Applied AI User Researcher

At Maincode, we’re building intelligence that doesn’t just answer questions. It learns how people work, where they get stuck, and how to help them win.

We’re looking for an Applied AI User Researcher to uncover the next generation of AI-native products. Someone who sources their own participants, runs their own studies, and maps behaviour with clarity and conviction. Someone who has the muscle of field research, the mind of a systems thinker, and the obsession of someone who’s been playing with GPTs since day one.

This is not a behind-the-glass job. It’s boots-on-the-ground, no-buffer research. You’ll be embedded with AI engineers, product thinkers, and researchers. You’ll design and run studies end to end, surface insight that doesn’t show up in dashboards, and help invent tools that feel obvious once they exist.

What we’re looking for

We’re looking for someone who lives and breathes user research. Someone who’s run deep studies in high-complexity environments and still wants to get their hands dirty. You may have a PhD in HCI, cognitive science, anthropology, behavioural economics, or you may have just spent years mastering your craft in the wild. Either way, you are self-sufficient, field-tested, and impact-driven.

You know how to find the right participants, design sharp protocols, pull signal from noise, and turn research into product direction. You don’t just write reports. You build conviction. You influence what we build and why.

And most importantly, you’re obsessed with AI. You follow the field. You experiment with the tools. You notice what’s broken. And you’re drawn to the space between user intent and AI output, where friction lives and new products are waiting to be born.

What you’ll be doing

• Studying real users, like engineers, founders, researchers, traders, those who are already using ChatGPT, Claude, Replit, and other AI tools to do real work
• Recruiting participants and running scrappy but high-signal studies without a research ops team
• Designing exploratory probes to simulate future tools and test trust, feedback, and control
• Mapping friction points like prompt fatigue, tool-switching, context collapse, and hallucination hedging
• Surfacing behaviour patterns, decision strategies, and unmet needs that inform what we build next
• Collaborating tightly with product, engineering, and research to embed user understanding into every layer of the system

Who you’ll be working with

People who are doing the best work of their careers and want you to do the same. This is not a company of passengers. It’s a team of high-voltage thinkers, builders, and operators who believe that shipping is sacred, curiosity beats cynicism, and that the right people, in the right environment, at the right time, can do extraordinary things. We hold ourselves to a high bar, but we hold the mission higher.

How to apply

Our process starts differently. Before we look at your résumé or talk about your experience, we want to understand what drives you. That’s why the first step in our hiring process is a short video response to "It’s 2AM in the lab."

This isn’t a test. It’s a window into what matters to you. Take your time. Be honest. Show us what pulls you into the work and what keeps you up chasing it.

Once we receive your video, we’ll take it from there.

Before you apply

We hire through alignment, not just qualifications. The best way to understand how we think, how we build, and how we hire is to read our Principles. They are not decoration. They are how we work.

If they resonate, we’d love to meet you.