Director, Research and User Intelligence, Premium and Travel

Company: Capital One
Location: Mc Lean
Posted on: April 2, 2026

Job Description:

Director, Research and User Intelligence, Premium and Travel Capital One’s Experience Design (XD) organization is focused on co-creating memorable, meaningful customer and associate experiences that build our brand with humanity and drive business advantage. The goal of Experience Design Research (XDR) is to accelerate teams’ learning velocity – providing product teams with the user knowledge they need to design and deliver useful and usable experiences. You will provide learning velocity through a structured and systems-oriented combination of primary research, quantitative analysis, and various data inputs – creating cumulative user intelligence. You will also configure agentic models to enable rapid concept testing, usability testing, and in-market assessments. You will partner closely with product and design stakeholders to ensure their learning needs are met and high-quality decisions are being made that benefit both the customer and the business. Role Expectations This leadership role requires mastery in human factors, digital product design, and quantitative data analysis. You have deep experience in triangulating, analyzing, and extracting insights from various sources of quantitative and qualitative data. Our Premium Products and Experiences team defines the gold standard for Capital One’s high-spender customer ecosystem, crafting personalized, high-stakes experiences that integrate seamlessly into our customers' lives. We are seeking a Research and User Intelligence Leader to oversee the end to end experience across our Travel, Concierge, Benefits, and Spend ecosystem. As the leader of this portfolio, you will set the insights direction that propels these experiences into their next frontier, delivering full-scale, industry-leading lifestyle products. Responsibilities: Build cumulative user intelligence: Generate, curate, feed, and maintain user intelligence to inform product and experience strategy Create and maintain research and testing agents: Configure agents to extract insights from existing intelligence, conduct interviews, and conduct testing of concepts, experience prototypes, and live experiences Build and maintain continuous discovery program: Make real and synthetic users available to product teams for discovery purposes. Enable Experience Measurement: Partner with CX teams and designers to establish domain-specific experience metrics, ensure instrumentation, develop dashboards, and conduct analysis to determine critical correlations Leadership competencies Results Focus: Works efficiently and effectively to achieve business critical outcomes Focuses on what matters and readily owns decisions Identifies opportunities for integrated thinking across teams and departments Continually pursues best possible results Executes well to achieve appropriate results Influence: Demonstrates personal leadership to achieve individual and team success Guides, motivates and inspires others to think differently and deliver results Knows how to navigate through the organization to get things done; utilizes formal and informal channels Anticipates and addresses concerns of others to build buy-in for recommendations and decisions Collaboration: Collaborates and partners within and beyond one’s team; builds productive relationships with others Is sought out by others for advice and solutions Places team goals above one’s own goals Seeks out and considers diverse points of view Communication: Conveys information in a compelling and inspiring manner Understands listener needs and appropriately tailors written and verbal communications Delivers appropriate, direct and straightforward information Creates understanding with two-way dialogue and checks others’ interpretation Basic Qualifications At least 5 Years in User Experience Research, Data Science, Customer Experience, or Product Management At least 5 years of experience aggregating, collecting, and analyzing quantitative data At least 2 years managing researchers, analysts, or data scientists At least 1 year experience leveraging AI tools (Gemini, NotebookLM) to accelerate insight creation Preferred Qualifications 7 Years in User Experience Research, Data Science, Customer Experience, orf Product Management 7 years of experience aggregating, collecting, and analyzing quantitative data 5 years managing researchers, analysts, or data scientists Expertise developing AI-enabled continuous discovery tools/programs Experience extracting insights from synthetic data/personas and building automated research workflows. Experience with performance management, career coaching, and attracting/hiring top talent. Exceptional communication skills; ability to influence senior executives Expertise in Human Factors, Statistics, Computer science, HCI, Psychology, Sociology, Information/Systems Architecture, Data Science, or Behavioral Economics At this time, Capital One will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization for this position. The minimum and maximum full-time annual salaries for this role are listed below, by location. Please note that this salary information is solely for candidates hired to perform work within one of these locations, and refers to the amount Capital One is willing to pay at the time of this posting. Salaries for part-time roles will be prorated based upon the agreed upon number of hours to be regularly worked. McLean, VA: $230,400 - $263,000 for Director, Design New York, NY: $251,400 - $286,900 for Director, Design Richmond, VA: $209,500 - $239,100 for Director, Design Candidates hired to work in other locations will be subject to the pay range associated with that location, and the actual annualized salary amount offered to any candidate at the time of hire will be reflected solely in the candidate’s offer letter. This role is also eligible to earn performance based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonus(es) and/or long term incentives (LTI). Incentives could be discretionary or non discretionary depending on the plan. Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial and other benefits that support your total well-being. Learn more at the Capital One Careers website . Eligibility varies based on full or part-time status, exempt or non-exempt status, and management level. This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days. No agencies please. Capital One is an equal opportunity employer (EOE, including disability/vet) committed to non-discrimination in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Capital One promotes a drug-free workplace. Capital One will consider for employment qualified applicants with a criminal history in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable laws regarding criminal background inquiries, including, to the extent applicable, Article 23-A of the New York Correction Law; San Francisco, California Police Code Article 49, Sections 4901-4920; New York City’s Fair Chance Act; Philadelphia’s Fair Criminal Records Screening Act; and other applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations regarding criminal background inquiries. If you have visited our website in search of information on employment opportunities or to apply for a position, and you require an accommodation, please contact Capital One Recruiting at 1-800-304-9102 or via email at RecruitingAccommodation@capitalone.com . All information you provide will be kept confidential and will be used only to the extent required to provide needed reasonable accommodations. For technical support or questions about Capital One's recruiting process, please send an email to Careers@capitalone.com Capital One does not provide, endorse nor guarantee and is not liable for third-party products, services, educational tools or other information available through this site. Capital One Financial is made up of several different entities. Please note that any position posted in Canada is for Capital One Canada, any position posted in the United Kingdom is for Capital One Europe and any position posted in the Philippines is for Capital One Philippines Service Corp. (COPSSC).

Keywords: Capital One, Annandale , Director, Research and User Intelligence, Premium and Travel, IT / Software / Systems , Mc Lean, Virginia