Senior Research, Innovation Designer

Responsibilities

As a Senior Innovation Research Specialist, you will function as the strategic foresight hub and intellectual catalyst for the design organization. Your core mandate is to monitor and interpret global advancements in technology, evolving socio-cultural paradigms, and emergent design movements—translating these complex insights into actionable, future-oriented design strategies, conceptual frameworks and design experiences. This ensures Avatr’s design vision remains both pioneering and distinctively differentiated in a competitive landscape.

Key responsibilities include:

1. Strategic Trend Intelligence & Synthesis• Systematically monitor, analyze, and synthesize macro-level trends across artificial intelligence, advanced materials, human-centered interaction, sustainable systems, and adjacent domains—including socio-cultural shifts, lifestyle evolution, and aesthetic sensibilities.• Conduct in-depth comparative analysis of user experience patterns, behavioral drivers, and market dynamics—not only within the automotive sector but also across convergent industries such as consumer electronics, fashion, architecture, and mobility services.• Author rigorous, evidence-based research reports and deliver structured knowledge briefings to design leadership and cross-functional stakeholders, enabling insight-driven idealization and strategic alignment.

2. Future-Oriented Design Concept and Experience Development• Translate trend intelligence into coherent, salable automotive design concepts and experiences —including holistic design language systems, experiential archetypes, innovation and technology requirements, and human-centered interaction principles for next-generation mobility contexts.• Lead facilitated foresight workshops and collaborative ideation sessions to cultivate collective innovation capacity and explore plausible, desirable, and feasible futures for travel, interaction, and ownership.• Curate and sustain a living design intelligence repository—comprising annotated trend analyses, visual inspiration libraries, conceptual precedents, and methodological frameworks—to rigorously inform and elevate design decision-making across projects.3. User-Centered Insight Generation• Integrate mixed-method research (e.g., ethnographic inquiry, behavioral analytics, participatory co-creation, and longitudinal studies) to uncover latent user needs, evolving aesthetic values, emotional expectations, and unarticulated pain points among target segments.• Benchmark competitor design philosophies, product ecosystems, and brand positioning strategies against industry leaders and category disruptors; distill actionable insights on whitespace opportunities and sustainable differentiation levers.4. Integrated Strategy Enablement• Partner closely with Strategy, R&D, Product Management, and Marketing functions to embed design foresight into enterprise-level roadmaps—including technology investment priorities, platform development timelines, and go-to-market narratives.• Articulate research-derived insights as clear, prioritized, and implementation-ready design strategy recommendations—directly supporting critical decisions on design direction, feature definition, and brand expression.

Qualifications

1. Education and Professional Experience• Hold a bachelor’s or advanced degree (master’s or higher) in design strategy, industrial design, automotive design, product design, experience/interaction design, or a closely related discipline.• Possess a minimum of three years of professional experience in trend research, design research, experience design, or innovation strategy—ideally within consulting firms, research institutions, or industry-leading organizations, with preference given to candidates with exposure to the automotive, consumer electronics, or internet sectors.

2. Core Competencies• Demonstrated ability to identify, interpret, and contextualize emerging technologies and their strategic implications for product and service innovation.• Proven expertise in macro-level trend analysis, market research, and user-centered insight generation; proficient in both qualitative (e.g., ethnography, in-depth interviews, co-creation workshops) and quantitative (e.g., survey design, data analytics, scenario modeling) research methodologies.• Strong foundational knowledge of design thinking and practice, with particular familiarity with automotive or product design processes—this is considered a distinct advantage.• Exceptional analytical rigor, synthesis capability, and logical reasoning—evidenced by the consistent ability to distill complex, multidimensional information into actionable, evidence-based insights and strategic recommendations.• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, including demonstrated success in developing compelling proposals, delivering persuasive executive presentations, and translating technical concepts for diverse stakeholders.• Outstanding Story-telling and visualization skills, e.g. creating moldboards, animations and movies describing customer situations, user journey and experiences.

3. Personal Attributes• Intellectual curiosity coupled with a systems-level perspective and openness to interdisciplinary exploration.• Forward-looking mindset, creative problem-solving orientation, and capacity for imaginative yet grounded ideation.• Collaborative disposition and interpersonal effectiveness—able to build consensus, inspire cross-functional teams, and exert constructive influence across organizational levels.• Resilience and adaptability in high-velocity, ambiguous, and evolving work environments.