Principal UX Researcher

About The Trade Desk

The Trade Desk is a leading global technology company specializing in independent digital advertising platforms. With almost 4,000 employees spread across 30+ offices worldwide, our technology empowers advertisers to target the right audiences across the open internet—from streaming TV and podcasts to mobile, news, and other digital channels. We believe advertising supports quality content, trusted journalism, and creative endeavors, and we aim to advance this ecosystem through transparency, responsibility, and effectiveness.

Role Overview

We are expanding our dynamic UX team, composed of experts from top companies including Blizzard, Amazon, and Google, who are passionate about crafting elegant, user-centered design solutions. As a Principal UX Researcher based in London, you will lead cross-functional research initiatives that influence products affecting advertisers, publishers, and consumers. You’ll bring innovative methods, collaborate deeply with product and business teams, and shape a research practice with wide-reaching impact.

Key Responsibilities

• Steer research efforts spanning multiple product domains, partnering with product owners, design and engineering leads, plus business stakeholders.
• Manage strategic research projects from initial ideation through post-launch evaluation and refinement, integrating qualitative and quantitative insights.
• Lead and mentor a team of UX researchers, offering guidance and coaching to enhance team capabilities.
• Deploy creative research tactics by leveraging client and business relationships, scaling efforts via external vendors and secondary research as appropriate.
• Collaborate with business teams and clients to glean insights into needs and pain points, improving end-to-end user journeys.
• Drive product strategy by defining metrics, championing research-driven decision making, and generating novel understanding of user behavior and business impact.
• Present research findings effectively across the organization, developing creative ways to disseminate insights broadly.
• Contribute to building research infrastructure and operational excellence, including program development and tool evaluation.

Desired Qualifications

• Over 12 years of experience conducting user research within a technology-focused environment.
• Proven leadership in guiding research programs to deliver strategic, high-impact outcomes using diverse research methodologies.
• Ability to synthesize multiple data sources to extract actionable insights that are valuable and pragmatic for the business.
• Strong advocacy skills for embedding research and data-informed decision-making across teams and senior stakeholders.
• Comfortable working autonomously in complex or ambiguous contexts and resourceful in overcoming constraints creatively.
• Exceptional storytelling skills to communicate findings compellingly to varied audiences, including executives.
• Deep enthusiasm for research with up-to-date knowledge of current trends, best practices, and tools.
• Experience in B2B and ad tech sectors is a significant advantage.

Additional Information

The Trade Desk is an equal opportunity employer committed to inclusive hiring based on merit, competence, and performance, without discrimination against protected characteristics. We welcome applications from all backgrounds and provide accommodations during the hiring process upon request (contact details provided in the original posting). We do not accept unsolicited resumes from recruitment agencies.