UX Research Scientist

Meta Reality Labs (RL) is building AR and VR wearable hardware and software, where user experience depends on how people perceive, attend to, and control their movements in real-world contexts. As a UX Research Scientist, you will apply perceptual, cognitive, and motor control research to define, assess, and improve the form, function, and dynamics of these systems, translating evidence into measurable UX impact.

What you’ll do

• Design ergonomic, perceptual, or psychological research studies using appropriate methods, including experimental design
• Conduct critical literature reviews and apply psychophysical and attentional paradigms
• Use motion tracking and kinematics analysis, along with behavioral analytics, to support user safety and comfort
• Develop and track subjective and objective metrics for task quality across AR, wearables, and VR use cases, including inside the home, walking in public spaces, and driving
• Study how human multisensory interactions, attention, and control dynamics affect performance and safety in AR/wearables/VR tasks
• Analyze rich, multidimensional datasets by building descriptive and analytical models and turning findings into actionable insights
• Communicate outcomes and insights from studies effectively to stakeholders
• Support decision-making and specifications development for RL hardware and software products
• Partner with leadership, research, and product stakeholders to align on product needs and priorities while advancing UX goals
• Leverage expertise in human perception, cognition, and motor control to enhance hardware and software dynamics
• Create novel metrics to investigate emerging challenges involving sensors, displays, and wearable device form factors
• Break down ambiguous problems and apply research methods that may include design of experiments, critical literature reviews, threshold detection, visual and cognitive attention paradigms, biomechanics and ergonomics, and safety research approaches
• Drive measurable product engineering and development outcomes using research-derived metrics
• Collaborate across multi-disciplinary hardware and software teams throughout the product design and development life cycle
• Extend research capability beyond assessment to measurable user experience improvement for RL products

What you’ll bring

• PhD in Perceptual/Cognitive/Experimental Psychology or Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, Kinesiology, Human Factors, Biomechanics, or a closely related scientific or engineering field
• Demonstrated scientific background in human perception, cognition, or motor control, with experience analyzing relevant human behaviors in novel systems
• 5+ years of experience in experimental design, behavioral analysis, literature review, and proficiency with inferential statistics
• Proven track record of rigorous scientific research, including metric development and novel scientific approaches
• Experience communicating research findings in writing and presentations to technical and non-technical stakeholders and collaborating cross-functionally to influence product decisions

Preferred qualifications

• Training and experience in basic and applied research techniques, such as psychophysical judgment tasks, perception-response time paradigms, eye tracking, body motion tracking, postural stability measures, and human motor control and kinematics analysis
• Ability to integrate AI tools to optimize or redesign workflows and drive measurable impact (for example, efficiency gains or quality improvements)
• Experience evaluating product safety, quality, or usability across realistic use contexts
• Experience researching emerging consumer technologies, AR/VR/MR, wearable technology, or driver assistive technologies
• 2+ years of experience conducting research for novel products headed to market
• Demonstrated ongoing AI skill development (for example, prompt/context engineering and agent orchestration) and staying current with emerging AI technologies
• Experience adhering to and implementing responsible, ethical AI practices (for example, risk assessment, bias mitigation, and quality and accuracy reviews)

Compensation and benefits

• $122,000/year to $181,000/year plus bonus, equity, and benefits
• Individual compensation is determined by skills, qualifications, experience, and location
• The posting reflects base hourly rate, monthly rate, or annual salary only, excluding bonus, equity, and sales incentives (if applicable)
• Meta also offers benefits

Location: Burlingame, CA (onsite)