1

Design Researcher Jobs in Michigan (NOW HIRING)

* Plans, organizes, leads, and directs technical work related to product design and development ... Research, recommends, and implements or improves new and/or existing products, processes, materials ...

Plans, organizes, leads, and directs technical work related to product design and development ... Research, recommends, and implements or improves new and/or existing products, processes, materials ...

About the job Mercor connects elite creative and technical talent with leading AI research labs ... Electrical Engineering & RF/Circuit Design Expert Type: Contract Compensation: $70-$100/hour ...

New

Machine Design Engineer

Grand Rapids, MI · On-site

$43 - $50/hr

  • Medical

  • Dental

  • Vision

  • Life

  • Retirement

  • PTO

Job Title: Machine Design Engineer The Machine Design Engineer designs and develops custom ... Research, quote, and select appropriate components for automated equipment, balancing performance ...

Machine Design Engineer

Grand Rapids, MI · On-site

$43 - $50/hr

  • Medical

  • Dental

  • Vision

  • Life

  • Retirement

  • PTO

Job Title: Machine Design Engineer The Machine Design Engineer designs and develops custom ... Research, quote, and select appropriate components for automated equipment, balancing performance ...

Electrical Design Engineer

Portage, MI · On-site

$69K - $110K/yr

The role includes the full development process from research to product launch. * Design and develop electrical circuits and subsystems for medical devices. * Coordinate engineering changes and ...

Design Release Engineer

Pontiac, MI · On-site

$40 - $45.75/hr

... Research Assistant, or related role. OR Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Automotive Engineering, or related field, and three (3) years of experience as a Design ...

Design Release Engineer

Pontiac, MI · Hybrid

$40 - $45.75/hr

... Research Assistant, or related role. OR Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Automotive Engineering, or related field, and three (3) years of experience as a Design ...

Lead UX Researcher

Ann Arbor, MI · On-site

$163K/yr

  • Medical

  • Dental

  • Vision

  • Life

  • Retirement

  • PTO

Lead UX Researcher Role Summary: About the UX Team Come and join the Tax UX Research Team as we ... Other User-Centered Design (UCD) methods to develop user insights You have deep knowledge and ...

AI/ML Senior Researcher

Warren, MI · On-site

$92K - $117K/yr

AI/ML Senior Researcher - Smart Manufacturing Systems Research Group Who We Are The Materials ... A background in manufacturing systems and process design, smart manufacturing, digital twins ...

CAD Designer

Sterling Heights, MI

$25.25 - $34.75/hr

ASRC Federal Advanced Research is currently seeking a CAD Designer to support autonomy vehicle integrations in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Considering the state of the world today, military technical ...

Showing results 21-40

Design Researcher information

See Michigan salary details

$26.1K

$98.6K

$143.4K

How much do design researcher jobs pay per year?

As of Aug 13, 2026, the average yearly pay for design researcher in Michigan is $98,579.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $58,400.00 and $134,200.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a design researcher, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Design Researcher, you need strong skills in qualitative and quantitative research methods, user-centered design, and a relevant degree in fields such as design, psychology, or human-computer interaction. Experience with tools like usability testing platforms, survey software, and data analysis programs is highly valuable, and certifications such as UX Certification can enhance your profile. Exceptional communication, active listening, and problem-solving abilities set standout design researchers apart. These combined skills ensure that research findings effectively inform product decisions and result in solutions that truly meet user needs.

What are some common challenges faced by design researchers, and how do they overcome them?

Design Researchers often face challenges such as recruiting the right participants, balancing tight project timelines, and ensuring that research insights are integrated into the design process. Overcoming these hurdles typically involves collaborating closely with designers, product managers, and engineers, as well as advocating for the importance of user research within cross-functional teams. Being adaptable and maintaining strong organizational and communication skills can help navigate shifting priorities and ensure that research findings have a meaningful impact. Many organizations support ongoing learning and encourage Design Researchers to experiment with new research methods and tools, helping them grow in their roles.

What does a design researcher do?

