Staff UX/Product Researcher

About Strava

Strava is the app for active people. With over 180 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 build and lead the end-to-end research program for Community Engagement + Trust & Safety. This is a crucial part of the Strava experience and mission, as the Community Engagement + Trust & Safety teams seek to foster and protect what makes Strava special: a welcoming, authentic community where Strava members support each other. We build the systems and experiences that keep our platform safe, connected, inclusive, and inspiring for our global community of 150+ million users. 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 generally translates to around half your time on-site in our San Francisco office —roughly three days per week, with occasional travel to Denver.

What You’ll Do:

• Build and lead the research vertical for Trust & Safety and Community Engagement, guiding Strava towards best research practices in this area, thought leadership and implementing a high degree of sophistication in this area.

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

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

• 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.

What You’ll Bring to the Team:

• Strong product thinking and leadership:

• Able to connect dots across multiple product and business areas (such as policy, partnerships, legal, etc) and infuse the Trust & Safety expertise required for digital social platforms such as Strava. This role has an additional focus on Community Engagement, which will require an ability to uncover and prioritize user needs from diverse community ecosystems (like Strava running clubs) and markets.

• 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’s needed to achieve it. We need an experienced researcher that can influence and lead, has a clear POV, a high degree of expertise and experience - able to challenge the status quo when necessary.

• A balance of creative and analytical skills with the ability to proactively define research questions, identify appropriate methods, execute studies, and synthesize findings. Experience with conducting research with teens and young adults is a plus.

• A proven record of experience working in the field of Trust and Safety, with a priority for products that include Social, Community and User Generated Content. You will be establishing this field of research at the company, and will bring new research methods 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.

• Excitement and love for the Strava product, business and most importantly, our mission: to motivate people to live their best active lives. We believe in the power of movement to connect and drive people forward.

• 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 scrappiness and fast pace approaches when necessary.

This Role Requires:

• 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 in the field of Trust & Safety, both in house and with external agencies or university partnerships.

• 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.