Michael Oliver

Beginning as the inaugural UX researcher at my first company, Higher Logic LLC, I established robust research methodologies and championed a user-centric ethos. After leveraging my background in advanced statistics to develop a single-score benchmarking metric that became a default product feature, I discovered a passion for integrating data science techniques with UX research methods to address foundational and strategic research questions.

This experience paved the way for my subsequent role at the industry-leading technology company, GitLab Inc., during the transition from startup to post-IPO. There, I seamlessly integrated my mixed-methods skills with existing enterprise-level teams and processes. In an initiative to elevate the collective skills of the UX Research team, I introduced the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework into my research designs and created numerous guides and templates to support future research.

On my journey to becoming a complete product researcher, I am committed to acquiring any necessary skills and adopting relevant frameworks to comprehend users and the surrounding market. This demand-side thinking has proven to be an invaluable asset to my stakeholders and will undoubtedly continue to generate unique insights in the future.