A Design Researcher studies user needs, behaviors, and pain points to inform design decisions. They use qualitative and quantitative research methods—such as interviews, surveys, and usability testing—to gather insights. Their findings help teams create user-centered products and services that are both functional and enjoyable. Design Researchers collaborate closely with designers, product managers, and developers to refine and improve user experiences.

How much does a design researcher earn?

The average salary for a design researcher varies by experience and location but typically ranges from $60,000 to $100,000 annually. Entry-level roles may start around $50,000, while experienced professionals with specialized skills can earn over $120,000. Salaries often depend on industry, company size, and the research tools used.

How much do design researchers make?

Design researchers typically earn a median annual salary of around $70,000 to $100,000, depending on experience, location, and industry. Entry-level roles may start lower, while experienced professionals or those in senior positions can earn over $120,000. Skills in user research, data analysis, and familiarity with tools like UserTesting or Optimal Workshop can influence compensation.

What cities in Michigan are hiring for Design Researcher jobs?

Cities in Michigan with the most Design Researcher job openings:

Infographic showing various Design Researcher job openings in Michigan as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% Internship, 84% Full Time, 11% Part Time, and 4% Contract. Highlights an 85% Physical, 4% Hybrid, and 11% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $98,579 per year, or $47.4 per hour.

Life Sciences Experience Design Strategy Manager

Deloitte

Detroit, MI • On-site

Full-time

Re-posted 11 days ago


Deloitte rating

8.2

Company rating: 8.2 out of 10

Based on 92 frontline employees who took The Breakroom Quiz

45th of 150 rated financial services


Job description

Position Summary

The Experience Design Strategy Manager is a client-facing consulting leader who delivers experience design strategy engagements for Life Sciences clients. This role combines experience design strategy, digital product fluency, consulting execution, and Life Sciences commercial knowledge to help clients improve patient, provider, and business outcomes. The manager works across strategy and delivery to turn research, data, and business needs into actionable experience solutions. 

Recruiting for this role ends on August 31, 2026

Work you'll do

This role is ideal for someone who is equally comfortable shaping experience vision and driving cross-functional execution through launch and adoption. You will work across strategy, design, product, and engineering to ensure concepts become real, measurable solutions, used by patients and/or providers in production. 

As a Manager, you will be responsible for:

  • Leading engagements that define experience and product strategy for Life Sciences clients across patient services, user engagement, and commercial operations 
  • Partnering with client commercial, digital, and patient services leaders to define and deliver experience strategies and products that meet patient and provider needs and drive business outcomes. 
  • Translating business and user challenges into structured design strategies, insights, product visions, roadmaps, release priorities, and measurable outcomes 
  • Connecting experience strategy to digital product delivery by aligning design intent with epics, features, user stories, MVP definitions, and delivery plans that product and engineering teams can execute 
  • Partner closely with product, engineering, data, and business stakeholders to move from concept through build, launch, and iteration. 
  • Guide teams in prioritization, trade-off decisions, dependency management, and release planning to drive delivery with speed and clarity. 
  • Understand which AI-enabled tools and modern ways of working can accelerate research synthesis, concept development, and product planning and champion usage. 
  • Managing client relationships, facilitating working sessions, and overseeing scope, timelines, risks, and dependencies across design workstreams
  • Supporting practice growth through proposals, solution shaping, workplans, and team coaching
  • Champion and advocate for the role of design both with clients and while coaching and developing teams

A successful candidate would possess these skills:

  • Ability to stretch from framing ambiguous business problems through roadmap definition, build planning, launch through close collaboration with design, product and engineering leaders 
  • Agile product delivery practices to align user value, business value, and technical feasibility throughout execution. 
  • Experience overseeing roadmap creation, backlog shaping, prototyping, MVP scoping, and release planning. 
  • Strong executive storytelling and team leadership 

The Team

An evolving customer and regulatory landscape, mounting pipeline of next-gen assets and portfolio pressures, and intensifying competition are presenting new organizational and operational hurdles for Life Sciences companies. These complex market dynamics are requiring new levels of rigor and insight in experience strategy, digital product design, and patient-centered solutions, both domestically and globally.

