Experience Research Senior Specialist

Our Purpose Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re helping build a sustainable economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential. Title and Summary Experience Research Senior Specialist OVERVIEW We are excited to announce a new opportunity for an Experience Research Senior Specialist in our Experience Strategy and Research team, within the Customer Experience and Design team within Mastercard Foundry. The Mastercard Foundry - an interdisciplinary group, including CXD (Customer Experience and Design) teams, data scientists, technologists and more – is the new product development group of Mastercard, focused on de-risking and delivering new and differentiated customer-centric solutions. Our Experience Strategy and Research team, within Foundry, leads early-stage product innovation by uncovering customer needs, identifying opportunities, and translating insights into strategic direction for product and business teams. We operate across discovery, problem definition, and concept development, ensuring that new products and experiences are grounded in customer needs, market dynamics, and organizational objectives. We focus on de-risking key customer, product, and business assumptions throughout the product innovation lifecycle, while fostering a continuous learning culture that drives more informed decisions and accelerates innovation. ROLE The Experience Research Senior Specialist is a key member of the team who supports research initiatives that reveal deep customer understanding and de-risk emerging assumptions. This role partners with other experienced researchers and works closely with experience strategists, designers, product managers, and technologists to uncover evidence-based insights that guide product innovation from early discovery through validation of MVP and roadmap assumptions. The Experience Research Senior Specialist is an individual contributor who will be expected to support the design, execution and synthesis of research across diverse methodologies, including exploratory, generative, and evaluative research. These aim to uncover actionable insights to inform strategic decisions and derisk critical assumptions across the product development lifecycle. Key Responsibilities: Research Planning and Execution o Support the lead researcher or strategist in identifying and prioritizing the riskiest assumptions to subsequently de-risk o Support in choosing the optimal research approach and methodology to de-risk priority assumptions, taking into consideration business needs and project phase o Aid in the design and conducting of rigorous, mixed-methods research studies to uncover customer needs, motivations, behaviours, and pain points, across all phases of the product development lifecycle -- from framing the problem to testing and iterating concepts. o Help the lead researcher or strategist in defining research plans, goals and objectives, and develop recruitment screeners, discussion guides and surveys focused on testing assumptions, and informing actionable product and business decisions o Support in the partnering with third-party vendors to execute and scale research plans as needed. Analysis and Presenting Insights/Recommendations o Aid in the synthesis of qualitative and quantitative data into clear insights, opportunity areas, and actionable recommendations that inform product and business strategy. o Support the communication of research findings through compelling storytelling, presentations, and reports to senior stakeholders. Informing strategic outputs and outcomes o Collaborate closely with other researchers and strategists to transl ... (truncated, view full listing at source)