AI UX researcher / analyst
Help us obsess over the small things: the moments where a clearer message, a friendlier error, or a smarter default turns a frustrated user into a partner. One part researcher, one part analyst, one part product instinct, embedded in the work that makes DegreeSight feel built for the people who actually use it.
Modernizing how higher-ed serves today’s students
DegreeSight is unlocking the legacy systems higher-ed runs on so colleges and universities can finally recruit, evaluate, and enroll transfer students at the speed today’s students actually move.
Who we serve
Colleges, universities, and higher-ed systems modernizing how they recruit, evaluate, and enroll transfer students.
What we build
An AI-powered platform that automates transfer credit evaluation, accelerates admissions, and drives enrollment growth.
Why it matters
Every clear answer we help an institution give is a student who enrolls, finishes a degree, and gets to write the rest of their story.
The craft we need help with
DegreeSight is growing fast, and as we grow the surface area of our product is expanding into corners that need real craft. The data flows are complex, the institutional workflows are messy, and the people who use what we build deserve a product that meets them with empathy, not friction.
This person sits at the intersection of two adjacent problems. Upstream: scoping, diagramming, and clarifying requirements so engineering builds the right thing. Downstream: obsessing over how it actually feels to use, the small things that normally get overlooked in data and integration features.
We’re not looking for a credential checklist. We want someone with a research instinct, technical fluency, and a stubborn refusal to let a confusing screen, a vague error, or a half-finished flow ship without a fight.
The shape of the work
Four overlapping responsibilities, one obsession with the details.
Research & Discovery
- Run user interviews, surveys, and discovery calls with the registrars, advisors, and IT leaders who use DegreeSight day-to-day.
- Translate qualitative insights into prioritized findings the Product team can act on.
- Build a living understanding of our users’ broader workflow, the world DegreeSight fits into, not just the moments inside our app.
- Identify the small, recurring frictions that don’t make it into bug reports but quietly erode trust.
Systems design & diagramming
- Map current-state and future-state flows for client-facing and internal systems: integrations, data pipelines, advising journeys.
- Diagram complex requirements into something engineering can build and stakeholders can sign off on.
- Facilitate scoping conversations with cross-functional stakeholders to clarify intent and surface assumptions.
- Maintain documentation that stays accurate as the product evolves.
Product quality & craft
- Champion the small things, from error messages and empty states to copy, defaults, and edge cases.
- Partner with Product, Engineering, and Design to raise the floor of the experience, especially in the unglamorous corners.
- Define and track quality signals: confusion rates, support deflection, time-to-success.
- Bring an Apple packaging sensibility to features that are usually shipped to just work.
Cross-functional translation
- Sit between users, Product, Engineering, and Customer Success, translating in every direction.
- Help engineers understand what the user is actually trying to do, and help users understand what’s technically possible.
- Run lightweight usability tests on flows in development before they ship.
- Contribute to product strategy from a place of informed empathy, not opinion.
The shape of the candidate
Instincts over credentials. Here’s what actually matters.
Must-have
- A research instinct. You naturally want to talk to users, watch them work, and ask why until you actually understand.
- Comfort with ambiguity and a habit of clarifying it with diagrams, journey maps, and structured documentation.
- Technical fluency: you can read SQL, reason about APIs and data flows, and hold your own with engineers.
- Strong written communication. Your synthesis is what unblocks decisions.
- An eye for craft: you notice the things other people don’t, and you’re bothered by half-done details.
- Comfort in a hybrid role with shifting priorities at a small, fast-moving company.
Nice-to-have
- An MIS, HCI, Information Science, or related degree, or equivalent self-taught experience.
- Background at a startup, or genuine excitement about the messiness of an early-stage product team.
- Exposure to AI, automation, or data-product UX: Zapier, Workato, n8n, Retool, Airtable.
- Familiarity with higher-ed, SIS systems (Banner, Colleague, PeopleSoft), or institutional data.
- Hands-on with research tools (Dovetail, Maze, UserTesting) and diagramming tools (FigJam, Whimsical, Lucid).
- You’ve been called the person who cares about the small things at every job you’ve had.
A 30 / 90 / 180-day arc
How we’ll know it’s working.
30days
You’ve embedded with our users, sitting in on calls, shadowing workflows, and building a first-pass map of the journeys our partners and their students actually live in. The team trusts your synthesis and is starting to make decisions with it.
90days
You have your first complete journey map and your first round of craft improvements have shipped. Engineers and PMs have started routing scoping conversations through you. You’ve identified the top quality investments worth making next.
180days
You’re the trusted craft and research voice across Product. Your work has measurably improved a key product surface. Stakeholders reach for you when something needs to be understood deeply. The craft instinct is now part of how the team ships.
A place where craft and mission actually meet
Be part of a mission-driven company transforming how higher education works.
Work directly with Product and Engineering at the heart of how DegreeSight gets built.
Build the documentation and analytical foundation that scales the company.
Remote-first team that takes ownership and craft seriously.
Apply for this role
Send your resume and a brief note about why this role and this mission pull you in. We read every application.
An online application form is coming soon. For now, email is the fastest path.