About Noon

At Noon, we believe in Student First in everything we do. That’s why we’ve built a global social learning platform that radically changes the way people learn, with the aim of positively impacting millions of students across the globe and bringing education to everyone.

Our open platform is loved by 10+ million students across 8 countries and is growing all the time – our aim is to radically transform the lives of 50+ million learners by 2023! Our students use Noon every day to engage with live interactive classes and gamified peer learning features, study with celebrity teachers, and compete and socialise with their friends.

We are a distributed company with a collaborative culture. We come from a diverse set of backgrounds and countries, enabling us to work at a global scale whilst bringing local impact by being a part of the communities we serve. As a fast-paced, innovative scaling business, our ability to learn at speed is powered by our obsession with our “student-first” culture that ultimately defines what we do and why we do it. Our principles: Student first, Never Deprive a Learner, Be Better Everyday, Be original, Own It & Be Bold. These values got us to where we are today, and they’re a big part of what we’re looking for in you.

What you will do

We’re looking for a Senior Design Researcher who can lead and inspire the design team and Noon in exploring and navigating uncharted territories on how learners could stay curious focused and engaged in achieving their academic goals and beyond. You'll advocate, guide, and structure a rigorous design research process to navigate the complexities of contextual qualitative and quantitative research.
Your work will encompass areas around exploring and defining what social learning means to our students, delivering rich learning experiences, and building social ecosystems. Your work will be pivotal to our students' day-to-day experience of our services, how they find and experience value and get the best learning experience they can. This role is attached to our London HQ and reports to design leadership.

What you'll bring to the role

• Practice experience: Deep experience in structuring research and leading teams through fieldwork, analysis of findings and insight development. Conducting open-ended interviews and in-context observations as part of a customer-centred design research approach is second nature to you
• Constant Explorer mindset: from leading research activities, planning and running design workshops to building your own processes and sets of tools to understand users needs, aspirations, and frictions. You're constantly looking for the ideal path connecting the dots between creative assumptions, user insights, and societal trends
• Empathy: A talent for getting respondents to open up to the team and in synthesising the results into actionable insights with “design energy” for our designers
• Problem-solving: You'll navigate the complexities of contextual qualitative research into problem spaces and business issues, always with a systemic lens
• Communication: You're a natural storyteller who knows how to tell the relevant stories that help the team understand and internalise the needs of our students and teachers
• Adaptability and pragmatism: You are flexible and understand that each team needs something different to succeed, and you have fluency in changing approaches and methods accordingly. You're thinking far outside the box
• Experimentation: You'll plan and articulate design experiments with clear hypotheses and outcome measures as part of an iterative approach to design.
  Data science: Help create a data-informed culture where the design team incorporates data into all phases of design work through active partnerships with product & analytics
• Craft: You help Noon seeing the big picture through a rigorous design research process and building shared knowledge of our users. You'll guide the design team in experimenting and identifying the best user path using prototypes at different stages of fidelity
• Team collaboration: Work with global and local teams to connect insights to design and create innovative features, services, spaces, interactions and experiences
• Stakeholder collaboration: Collaborate with stakeholders to shape strategic initiatives and incorporate research findings into all phases of product & design
• Design research tools: Identify and evangelise the appropriate tools in collaboration with engineering and product teams
  

About you

As we are building a brand new team here in London; we're looking for designers and researchers who are proactive problem solvers, who feel confident in navigating ambiguity and are driven to identify new horizons and opportunities. If you're the type of person who loves to think outside the box, jump into every design process stage, are enthusiastic about learning, co-creating new methods and processes, this could be your next adventure.

Essentials:

• Experience leading teams of design researchers as the owner of the quality of the insight output of your team to influence future product decisions
• Deep experience in planning and designing research activities to engage different teams and stakeholders with alignment workshops, co-creation sessions, and presentations
  
• Extensive expertise in core design research skills, including structuring research, fieldwork, conducting open-ended interviews, uncovering in-context observations, synthesising findings into actionable insights, prototyping to develop insights and influence product direction as part of a customer-centred design research approach
• A track record of getting respondents to open up to the team and in synthesising the results into actionable insights with “design energy” for our designers
• As a team leader, beyond day-to-day research activities, you'll help your team grow and, of course, have fun together :)
• Experience in working in fast-paced environments, building for consumer mobile on iOS and Android
• Expertise shaping design direction through rapid iteration, testing and evaluation.
  A track record of close collaboration with cross-functional partners, PMs, engineering, etc.

Nice to haves:

• Experience working in areas involving sharing and peer interaction
  
• Familiarity with tools such as Miro, Figma, Notion, Otter, Sprig, Descript, Typeform
• Experience building new consumer product offerings for social media, education technology, or multi-player/collaborative products
• Experience working on a global product and/or in international markets
• Knowledge of spoken and written Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Turkish is a plus

About the Benefits

You will be joining the world's first social learning platform where you can have a real impact in a smart, low-ego, multi-cultural team. We provide an environment where you can develop your skills and deliver meaningful work that matters. You’ll be able to enjoy a competitive salary as well as a full spectrum of generous perks and rewards:

• Not a morning person? No problem! We offer flexitime and a great work-life balance, including 2-3 days working from home per week
• 25 days annual leave and Christmas office closure days on top
• Generous pension scheme – Noon matches up to 5%
• Full premium Private Medical Scheme including Family cover
• Subscription to Perkbox
• Income Protection and Life Assurance to help you to protect your future
• Cycle to work scheme and commuter season ticket loan
• A well-stocked fridge, plenty of snacks (some healthy, some not so healthy)
• Regular social activities, including team outings in line with Covid-19 guidelines

Why work at Noon?

• The opportunity to work within an innovative start up in its initial stages and help shape our success globally
• Work with a team who believes in STUDENT FIRST, you will have an opportunity to build the first (BE ORIGINAL) Open Social Learning Platform that can impact millions of students across the globe
• A working environment where you can look at things differently and challenge and offer solutions and that also offers you a freedom to commit ‘n’ number of first time mistakes – NEVER DEPRIVE A LEARNER
• Complete ownership and responsibility for the success of your autonomous team across all scope of works – OWN IT and BE BOLD
• An opportunity to work with a bunch of Young, Smart, Driven, and Dynamic people who are committed to go BEYOND SELF and solve business challenges
• Work closely with the leadership team who live by the value of BE BETTER EVERYDAY to help grow an amazing organisation
• Help us to build the future of education!

About Diversity & Inclusion

At Noon, we respect and value differences. We know that when people from different backgrounds and with different points of view work together, we create the most value – for our clients, our people, and society. We’re so lucky to live in a society where differences are celebrated, so we’d expect nothing less from our teams. That means whatever your race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender, this is a place to feel at home, express yourself freely, and make your mark. Noon is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of age, disability, gender identity, marital status, race, colour, ethnicity, religion, sex, national origin, or sexual orientation. We aim to be truly representative of the world and for each and every employee to feel respected.