Senior Manager, Research & Analytics

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

*Location for this role is onsite in Salt Lake City, Utah. Will consider candidates open to relocating*

The Senior Manager, Research & Analytics is a key leader in the organization, responsible for strengthening WGU’s research and analytics platform, outreach, and impact across our non-degree offerings. This is a key role that will support multiple facets of WGU’s mission, vision, and strategy.

This leader will support the production of actionable insights (through qualitative research, experimental research, descriptive analytics, and inferential analytics) that will allow WGU to better individualize the student experience to improve key student and staff outcomes. Projects will cover a range of topics including enrollment, marketing, engagement and interventions, curriculum, academic supports, business development, and other administrative and academic processes.

Successful candidates will have experience in managing a team of research scientists and data analysts with a focus in learning science, behavioral science and education psychology. They will have a desire to collaborate with other institutions and researchers, and to communicate insights to senior WGU leadership and external stakeholders. And they will be strategic in their vision and empathetic in their approach.  

Essential Functions and Responsibilities:

• Conduct business and inferential analytics that drive the organization forward in terms of knowledge and impact

• Partner with key stakeholders and leaders to understand their business challenges and opportunities, craft research/analytical solutions, and enable their teams to understand critical performance indicators and trends.

• Delegate work assignments and help ensure proper bandwidth allocation across team members.

• Provide mentorship and support to direct reports (i.e., project prioritization).

• Develop a training and development framework to ensure continual team growth.

• Responsible for the hiring, training, and development of research scientists

• Conduct qualitative and experimental studies to test critical research hypotheses in WGU On-Ramp and Certificate programs, with strong ownership over the full research lifecycle

• Establish processes to manage research projects, and to communicate actionable insights to internal and external stakeholders

• Represent WGU by presenting at relevant conferences.

• Develops and inspires a team of research and analytics professionals to do their best work, and fosters team collaboration and best practices.

• Ensures the timeliness, accuracy, and quality of reports and analysis.

• Provides technical guidance on research designs, analytic methods, and innovative tool sets.

• Fosters an environment that enables cross-functional feedback to team and stakeholders.

• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skill and Abilities:

• Deep knowledge of a field such as learning science, behavioral science, behavioral economics, education psychology, or related field.

• Skilled at managing and prioritizing multiple simultaneous projects, meeting deadlines, and managing stakeholder expectations.

• Proven experience participating in and collaborating with cross-functional teams and personalities successfully.

• Ability to develop and lead a fast-paced, dynamic team.

• Strong analytical skills, including experience with testing design, regression, tracking, and interpreting results.

• Results-oriented, with the ability to deliver results through strong team leadership.

• Expert ability to independently define and conduct original scientific research.

• Data manipulation using programming languages like SQL and Python.

• Data visualization skills using tools like Python and Tableau.

• Deep experience with qualitative and quantitative primary and secondary research methods.

• Proven ability to lead research projects including cost, resource, schedule management, compliance and reporting.

• Excellent written, oral, presentation, and interpersonal skills.

• Exceptional ability to communicate research results and key ideas to lay and scholarly audiences.

• Ability to be a subject matter expert and provide thought leadership in the field.

• Ability to thrive by working collaboratively and creatively in a fast-paced environment.

• Strong attention to detail and exemplifies pride and ownership over the quality of our learning experience.

• Ability to foster strong relationships within the team and external stakeholders

• Ability to build consensus and motivate others.

• Understand customer and market segments and cohorts.

• Ability to think strategically and understand how data helps with problem solving.

• Ability to use data and metrics to critically evaluate assumptions and outcomes.

Competencies: 

Organizational Impact: 

• Develops plan to accomplish division or job area responsibilities that align with department. 

• Performance may affect department results. 

• Work requires some knowledge of the University to recognize impact of decisions made.  

• Compiles data to prepare budgets. 

Problem Solving and Decision Making: 

• Responsible for making improvements of processes or systems to enhance performance of the job area. 

• Accountable for coordinating activities and maintaining relationships with internal (and occasionally external) parties.  

• Assignments received and problems faced are broad and undefined, and require use of analytical concepts, investigation, and knowledge from prior experience. 

Communication and Influence: 

• Communicates within job area and occasionally with external groups and external facing professionals (i.e. Admissions) 

• Communicates frequently with external groups on routine and more complex matters.  

• Ensures compliance with university policies and procedures within job area and may influence others outside of job area to justify and gain cooperation for policies, practices, and procedures. 

Leadership and Talent Management: 

• Manages a team of professionals. Manages the work of assigned employees and/or supervisors who generally exercise some latitude and independence in their assignments. 

• Ensures proper training of team members, and actively participates in hiring, firing, and promotion decisions. Conducts performance reviews and recommends salary reviews. 

• Primarily achieves goals through leading a team. 

Job Qualifications:

Minimum Qualifications:

• Master’s in a related field (e.g. Education, Psychology, Learning Science) or analytics discipline (e.g. Data Science; Behavioral Economics, etc.)

• 5 years’ experience in related research in the field of education or other human system experimental and quasi-experimental designs and qualitative research

• 7 years’ experience in the delivery of data to inform organizational decision making

• Demonstrated abilities in data visualization and data story telling

• 2+ years of prior experience managing cross-functional team

• Proven experience with qualitative and quantitative research

Preferred Qualifications:

• PhD in a related field (e.g. Education, Psychology, Learning Science) or analytics discipline (e.g. Data Science; Behavioral Economics, etc.)

• Demonstrated experience working with data in the higher education industry and familiarity with the standard KPIs used to measure student success

• Ability to adopt an agile mindset and address business needs with a keen eye towards the individual student and the big picture

• Experience with Salesforce, Tableau, Power BI, Databricks

• Prior experience in educational technology or related field

• Experience with coding languages used to cleanse, transform, and engineer data (SQL, Python, R, Scala, etc.).

• Proficiency with descriptive, inferential, and predictive statistics.

Disclaimer: This Job Description has been designed to indicate the general nature, essential duties, and responsibilities of work performed by employees within this classification. It does not contain a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications that are required of the employee to do this job.  Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice. This Job Description does not constitute a contract of employment and the University may exercise its employment-at-will rights at any time.

The salary range for this position 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.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:
 

How to apply: apply online

Full-time Regular Positions (FT classification, standard working hours = 40)

This is a full-time, regular position that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.

The University is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.