Senior Researcher - Human-Computer Interaction

Huawei Canada has an immediate 12-month contract opening for a Senior Researcher.

About the team:

The Huawei Human-Machine Interaction Lab unites global researchers, engineers, and designers to redefine human technology relationships through user centered, hands on research. We focus on agentic AI and multimodal interaction (voice, touch, vision, gesture) across smartphones, wearables, and emerging devices—advancing agentic workflows, multi-agent orchestration, and intuitive human-AI interfaces. By tightly integrating sensing, algorithms, and systems, our prototype driven work ships directly to products, enabling seamless task delegation and human AI collaboration at scale.

About the job:

• Lead HCI and human-AI interaction research strategy for next-generation intelligent terminal devices, focusing on agentic AI, multimodal interfaces, and hardware-software integration across diverse form factors.

• Frame ambiguous device capabilities and complex technology questions into clear research plans, hypotheses, study designs, success metrics, and actionable recommendations that shape the product vision. Synthesize complex research findings into crisp narratives, frameworks, journey maps, and design principles that influence high-level product direction and joint hardware/software technical roadmaps.

• Stay current with HCI, human-centered AI, multimodal interaction, and smart hardware practices. Maintain deep insights into emerging interaction paradigms across academia and industry, including LLMs, agentic systems, and intelligent interfaces. Proactively convert external trends into practical research questions, patents, publications, and product opportunities.

• Conduct advanced mixed-method research — including contextual inquiry, diary studies, hardware usability testing, controlled experiments, and behavioral/log analysis — to evaluate how users understand, trust, control, and collaborate with AI systems within their physical environments.

• Prototype and test new human-AI workflows, including conversational agents, proactive assistants, multimodal task delegation, cross-device handoff, and physical-digital decision patterns. Iterate rapidly on proof-of-concepts that address real engineering problems and accelerate productization.

• Partner with AI researchers, hardware engineers, software developers, designers, and product managers to translate user insights into system-level interaction models, product scenarios, evaluation rubrics, and mass-production requirements.

The total target annual compensation (based on 2,080 hours per year) ranges from $127,000 - $225,000 depending on education, experience, and demonstrated expertise.

About the ideal candidate:

• Master's or PhD degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science, Psychology, Human Factors, Computer Science, Information Science, Design Research, Interaction Design, or a related field; equivalent industry experience will also be considered.

• 6+ years of applied HCI, UX research, or human-AI interaction research experience, specifically emphasizing consumer electronics, smart hardware, or embedded systems, with demonstrated research leadership.

• ·Strong command of qualitative and quantitative research methods, with the judgment to choose pragmatic methods under time, product, and technical constraints.

• Proven experience designing scalable evaluation frameworks and quality metrics for complex AI-powered products, as well as building technical prototypes, proof-of-concepts, and evaluation tools — including voice assistants, copilots, recommendation systems, multimodal interfaces, AR/VR, mobile/wearables, or other complex interactive systems.

• Working fluency with AI/ML concepts, including LLMs, multimodal models, agentic workflows, prompt behavior, model limitations, hallucination, personalization, privacy, and evaluation tradeoffs.

• Demonstrated ability to identify and articulate emerging interaction paradigms across academia and industry — including agentic AI, multimodal interfaces, LLM-based experiences, and intelligent device ecosystems — and translate them into actionable research directions and product opportunities.

• Strong storytelling and stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to communicate evidence clearly to technical and non-technical audiences and drive alignment across research, design, engineering, and product.

• Portfolio, publications, patents, or shipped product examples that demonstrate measurable impact on user experience, product strategy, interaction models, or human-centered AI systems are highly valued.

• Familiarity with accessibility, inclusive research, privacy-sensitive research practices, research ethics, and responsible AI evaluation is a strong asset.

Additional Information:

Huawei Canada is committed to a fair, inclusive, and accessible recruitment process. If you require accommodation during any stage of the hiring process, please let us know and we will work with you to meet your needs.

All applications for this position are reviewed directly by our hiring team, we do not use artificial intelligence tools to screen or select candidates.