assisted qual tools responsibly, and run training sessions that upskill colleagues on both the power and the limits of these tools.
• Translate raw qualitative data into insight frameworks that have a life beyond the single study: mental model maps, user need taxonomies, experience principles, and behavioural archetypes that inform multiple product teams over multiple quarters.
• Craft research deliverables that move people — not slide decks of quotes, but evidence-driven narratives that make stakeholders genuinely see the world through the user's eyes.
• Partner with the Principal Quant Researcher to design mixed-methods programmes where qual findings generate hypotheses that quant can test at scale, and where quant anomalies trigger qual investigation.
• Present research to senior and executive stakeholders with confidence and authority — you know how to hold the room, handle pushback on findings, and advocate for the user even when their experience is inconvenient for the business.
• Maintain a living qualitative insights repository: tag and cross-reference findings so that past research informs present decisions and the organisation's qualitative knowledge compounds over time.
• Set the qualitative methodological bar for the research team: review study designs, discussion guides, and analysis from junior and mid-level researchers - providing specific, developmental feedback that elevates their craft.
• Develop and maintain qualitative research standards documentation: best practices for moderation, coding, synthesis, and reporting that are practical, not theoretical.
• Act as a qualitative research community builder within Superbet: run internal workshops, share cutting-edge methods from the field, and make qualitative research legible and valued by non-research partners.
• Identify opportunities to democratise qualitative methods across Product and Design teams, building guardrails and templates that enable safe self-serve research without compromising rigour.

• 8+ years of UX research experience with a clear depth specialisation in qualitative methods - ideally with experience in both generative and evaluative contexts across the full product development lifecycle.
• Mastery of qualitative data collection: exceptional moderation skills across IDIs, focus groups, diary studies, ethnographic observation, and co-design facilitation.
• Deep qualitative analysis expertise: systematic thematic analysis, grounded theory, affinity diagramming at scale, IPA, and the judgment to know when interpretive depth is needed versus surface-level synthesis.
• Strong mixed-methods fluency: experience designing studies that integrate qual and quant, and the ability to have a credible technical conversation with quantitative researchers about their methodology.
• Demonstrated experience using AI tools in qualitative workflows - not just awareness, but real implementation with critical assessment of quality and validity.
• A track record of qualitative research that influenced major product or strategy decisions, with specific examples you can speak to in depth.
• Experience working across multiple markets or cultural contexts - essential given Superbet's multi-country footprint.
• World-class moderator: You have a gift for putting participants at ease and creating the conditions where genuine, unguarded truth emerges.
• Interpretive depth: You go beyond what users say to understand what they mean — and you can defend your interpretations with analytical rigour, not just instinct.
• AI-enhanced, not AI-dependent: You use AI to go faster and deeper, but your analytical judgement is irreplaceable and you know it.
• Generative thinker: You don't just answer the research question - you reframe it when necessary, spot adjacent insights the brief didn't ask for, and bring back richer evidence than expected.
• Empathy with edge: You care deeply about users and can advocate for them powerfully - but you're not naive.
• Cultural intelligence: You are sensitive to the ways that culture shapes how people talk about their experiences, and you adjust your research approach accordingly.
• Org Mover - Your research is not theory alone, you know how to make things tangible, bite sized and move people and work forward.
• Embrace difficult conversations - Driving research impact is as much about doing good research as it is about convincing people to see things your way.

• Competitive compensation at Staff IC level with equity and a genuine investment in your development as a researcher.