Lead Design Researcher

Company: Kodu
Apply for the Lead Design Researcher
Location: Droitwich Spa
Job Description:

The role

You’ll lead the design research discipline and run the work yourself: home visits, contextual inquiry, usability testing, concept validation and co-creation sessions. You’ll turn what you learn into opportunities, design principles and innovation roadmaps. You’ll sit alongside the industrial designers and advanced development engineers, and work closely with product management. A big part of the job is telling the story, so the business acts on what you find.

You’ll set the methods and standards from a near standing start. If you’re a senior researcher ready for your first lead role, this is a discipline to make your own.

What you’ll need

  • Proven experience leading design research on physical products, including going into people’s homes and watching them use what they own.
  • A track record of turning research into product direction, with a concept, feature or roadmap decision you can point to that came from your insight.
  • Confidence across mixed methods: ethnography, contextual inquiry and usability testing, plus designing a survey and reading quant data.
  • Experience working side by side with industrial designers and engineers, and presenting evidence well enough to change a senior stakeholder’s mind.

The details

  • Reporting to the Head of Industrial Design and Design Research
  • Working alongside industrial design and advanced development
  • Travel for in-home and field research
  • Commutable from Worcester, Birmingham and Cheltenham
  • Start: ASAP
  • 10% bonus, half personal and half company
  • Private medical insurance after six months
  • 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, with three more to buy
  • Pension, protection cover and free product after probation

What it isn’t

This isn’t a research team to inherit. You build the discipline from close to zero and run the home visits and workshops yourself. It isn’t screen-based UX either. It’s physical products, used in real homes. The innovation team is still taking shape, so expect loose briefs and fast cycles. And it’s four days a week on site in Droitwich, so be sure the commute works first.

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Posted: October 25th, 2026