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Goldman Sachs
You cannot build strategic research without first building a team that believes in its own value
Growing a High-Performing Research Team in an Engineering-Led Organisation
Case Study - People
2020-2023
How I transformed a small, undervalued research group into a confident, multi-disciplinary team trusted by product and engineering leadership across a 13k engineer organisation
A story about building trust, developing people, shaping culture, and creating the foundations for research to have real influence
MY ROLE
Executive Director / Global Head of User Research, Core Engineering
SHOWCASING
Team growth · multi-disciplinary capability · OKRs · onboarding · servant leadership · practice development
Why This Work Mattered
Goldman Sachs wanted to improve the experience of its 13k engineers to attract and retain top talent. That meant better tools and platforms, but also understanding what engineers actually needed from their environment.
The Developer Experience (DevX) research programme generated one of Goldman Sachs Engineering’s richest employee datasets, particularly through the annual DevX survey, where the scale of collected data increased year-on-year.
But this data lived solely within the research team.
If research was going to influence decisions at scale, we needed more than good projects - we needed a strong team and a clear identity.
There was a belief that research could help. But the research function was small, stretched, loosely-defined, and not especially visible.
This was about building a research team that could earn trust in an engineering-led culture.
The Before Picture
When I stepped into leadership, we’d moved away from embedded, tactical work into a more strategic DevX remit, as research was struggling to show value and get further investment.
And when our MD-level research leader left, the firm removed the backfill and created a vacuum at precisely the level where strategy and investment were decided.
3 senior researchers across London / New York
No research ops or specialist roles
No junior pipeline or onboarding structure
No stable operating rhythm
Very little visibility -> limited trust
No seat at senior leadership table
Without senior sponsorship or an established operating model, we were at risk of being busy without being seen as essential.
If I wanted this team to be credible and impactful, I had to start with the foundations: people, structure, and clarity.
The Challenges
We needed to win trust, demonstrate strategic value, and show that research could influence engineering at scale. But many factors were against us.
Cultural challenges
Engineering culture dominated decision-making
Research was poorly understood
Many teams didn’t see research as necessary unless they had worked with research previously
Limited cross-functional trust with PMs and designers, who were still earning their own seat at the table
Organisational challenges
No mandate for research; we had to create one
Limited recognition of research’s strategic potential
No research voice in MD/Partner conversations
No way to scale beyond 3
Team challenges
Distributed team (even more so with each new hire)
No operational backbone: intake, tooling governance, participant recruitment, workflows
Researchers working incredibly hard but unable to see impact
No shared standards, no knowledge base, no growth pathways
The Turning Point
Very early on, I realised our biggest barrier wasn’t capability — it was visibility and trust.
We didn’t need another process or framework.
We needed clarity of purpose, a voice in the right rooms, a sense of team identity, and an operating environment that respected the craft.
If I wanted the organisation to take research seriously, I first had to build a team that took itself seriously, with structure, support, and psychological safety.
The biggest unlock wasn’t “doing more research.” It was building a team that understood its own value, had a shared purpose, and could operate with confidence and consistency in a complex environment.
What I Did
1. Built a multi-disciplinary research organisation
Grew from three isolated senior ICs to a balanced team of nine across six cities — adding survey science, research ops, behavioural data science, a growth pipeline, and people leadership.
2. Introduced a world-class onboarding system (built by the team, sponsored by me)
Created space for a researcher to lead a structured onboarding program: pre-start touchpoints, curated intros, 30/60/90 plans, shadowing, and deep dives.
3. Practised servant leadership grounded in trust
Used Radical Candour’s “Three Conversations” to understand each person’s motivations, aspirations, and needs — building psychological safety as a foundation for performance.
4. Created coherence and shared purpose through team OKRs
Co-created annual OKRs across insights, stakeholder understanding, team development, maturity building, and scalable operations - giving our global team a shared story and identity.
5. Built firm-wide capability uplift
Together with the other senior ICs, I supported development of three foundational training courses, 15+ knowledge base articles, and governance foundations. I also secured annual specialist training budget for every researcher, to ensure continued skill development while working in a firm that didn't have any UX-specific career pathing in place.
6. Rebuilt research’s presence at senior levels
Earned invitations to town halls, MD/Partner meetings, and strategic discussions. Protected and increased research budget. Restored credibility and trust.
How things shifted
Research evolved from a group of isolated ICs into a trusted global organisation with identity, shared rhythms, and strategic presence.
The team gained visibility, influence, and conditions needed to do the best work of their careers.
Impact
Team grew from 3 to 9 people, with clear roles, complementary skills, and shared goals
Researchers felt more confident in their value and more supported in their development
Onboarding became smoother and more intentional, reducing ramp-up time for new hires
Significant improvements in morale and psychological safety
Better cross-team collaboration
Greater autonomy and strategic involvement
Ability to set and defend boundaries
Cohesive team identity and culture
For Stakeholders
Research was increasingly seen as a strategic partner rather than a service for usability tests or validation.
Product and engineering teams had access to a more capable and responsive research function
PMs and engineering leaders understood how and when to involve research
Increased trust in insights and recommendations
Faster, clearer decision-making
Higher appetite for strategic, upstream work
For the Firm - Culture & Strategy
Our research practice became a recognised part of how Core Engineering understood and improved its internal user experience
Credibility increased with senior engineering leadership
Platform/product teams embedded research into roadmap decisions
DevX research and experience measurement framework gained strategic traction
Developer productivity and satisfaction improved across multiple areas
Research budget protected and expanded
The internal training and knowledge base resources helped uplift research quality beyond our team, improving how non-researchers approached surveys, sessions, and note-taking
Legacy
The team I built did more than deliver excellent research findings. We shifted from three isolated ICs to a trusted, strategically influential global research practice supporting a large complex engineering environment within financial services.
The systems we put in place — from onboarding, OKRs, and capability-based hiring to training and knowledge resources — gave the firm a template for how research could operate as a mature function.
Even as structures changed over time, the people, habits, and expectations we built continued to influence how research was understood and used inside the division and across the firm.
