Okay, I've searched for Staff UX Researcher contract roles in San Francisco, CA, with remote PST schedule, requiring expertise in mixed qualitative and quantitative research methods, and a Master's degree in Cognitive Science or related areas. I have found 73 positions for you.

Sure. Here's the analysis:

Job Analysis:

The Staff UX Researcher role is fundamentally about bridging the gap between sales operations and product strategy through rigorous, user-centered research. The successful candidate will be tasked with deeply understanding sales employees’ workflows, challenges, and needs—especially within CRM, lead management, and deal cycles—to inform AI-enhanced product developments aimed at optimizing seller efficiency. This position demands expertise in both qualitative and quantitative research methods, ensuring insights are data-driven yet human-centered. Success hinges on the ability to translate complex user data into compelling narratives that influence product roadmaps and stakeholder decisions. The role is collaborative, requiring strong cross-functional coordination with designers, product managers, and other researchers, yet demands autonomy to navigate ambiguous, fast-evolving environments. Mentorship responsibilities highlight the expectation for leadership within the research team, ensuring high-quality deliverables and advancing research practices. Overall, the job is less about routine tasks and more about strategic influence, making it essential for candidates to have both technical mastery and strong communication prowess. Key challenges likely include synthesizing diverse data sources, balancing exploratory and hypothesis-driven research, and driving adoption of research insights into product lifecycles within a complex sales context enhanced by AI innovations.

Company Analysis:

Russell Tobin, as part of Pride Global, operates within the competitive, fast-paced staffing and recruitment industry with a global footprint and a strong emphasis on diversity and inclusion. The company is positioned as a boutique staffing partner that prides itself on understanding client needs at a deep, organizational level, offering end-to-end recruitment solutions tailored to specific company cultures and strategic goals. For the Staff UX Researcher role, this environment suggests that the company values precise alignment between talent capabilities and client expectations—placing a premium on professionalism, adaptability, and strategic insight. The culture inferred is client-focused, diverse, and collaborative, likely with a dynamic pace given the importance of handling complex hiring needs across multiple industries. The role’s contracting nature and the requirement to work remotely in PST highlight flexibility but also underscore the need for strong self-management and communication skills to maintain alignment with various internal and client stakeholders. Being part of a minority-owned organization with a strong DEI mission suggests that embracing inclusive research practices and contributing to equitable product development could be highly valued, impacting how the researcher frames and communicates user experiences. This role is strategically aligned with helping clients—including internal stakeholders—enhance sales productivity through design-driven innovation, positioning the candidate at the crossroads of user insights and business impact within a thoughtful, diversity-forward organizational context.

Absolutely. Here are some mock interview questions that could come up:

• Behavioral: Tell me about a time when you had to advocate for user needs across multiple teams with differing priorities. How did you manage conflicting perspectives?
• Behavioral: Describe an experience where your research directly influenced a product decision or roadmap. What was your approach to ensuring stakeholders understood and bought into your findings?
• Behavioral: Can you share a situation where you had to navigate ambiguity in research goals or methods? How did you structure your approach to deliver meaningful insights?
• Behavioral: How have you mentored junior researchers or team members in past roles, especially in enhancing research methodologies or storytelling abilities?
• Technical: Walk me through how you would design a mixed-methods research plan to understand seller workflows in a CRM environment that leverages agentic AI.
• Technical: Which qualitative and quantitative research techniques do you find most effective for usability testing in sales productivity tools, and why?
• Technical: How do you integrate complex data analysis and storytelling to communicate research findings to non-research stakeholders like product managers and engineers?
• Technical: Describe your experience with sales workflows, lead management, and deal cycles. How have these informed your research frameworks or recommendations?
• Situational: Imagine you have conflicting research results from qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys regarding a new sales feature. How would you reconcile these insights and advise the product team?
• Situational: You notice a key stakeholder is resistant to adopting research-driven changes in the product roadmap. How would you approach this challenge to create alignment?
• Situational: Given limited time and resources on this 6-month contract, how would you prioritize research activities to maximize impact on seller workflows and AI innovation?
• Company Fit: What interests you most about working with a staffing and recruitment firm that has a strong focus on diversity and inclusion, like Russell Tobin?
• Company Fit: How do you see your approach to user research aligning with our company’s commitment to delivering tailored, culturally aligned staffing solutions?
• Company Fit: Russell Tobin emphasizes end-to-end partnership with clients. How would you ensure your research work supports both immediate project goals and longer-term strategic hiring needs?
• Questions for Interviewer: Can you describe how UX research insights have previously influenced product or service improvements in your sales organization?
• Questions for Interviewer: How does Russell Tobin support its contract researchers in staying connected with client teams and maintaining a sense of organizational culture remotely?
• Questions for Interviewer: What are the most critical challenges currently facing the sales product teams that this Staff UX Researcher role is expected to address?