Pay is based on several factors which vary based on position. These include labor markets and in some instances may include education, work experience and certifications. In addition to your pay, Target cares about and invests in you as a team member, so that you can take care of yourself and your family. Target offers eligible team members and their dependents comprehensive health benefits and programs, which may include medical, vision, dental, life insurance and more, to help you and your family take care of your whole selves. Other benefits for eligible team members include 401(k), employee discount, short term disability, long term disability, paid sick leave, paid national holidays, and paid vacation. Find competitive benefits from financial and education to well-being and beyond at https://corporate.target.com/careers/benefits.
About Us
Working at Target means helping all families discover the joy of everyday life. We bring that vision to life through our values and culture. Learn more about Target here.
Target UX is a group of design, content, research, and accessibility practitioners and experts with a passion for improving and innovating our digital experiences for Target’s guests, team members, and partners. Here, we pride ourselves on designing tangible, inspiring, and impactful solutions that serve all aspects of our business. Being part of the team means you will play a critical role in shaping Target’s digital experience through insight, creativity, and human-centered thinking.
About the role
As a Lead UX Researcher, Strategic Discovery & Human-Centered Design, you will help shape some of Target’s most important future opportunities by bringing a deeply human-centered and strategic approach to discovery. You will work before solutions are fully defined, helping leaders and teams understand where Target should invest, what problems are worth solving, and how emerging opportunities connect to real human needs.
This role focuses on helping teams move from ambiguity to alignment and from assumptions to evidence. Through research, experimentation, and discovery, you will uncover opportunities, reduce uncertainty, and help teams make better decisions. You will facilitate workshops, guide strategic conversations, and translate complex insights into clear opportunity areas, experience principles, and recommendations.
Success in this role requires strong partnership across UX, product, technology, business, strategy, and other insight teams. By connecting human understanding with business context and multiple sources of evidence, you will help create a more complete view of opportunities, risks, and future possibilities.
As new technologies and AI-enabled experiences emerge, you will help teams explore opportunities and evaluate concepts through a human-centered lens. You will apply new tools and methods thoughtfully while maintaining the judgment, ethics, and rigor that drive high-quality research.
As a member of the team, you will help strengthen Target’s culture of human-centered discovery. Beyond individual projects, you will mentor others, contribute to evolving research practices, and help teams build confidence in making decisions earlier in the product and experience development process.
Responsibilities
Lead strategic discovery efforts that help teams understand complex problems, identify opportunities, and make informed decisions.
Design and conduct research that reduces uncertainty and informs product, business, and experience strategy.
Facilitate workshops and working sessions that bring diverse perspectives together, create alignment, and help teams move from insight to action.
Translate research findings into compelling stories, opportunity areas, and recommendations that influence future direction.
Partner with quantitative researchers and other insight teams to connect human understanding with behavioral, operational, and business signals.
Use experimentation and rapid learning approaches to help teams test assumptions and explore future possibilities.
Apply AI-enabled research and discovery tools thoughtfully while maintaining research quality, ethical practice, and human judgment.
Contribute to the growth of Target’s research practice through mentorship, influence, and the development of reusable methods and frameworks.
Core responsibilities of this job are described within this job description. Job duties may change at any time due to business needs.
About You
7+ years of experience in UX research, design research, human-centered design, service design, experience strategy, or a related field.
Experience leading discovery work that helps teams understand complex problems, uncover new opportunities, and make informed decisions.
Exceptional communication, facilitation, and storytelling skills, with the ability to build alignment, influence decisions, and translate research into action.
Comfortable bringing together diverse perspectives and helping teams move forward when the path ahead is unclear.
Ability to connect human needs, business priorities, and multiple sources of evidence to create a holistic view of opportunities and risks.
Strong judgment and a thoughtful approach to experimentation, emerging technologies, and AI-enabled research practices.
Experience mentoring others and contributing to the growth of research and human-centered design practices.
Curious, adaptable, and energized by solving meaningful problems that do not yet have obvious answers.
This position will operate as a Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement based on Target’s needs. A Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement means the team member’s core role will need to be performed both onsite at the Target HQ MN location the role is assigned to and virtually, depending upon what your role, team and tasks require for that day. Work duties cannot be performed outside of the country of the primary work location, unless otherwise prescribed by Target. Click here if you are curious to learn more about Minnesota.
Benefits Eligibility
Please paste this url into your preferred browser to learn about benefits eligibility for this role: https://tgt.biz/BenefitsForYou_EAmericans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
In compliance with state and federal laws, Target will make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, please reach out to [email protected]. Non-accommodation-related requests, such as application follow-ups or technical issues, will not be addressed through this channel.
Application deadline is : 07/12/2026Skills Required
- 7+ years of experience in UX research, design research, human-centered design, service design, experience strategy, or a related field.
- Experience leading discovery work to understand complex problems, uncover opportunities, and inform decisions.
- Exceptional communication, facilitation, and storytelling skills to build alignment and influence decisions.
- Ability to translate research findings into opportunity areas, experience principles, and actionable recommendations.
- Experience partnering with quantitative researchers and connecting qualitative insights with business and behavioral data.
- Experience applying experimentation and rapid learning approaches to test assumptions and explore concepts.
- Thoughtful judgment and experience applying emerging technologies and AI-enabled research practices ethically and rigorously.
- Experience mentoring others and contributing to the development of research methods, frameworks, and practices.
- Comfort facilitating workshops and guiding strategic conversations across cross-functional teams.
Target Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Target and has not been reviewed or approved by Target.
-
Healthcare Strength — Health benefits are accessible to hourly team members at relatively low hour thresholds and include no‑cost, 24/7 virtual medical care and expanded mental‑health support. This breadth is positioned as a relative strength compared to typical retail offerings.
-
Retirement Support — Retirement programs include a dollar‑for‑dollar 401(k) match with immediate vesting and options like Roth 401(k) and stock purchase. These features strengthen long‑term savings for a wide range of roles.
-
Parental & Family Support — Family support includes paid family leave, backup care, and reimbursements for adoption and surrogacy. These resources complement paid time off and holidays for eligible team members.
Target Insights
What We Do
Target is an American retailing company providing access to a wide selection of products such as furniture, electronics, toys, and more. Target is one of the world’s most recognized brands and one of America’s leading retailers. We make Target our guests’ preferred shopping destination by offering outstanding value, inspiration, innovation and an exceptional guest experience that no other retailer can deliver. Target is committed to responsible corporate citizenship, ethical business practices, environmental stewardship and generous community support. Since 1946, we have given 5 percent of our profits back to our communities. Our goal is to work as one team to fulfill our unique brand promise to our guests, wherever and whenever they choose to shop.
