UX Researcher-Customery Discovery

About the Role

As a UX Researcher-Customer Discovery, you will focus on customer research and act as the voice of the customer within our internal startup incubation program. Your primary role is to ensure that every company we build is grounded in actual customer needs, motivations, and problems. Working closely with founding teams, UX designers, and product leads, you will define, test, and optimize the customer journey from initial discovery to problem resolution. You will bring a strong customer-centric mindset to the early stages of company creation, translating insights into clear guidelines that shape product strategy, experience design, and business decisions.

Your Responsibilities

• Plan and execute comprehensive customer research and testing strategies for early-stage ventures, including proper documentation and knowledge management.
• Design and conduct qualitative research (interviews, usability tests, surveys, analyses, focus groups) to uncover customer needs, pain points, and expectations.
• Develop qualitative test frameworks, test scripts, jobs-to-be-done, personas, and customer journeys.
• Summarize research findings into actionable recommendations.
• Be responsible for developing and implementing recruitment strategies to find and engage suitable participants for interviews and tests.
• Support UX designers with storyboards, early concepts, and rapid prototyping to validate business hypotheses.
• Champion design thinking in user-centered approaches, ensuring customer perspectives are consistently integrated into incubation workflows.
• Coach and support founding teams through workshops and hands-on sessions on customer discovery, market research, and customer empathy.
• Foster a culture of continuous learning, experimentation, and iteration driven by customer feedback.

Your Qualifications

• Successfully completed a degree in Innovation, Design and/or User Experience, Business Administration, or an equivalent vocational training. A Master's degree is a plus.
• Solid knowledge in Design Thinking and agile frameworks.
• At least 3 years of professional experience in a similar role, ideally in startups, venture studios, incubators, or innovation teams.
• In-depth knowledge of qualitative and mixed-methods research (e.g., interviews, usability tests, surveys).
• Enjoy supporting UX designers with rapid prototyping and have solid knowledge of prototyping and testing tools (e.g., Figma) as well as pitch deck design.
• Proven experience in moderating workshops and sessions, and coaching founding teams on customer-centric thinking.
• Flexibility, resilience, a positive attitude, and dynamic environments do not pose a challenge for you.
• Fluent English. Japanese language skills are a plus.

About Us

TDK Corporation, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global supplier of electronic solutions for a smart society. Based on its comprehensive material expertise, TDK drives societal transformation at the forefront of technological evolution. Founded in 1935 to commercialize ferrites, which are key materials for electronic and magnetic products, TDK's comprehensive, innovation-driven product portfolio ranges from passive components such as ceramic, aluminum electrolytic, and film capacitors to magnetic, high-frequency, piezo, and protection components. The product spectrum also includes sensors and sensor systems, e.g., temperature and pressure sensors as well as magnetic and MEMS sensors. Additionally, TDK supplies power supplies and power components, magnetic heads, software, and more. These products are marketed under the brands TDK, EPCOS, InvenSense, Micronas, Tronics, and TDK-Lambda.

TDK focuses on demanding markets in the fields of automotive, industrial, and consumer electronics, as well as information and communication technology. The company has development and manufacturing sites as well as sales offices in Asia, Europe, North, and South America. In fiscal year 2025, TDK achieved sales of USD 14.4 billion and employed approximately 105,000 people worldwide.

TDK Management Services GmbH (TMG) was founded in 2020 and is the global service provider for the TDK Group in the areas of Human Resources, Corporate Communication, and Corporate Marketing & Incubation. TMG is headquartered in Munich and is a German limited liability company with its registered offices in Munich and Duesseldorf.

Our Benefits in Munich

• Flexible working time models
• Collective agreement company
• Childcare