UX Researcher

CivilGrid is the trusted civil design platform powering affordable infrastructure renewal and growth. We give utilities, civil engineers, and municipalities a single, collaborative source of truth for what's underground so teams can plan, design, and build faster, smarter, and safer.

Our platform consolidates utility records, geotechnical and environmental data, paving moratoriums, and jurisdictional requirements directly from 3,000+ utilities, agencies, and municipalities with full chain-of-custody documentation. Teams at PG&E, Mark Thomas, and dozens of leading engineering firms use CivilGrid to cut research time by up to 88%, reduce project costs, prevent dig-ins, and accelerate delivery on the projects that keep communities running.

We're a venture-backed Series A startup tackling a $4.7T US infrastructure market that has been underserved by software for decades. Founded by industry insiders, each with 10+ years in utilities and civil engineering, we move fast, ship work that matters, and stay close to the customers and field teams we build for.

As a UX Researcher at CivilGrid, you'll be the voice of the customer inside our product organization. Our users - civil engineers, GIS teams, and field crews - make high-stakes decisions based on what our platform shows them, and we need someone who can get close to those workflows and turn what they learn into product direction. You'll partner with PMs, designers, and engineers across the product org to plan and run research, and help the team build habits around talking to customers regularly, not just before big launches.

This role reports to the Head of Product. It is a hybrid role with expectations that you are working from our Boston, MA or San Francisco, CA office at least 2 days per week if hired.

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  Plan and run qualitative research - interviews, contextual inquiry, usability testing - to understand how customers plan, scope, and execute civil design projects

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  Partner with PMs and designers early in the process to shape the right questions before design and engineering time is spent

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  Synthesize findings into clear, actionable insights and share them in a way that changes minds and shapes roadmap decisions

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  Run usability testing on in-progress designs and prototypes, and help teams iterate quickly based on what you learn

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  Build a lightweight, repeatable research practice, including templates, a shared research repository, and a regular cadence of customer conversations across the product team

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  Support quantitative research where useful, such as surveys, usage data analysis, to complement qualitative findings

• 3–5 years of experience in UX research, at least some of it in a B2B or technical product environment

• You can run a full study independently - recruiting, discussion guide, moderation, synthesis - with light oversight

• You're comfortable turning messy, qualitative input into a clear point of view that a PM or engineer can act on

• You can talk to a civil engineer or field technician about their workflow and ask good follow-up questions, even without prior industry background

• You default to fast, focused research, knowing that a handful of good customer conversations this week beats a large study next quarter

• Strong written and verbal communication - you can present findings to non-researchers without jargon

• Bonus: experience researching for technical, spatial, or mapping/GIS-based products

• Bonus: prior industry experience in Utilities, Construction, or Civil Engineering

• Bonus: experience setting up a research practice or repository from scratch at an early-stage company

We're a small, but rapidly growing team that ships. Expect direct feedback, real ownership from day one, and proximity to customers — huge utilities, public agencies, and engineering firms whose work depends on what we build. We default to in-person collaboration where it matters and remote-friendly flexibility otherwise. We hire people who care deeply about their craft and the communities our customers serve.