Staff UX Product Researcher - Route Discovery & Navigation

About Strava

Strava is the app for active people. With over 195 million athletes in more than 185 countries, it’s more than tracking workouts—it’s where people make progress together, from new habits to new personal bests. No matter your sport or how you track it, Strava’s got you covered. Find your crew, crush your goals, and make every effort count. Start your journey with Strava today.

Our mission is simple: to motivate people to live their best active lives. We believe in the power of movement to connect and drive people forward.

About This Role

The Research & Insights team at Strava paves the way towards making confident, user-centered decisions that help our business and product innovation expand. We turn signals into strategy by providing audience understanding, validating opportunities, and shaping experiences that help our users thrive and keep choosing Strava for all their fitness habits, needs and activities.

We are looking for a Staff Researcher to lead the end-to-end research program for Route Discovery and Navigation. This is a crucial part of the Strava experience and mission, as the Route Discovery & Navigation team solves one of our community's biggest challenges: finding great places to be active. Whether it's discovering popular local routes, planning the perfect training ride, or exploring somewhere new with confidence, we help our users spend less time planning and more time moving. You will partner with cross-functional partners, driving research that shapes product strategy and ensures decisions are informed by data and meaningful insights. You will be reporting directly to the Director of Research and Insights.

We follow a flexible hybrid model that translates to more than half of your time on-site in our Berlin, Germany office — three days per week.

What You’ll Do:

• In partnership with stakeholders and the research team, you will Identify, prioritize, and lead research roadmaps that have a tangible impact on company and product strategy, user satisfaction and business outcomes.

• You lead high-visibility research projects, collaborating closely with cross functional partners such as Design, Product Management, Data Science, Engineering, Marketing, etc.

• You identify best opportunities and practices for socialization of research insights, and forge high-trust relationships with colleagues, fostering collaboration and innovation. By doing so, you influence cross functional partners to act on research insights by providing clear, actionable recommendations and relevant business context.

• A proven record of working in satellite offices and international companies based in the US, and successfully partnering with stakeholders at all levels, with a high degree of flexibility, resourcefulness and independent operation.

• You’ll be heading up the Consumer Research function in our Berlin office, supporting three different product areas and representing the European region for our team, while paving the way for a full partnership with cross-functional teams onsite.

You Will Be Successful Here Because You Bring:

• Strong product thinking and leadership:

  • Able to connect dots across multiple product areas and think about Strava as a holistic product and experience. This is especially important for this role, given the significant product scope and regional + global ways of working.

  • Ability to inform and influence strategic direction and senior stakeholders, including exec level stakeholders.

  • Self-direction and initiative, experience and conviction to advocate for rigorous research and show the organization what that looks like and what is needed to achieve it. We need a researcher that can influence and lead, has a clear POV and is able to challenge the status quo when necessary.

• Ability to establish the research function in our Berlin office from the ground up, and execute a complete program of research work supporting a large, complex product area and stakeholders across all organizational levels.

• A balance of creative and analytical skills with the ability to proactively define research questions, identify appropriate methods, execute studies, and synthesize findings. Experience collaborating with Data Science and Analytics and conducting international research is a plus.

• Solid research toolkit and tools, as well as best practices that help us build and evolve a best-in-class research team in an organization that is hungry for a user-centered development approach, and is very supportive of the impact that research can have.

• Self initiative, clear POV, bias to action, and excitement and love for the Strava product, business and most importantly, our mission.

• Ability to pivot and be flexible, finding a balance between highly rigorous research with the realities of working in a late stage startup that requires scrapiness and fast pace approaches when necessary.
  

What You'll Bring to the Team:

• 6+ yrs of experience in product research and/or user experience (UX) research roles, with particular expertise and hands-on experience leading end-to-end research studies both in house and with external agencies.

• An advanced degree in psychology, social sciences, human-computer interaction, cognitive science, statistics, or a related field.

• A full range of a methodological toolkit that includes both qualitative and quantitative methodologies and solid research expertise.

• Exceptional communication skills, adept at translating data into actionable insights both verbally and in writing and expertise in data-driven storytelling, transforming raw data into compelling narratives and visualizations.

For more information on benefits, please click here .

Why Join Us?

Movement brings us together. At Strava, we’re building the world’s largest community of active people, helping them stay motivated and achieve their goals.

Our global team is passionate about making movement fun, meaningful, and accessible to everyone. Whether you’re shaping the technology, growing our community, or driving innovation, your work at Strava makes an impact.

When you join Strava, you’re not just joining a company—you’re joining a movement. If you’re ready to bring your energy, ideas, and drive, let’s build something incredible together.

Strava builds software that makes the best part of our athletes’ days even better. Just as we’re deeply committed to unlocking their potential, we’re dedicated to providing a world-class, inclusive workplace where our employees can grow and thrive, too. We’re backed by Sequoia Capital, TCV, Madrone Partners and Jackson Square Ventures, and we’re expanding in order to exceed the needs of our growing community of global athletes. Our culture reflects our community. We are continuously striving to hire and engage teammates from all backgrounds, experiences and perspectives because we know we are a stronger team together.

Strava is an equal opportunity employer. In keeping with the values of Strava, we make all employment decisions including hiring, evaluation, termination, promotional and training opportunities, without regard to race, religion, color, sex, age, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, physical handicap, mental disability, medical condition, disability, gender or identity or expression, pregnancy or pregnancy-related condition, marital status, height and/or weight.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.