Job Feature: Kerstin Huang, Senior UX Researcher at Highspot

Kerstin is one of my friends from high school, and I’m so glad we have kept in touch over the years! She works in user experience research, and I definitely learned a lot from reading her responses!  Kerstin is one of the sweetest human beings, so if you have any questions, definitely reach out to her directly with the contact info at the bottom of the post!

Name: Kerstin Huang
Age: 26
City: Bellevue, WA
Company: Highspot
Title: Senior UX Researcher
Time at Company: 4 years (6 if you count my intern years haha)

How did you hear about the position and what was the interview process like?
Currently, I work as a Sr. UX Researcher at Highspot, which is a Sales Enablement platform aimed to increase marketing effectiveness and improve sales productivity.

I heard about the position when I was in college and got recruited via LinkedIn. I was a bit skeptical at first since it was a small startup with ~30 people and Sales Enablement was an emerging industry that I knew nothing about. After hearing the recruiter talk about the founders and the fast-paced growth, I decided to take a leap of faith and I’m so happy I joined!

Initially, I started out as their marketing intern and pivoted to UX Research after doing a UX Research internship elsewhere and since it aligned better with what I studied. Since I was an intern, I did not need to go through the interview process when transitioning to full-time. Though, for UXR positions at Highspot, the interview process is as follows:

• Recruiter screen
• 1:1 Interview with the Hiring Manager
• Final Round Interview loop that consists of:
  • Portfolio presentation with the UXR team
  • 1:1 Technical Interview with a UXR
  • 2-3 additional 1:1 interviews evaluating prioritization, collaboration, and leadership skills

When deciding to join full-time at Highspot, I received another offer from a previous company I interned at as well, so I was able to negotiate my offer a bit.

What past experience do you think helped you land your current role?
The Informatics program really helped set the foundation for having a strong understanding of research principles. In combination, having a marketing internship early on in my college career helped me build business acumen and allowed me to learn how to tie research and business impact.

What tasks does your job entail?
UX Researchers use a variety of quantitative and qualitative methodologies to answer 3 key questions across the product life cycle:

• What are the behaviors of our users?
• Does our product reflect our users’ mental models?
• Are we effectively resonating with our users?

I typically work closely with product managers and designers to uncover new opportunity areas where we can drive value for our customers and test new designs/concepts.

The day-to-day of a UXR can really differ based on the stage of the research cycle. A project can be as short as 1-2 weeks or as long as a month or two depending on the complexity of the project. When kicking off a project, you meet with the stakeholders to learn about the open questions they have and goals of the research study. Once you gather all the requirements, you develop a research plan that includes the objective, timeline, methodology, and questions you’ll ask as part of the study. After that, you conduct the study, which can be an interview, setting up a survey, gathering quantitative data, etc. Once the data is collected, you enter the analysis phase, which is my favorite part! You take all the data you’ve gathered and synthesize them into insights that you can share back to the team and help provide recommendations.

What are the skills needed to be successful at your job?

• Mixed Methods Researcher – It’s really important to be able to understand how to use a variety of methodologies both qualitative and quantitative. I come from a more qualitative background and recently had to learn how to use R and re-learn statistics.
• Storytelling – This is one of the most important skills that I don’t think many people think about. In order to have your research insights land with stakeholders and leaders, it’s important to be able to share findings in a concise and compelling way using frameworks, visuals, and clear wording.
• Collaboration – In research, you’re constantly collaborating with other product managers, designers, and other cross-functional partners. It’s really important to be able to build strong relationships and continuously communicate with them to keep them informed about research you’re conducting and share insights.

Who do you directly report to and does anyone report to you?
We have 5 researchers on the team and we all report to the Director of Product Insights.

Do you work from home, office, or hybrid?
I typically work from home, but will go into the office for workshops/brainstorm sessions. Highspot provides great work-life balance, so I usually work 40hrs/week and will sometimes have slightly longer weeks depending on how many projects I may be managing at once.

How many vacation days do you get per year?
We have unlimited PTO, a mental health day each quarter, and the week between Christmas and New Year’s off.

What do you do to help your work/life balance?
Over the years, I’ve learned to better manage my calendar by blocking out focus time and by only attending meetings where I feel like I can provide value. Another thing that has really helped me, is creating lists at the beginning of each week outlining everything I want to accomplish and by which day to help me stay on track for the week.

Also, I enjoy going to the gym or doing some form of workout after work to unwind from work and transition to my evenings, spending time with family/friends.

Have you been promoted at your current company and what do you think factored into your promotion?
I’ve been promoted to become a senior researcher during my time here and I think this was because I began to do things that were outside of my expected role like mentoring other researchers and helping develop processes for our team to scale.

What is your favorite part of your job?
My team and all the wonderful people I get to work with! I feel like I’m constantly learning and growing as a researcher.

What has been your proudest moment at your job?
One of my proudest moments was launching a research booth at our customer conference in London. It was great to be able to connect with our customers in EMEA and we were able to bring the research booth to our North America conference later that year where even more customers participated.

What’s the biggest lesson(s) you’ll take away?
From a research perspective, I learned the power of combining multiple data sources (revenue data, product analytics, and qualitative insights) to tell a story and uncover ways to provide business impact.

Any advice for people who want to work at your company or in your general field?
For those who want to get into research, I’d recommend becoming comfortable with both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. I started out being a qualitative researcher, but the industry is shifting towards needing to understand both and it’s really powerful to be able to combine qualitative and quantitative insights.

If people want to connect with you and learn more, how can they reach you? 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerstinhuang/
Instagram: @kerstinhuang
Email: kerstinchuang@gmail.com

Last Fast 5 with Kerstin Huang:

• Last tv show/movie: Succession (very excited about this season!)
• Last book: How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life by Russell Roberts
• Last concert: Tame Impala @ The Gorge
• Last restaurant: Water Grill, a new favorite!
• Last vacation you took: Bali & Thailand