Jobs: E-Commerce UX Auditor (2022)

Are you good at analyzing UX on websites using heuristics? Do you like discussing the smallest of UX details?

Help shape the e-commerce experiences of some of the largest sites in the world.

We’re seeking full-time remote UX Auditors for our auditing team.

Baymard Institute is an independent e-commerce UX research organization – beyond conducting our own large-scale research studies for Baymard Premium, we also conduct client-specific work in the form of ‘UX Audits’.

The Job

As a UX Auditor, you will be responsible for conducting client-specific UX audits, 90% of the job will be:

Analyzing the UX of some of the world’s largest e-commerce sites – this is performed as an extremely detailed heuristic evaluation using a proprietary system and workflow, where Baymard’s research catalog of 700+ e-commerce UX parameters is used as the weighted heuristic (anchoring the audit in solid UX research).
Identifying and prioritizing findings for the client site into a set of suggestions for improvement.
Writing it all into a 50-150 page report and presenting it to the client in a 2-hour video conference call.

Depending on your qualifications, other roles will be possible over time.

Qualifications

We’re looking for the following qualifications for this role:

(7/7) Firm understanding of UX and user behavior – in this role, you will not conduct usability testing yourself with end-users, but rather be performing heuristic evaluations – analyzing the UX of a website across Baymard’s 700+ parameters/heuristics. This will require a firm understanding of UX and user behavior. Having experience with performing usability testing (remote or in-person testing) will be a plus (but is not a strict requirement).

(6/7) Finding attention to detail exciting – in each audit, we analyze the client site across 700 UX parameters, each of these 700 parameters then has 4-7 defined implementation nuances the audit must account for. This requires an extreme level of attention to detail and excitement for exploring the smallest of UI nuances of a site. Our best auditors know all 700 parameters, and most of the nuances within, by memory.

(5/7) Rigor over time – while the typical audit project lasts just around 2 weeks (and you’ll, therefore, work for a new and interesting e-commerce site roughly every 2nd week) – the auditing process itself and the underlying UX research dataset doesn’t change that much. So the UX Auditor role requires that you have a high degree of stability and will find it exciting to look for the same set of 700+ e-commerce UX nuances all year round (although obviously applying that dataset to a very wide variety of sites and clients).

(4/7) Ability to communicate UX in writing – the primary deliverable for an auditor is the 50-150 page audit report. As the audit report relies on the foundation of Baymard’s vast catalog of UX research findings, but at the same time is a bespoke consulting project – you as an Auditor have to be good at accurately describing complex flows and user behaviors in writing. The audit reports are often read by a team with diverse backgrounds (managers, UXers, designers, and developers) – they all need to understand the described UX issue in just 4 paragraphs of text.

(4/7) Comfortable with client presentations – while audits are never presented in-person at the client offices (due to global clients and somewhat short projects), the audit report deliverable is always followed up with a 2-hour conference call where you will be sharing your screen, walking the client through the audit report and key findings. Prior experience with client meetings and an ability to (correctly) answer general questions on anything related to e-commerce UX will be a plus but is not a requirement. Full fluency in spoken English is a requirement; other language skills is a plus.

(2/7) Good understanding of web-jargon – being able to describe the differences between ‘auto-complete’, ‘auto-fill’, and ‘auto-correct’ on the spot will be a necessity when presenting and discussing your findings with a diverse set of clients.

Each of the above qualifications is weighted, 7 is the highest.

(Note that this is not a UX Designer or a UX Researcher job. At Baymard, we don’t perform any kind of client design work. If you are looking for a UX designer role, this role is not for you. If you are looking for a job where you will be performing a lot of direct usability testing with end-users, this role as a UX Auditor is not for your either (but do sign up for our job alert as we do hire UX Research Writers from time to time).

Other Job Specs

Salary: in accordance with qualifications, but typically in the range of USD 40,000-65,000 per year / EURO 35,000-54,000 per year before taxes, contributions, etc. and with 25 days of annual paid time off (invoiced as a contractor - except for UK and IE residents where we are a registered employer).
Start date: as soon as possible.
Location: this is a remote full-time position.
Language: we expect you to be fully proficient in written and spoken English.
Travel: is limited; expect only 0-2 weeks of travel each year (pending COVID restrictions).

How to Apply

If you’re interested in this position, please apply by sending all of the following documents:

A cover letter – describing how you fit the role and qualifications — and a link to your LinkedIn profile. (1-2 page PDF. Required)
A resume – describing your background and past experience. (PDF. Required)
Record a 1-2 minute video where you quickly present yourself. (Required)
Any samples or other documents; for example, heuristic evaluations you’ve performed, UX related articles you’ve written, designs you’ve created, etc. (Optional)

We don’t have an open UX Auditor position open right now, but we usually hire 2-6 UX Auditors per year. To be notified about future positions at Baymard, then sign up for our job notification email (1-click unsubscribe + only 1 text e-mail per job posting).

Tip, if you want to prepare the best possible consider:

reading our audit sales page,
watching this video explaining Baymard’s research and audit approach,
familiarizing yourself with our UX Benchmark database,
reading the “work values” section at the end of this page.

Sincerely,
Christian Vind & the audit team at Baymard Institute

Referral bonus

If this job isn’t you, but you know someone who’ll be the perfect fit, please send them the link to this page. If we end up hiring the person you referred, we’ll give you a 1 year access to a Baymard Premium ‘Medium’ plan (normally $1560/year).

Key Work Values at Baymard

Our entire team works remotely, but once a year, we all get together for a meetup. The first image is from Iceland, where one of the activities was snowmobiling on glaciers. Second, is oyster hunting in a Danish tidal sea, catching 240 oysters in 12 minutes.

The following work values are central to us at Baymard and hopefully gives you an idea of our culture and what working at Baymard is like:

Flat organization – Baymard is a small organization of just ~35 people. This means zero management layers between you and the final decision. You’ll have direct access to and impact on decision making.
Lots of responsibility – From day 1 (OK, maybe day 2), you will be working on final products or services. We believe the best way to learn is to work on actual products and challenges, supplemented with rich early feedback.
Long-term focus – Decisions are always based on their long term impact. We’re not interested in hunting after the next “quick win” — we want to make a lasting impact on the e-commerce industry and usually adopt a 5-year perspective in our decisions and projects.
Remote from the ground up – 100% of the team works remotely. We’ve deliberately designed the organization around remote work. That said, we do bring the entire team together for a week once a year somewhere interesting in the world.
Team of ‘subject matter’ nerds – Everyone geeks out a bit on their work interests. We love that, and once a week someone from the team does a 20min presentation on their latest obsession — whether it’s quasi-quantum-worlds or the proper usage of hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes.
Founders engaged in the product – We believe it is essential that those orchestrating the work of the organization are keenly in tune with all aspects of it. The two founders of Baymard have therefore performed every type of task in the organization themselves (from programming to UX testing), and continue to work directly on the product.
Flexible hours – beyond ensuring availability for meetings and a few hours of daily overlap with your colleagues, you are largely free to plan your own workweek. E.g. we have some that take 2-hours break midday and then instead work in the evening, or only work half a Tuesday and then always work half a Saturday.