We are looking for practitioners who will work alongside Life Sciences organizations, from biotechnology firms to global big pharma to medical device companies, to drive business value through end-to-end delivery of experience design strategies that connect human insight to commercial impact.

Qualifications

Required:

  • 6+ years in experience design strategy, service design, or human-centered design in a commercial or digital environment
  • 6+ years of experience working with Life Sciences commercial teams in patient services, customer engagement, or commercial operations
  • 6+ years of experience in the US Life Sciences ecosystem, including patient journeys, healthcare provider engagement models, and commercial operating environments
  • 6+ years of experience in digital product design and delivery, including product management, roadmapping, user story development, and agile delivery
  • 6+ years of experience leading design-led innovation processes including but not limited to conducting or leading design research/user interviews, journey mapping, service blueprinting, and/or concepting
  • 1+ years of experience using artificial intelligence tools in day-to-day workflow
  • Ability to travel 30%, on average, based on the work you do and the clients and industries/sectors you serve.
  • Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship, now or at any time in the future.

Preferred:

  • Experience presenting recommendations and deliverables to executive stakeholders
  • Experience managing engagements involving multiple stakeholder groups across design, commercial, digital, and product functions
  • Experience using data, analytics, and artificial intelligence-enabled tools in consulting, strategy, or product delivery
  • Experience working with product, engineering, and technology teams to translate design strategies into delivery plans
  • Experience supporting proposals, solution shaping, or workplan development
  • Experience coaching or developing cross-functional teams including practitioners with design, strategy, and/or product skillsets

Life Sciences Experience Design Strategy Manager

Position Summary

Throughout the health ecosystem, you'll find courageous and inspiring people who are committed to driving transformation, advancing access to healthcare, and leading a well-being revolution. Where you find innovators committed to sustainable progress, you'll find Deloitte's Life Sciences & Health Care practice. Our leaders work side-by-side to orchestrate and deliver on the business of science and health. We bring trusted, flexible approaches that help foster innovation, harness new technologies, and formulate consumer-driven strategies to engineer a digitally enabled, equitable future of health.

Recruiting for this role ends on August 31, 2026

Work you'll do

The Experience Design Strategy Manager is a client-facing consulting leader who delivers experience design strategy engagements for Life Sciences clients. This role combines experience design strategy, digital product fluency, consulting execution, and Life Sciences commercial knowledge to help clients improve patient, customer, and business outcomes. The manager works across strategy and delivery to turn research, data, and business needs into actionable experience solutions.

As a Manager, you will be responsible for:

  • Leading experience design strategy workstreams across patient services, customer engagement, and commercial operations for Life Sciences clients
  • Partnering with client commercial, digital, and patient services leaders to define and deliver human-centered experience strategies tied to business outcomes
  • Translating business and user challenges into structured design strategies, insights, and deliverables grounded in research and data
  • Connecting experience strategy to digital product delivery by aligning design intent with product roadmaps, user stories, development priorities, and implementation needs
  • Managing client relationships, facilitating working sessions, and overseeing scope, timelines, risks, and dependencies across design workstreams
  • Supporting practice growth through proposals, solution shaping, workplans, and team coaching
  • Champion and advocate for the role of design both with clients and while coaching and developing teams

A successful candidate would possess these skills:

  • Ability to work independently and collaborate as part of a team
  • Effective written and verbal communication skills
  • Meticulous attention to detail and quality of work product
  • Ability to build and sustain professional relationships
  • Ability to lead projects or workstreams
  • Ability to manage and prioritize multiple tasks in a fast-paced and dynamic environment
  • Strong interpersonal skills and professional demeanor
  • Ability to meet deadlines
  • Ability to mentor and provide clear guidance to others

The Team

An evolving customer and regulatory landscape, mounting pipeline of next-gen assets and portfolio pressures, and intensifying competition are presenting new organizational and operational hurdles for Life Sciences companies. These complex market dynamics are requiring new levels of rigor and insight in experience strategy, digital product design, and patient-centered solutions, both domestically and globally.

We are looking for practitioners who will work alongside Life Sciences organizations, from biotechnology firms to global big pharma to medical device companies, to drive business value through end-to-end delivery of experience design strategies that connect human insight to commercial impact.

Qualifications

Required:

  • 6+ years of experience in experience design strategy, service design, or human-centered design in a commercial or digital environment
  • 6+ years of experience working with Life Sciences commercial teams in patient services, customer engagement, or commercial operations
  • 6+ years of experience in the US Life Sciences ecosystem, including patient journeys, healthcare provider engagement models, and commercial operating environments
  • 6+ years of experience in digital product design and delivery, including product management, roadmapping, user story development, and agile delivery
  • 6+ years of experience leading design-led innovation processes including but not limited to conducting or leading design research/user interviews, journey mapping, service blueprinting, and/or concepting
  • 1+ years of experience using artificial intelligence tools in day-to-day workflow
  • Ability to travel 30%, on average, based on the work you do and the clients and industries/sectors you serve.
  • Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship, now or at any time in the future.

Preferred:

  • Experience presenting recommendations and deliverables to executive stakeholders
  • Experience managing engagements involving multiple stakeholder groups across design, commercial, digital, and product functions
  • Experience using data, analytics, and artificial intelligence-enabled tools in consulting, strategy, or product delivery
  • Experience working with product, engineering, and technology teams to translate design strategies into delivery plans
  • Experience supporting proposals, solution shaping, or workplan development
  • Experience coaching or developing cross-functional teams including practitioners with design, strategy, and/or product skillsets

The wage range for this role takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs. The disclosed range estimate has not been adjusted for the applicable geographic differential associated with the location at which the position may be filled. At Deloitte, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is $163,400 - $322,100.

You may also be eligible to participate in a discretionary annual incentive program, subject to the rules governing the program, whereby an award, if any, depends on various factors, including, without limitation, individual and organizational performance.

This position is aligned with the Core Talent Model. To view the associated benefit package, please reference this document https://resources.deloitte.com/:b:/r/sites/dnet-tod-us/Shared Documents/Benefits/USBenefitsJourneyCDandETAM.pdf?csf=1&web=1&e=pKjS1C.

#Customer_US

#CSD_US

Qualifications:

Position Summary

The Experience Design Strategy Manager is a client-facing consulting leader who delivers experience design strategy engagements for Life Sciences clients. This role combines experience design strategy, digital product fluency, consulting execution, and Life Sciences commercial knowledge to help clients improve patient, provider, and business outcomes. The manager works across strategy and delivery to turn research, data, and business needs into actionable experience solutions. 

Recruiting for this role ends on August 31, 2026

Work you'll do

This role is ideal for someone who is equally comfortable shaping experience vision and driving cross-functional execution through launch and adoption. You will work across strategy, design, product, and engineering to ensure concepts become real, measurable solutions, used by patients and/or providers in production. 

As a Manager, you will be responsible for:

  • Leading engagements that define experience and product strategy for Life Sciences clients across patient services, user engagement, and commercial operations 
  • Partnering with client commercial, digital, and patient services leaders to define and deliver experience strategies and products that meet patient and provider needs and drive business outcomes. 
  • Translating business and user challenges into structured design strategies, insights, product visions, roadmaps, release priorities, and measurable outcomes 
  • Connecting experience strategy to digital product delivery by aligning design intent with epics, features, user stories, MVP definitions, and delivery plans that product and engineering teams can execute 
  • Partner closely with product, engineering, data, and business stakeholders to move from concept through build, launch, and iteration. 
  • Guide teams in prioritization, trade-off decisions, dependency management, and release planning to drive delivery with speed and clarity. 
  • Understand which AI-enabled tools and modern ways of working can accelerate research synthesis, conc...

What Deloitte employees say

Pay

Benefits

Hours and flexibility

Workplace

Get the full story on Breakroom