Senior UX Researcher

Senior UX Researcher (Internal Tools) – Fanatics Collectibles

Location: LA / NYC

Team: Design

Reports to: VP of Product Design

About Fanatics Collectibles

Fanatics Collectibles is reshaping the sports trading card and collectibles industry. From planning and design through manufacturing and distribution, we connect passionate collectors and partners to the products they love. Backed by Fanatics Inc. (valued at $31B) with exclusive licensing deals across MLB, NFL, NBA, and more, we are building the next generation of systems, tools, and experiences that power this complex global business.

The Team

We are a high-impact group of builders, thinkers, and doers operating with ownership, creativity, and speed. Our team spans product, design, engineering, and operations, with a shared mission to simplify complexity and enable innovation. We value context over control, trust over micromanagement, and clarity over complexity.

About the Role

We're seeking a Senior UX Researcher to lead research into the systems, stakeholders, and processes that power how sports trading cards are planned, designed, manufactured, and sold. This role will not only uncover pain points but also map opportunities across one of the most intricate ecosystems in collectibles.

The focus will be on internal stakeholders — from design and product teams to operations, supply chain, and business partners. You will partner with product managers and designers to identify the right problems to solve, validate potential solutions, and inform the design of tools and systems that make our business run more smoothly at scale.

This is a foundational hire: an opportunity to bring service design and systems thinking into our research practice, and help define how research supports the evolution of our end-to-end business infrastructure.

What You'll Do

Drive Discovery & Mapping

• Lead deep-dive research into the end-to-end lifecycle of sports trading cards — planning, design, manufacturing, distribution, and sales.
• Map internal processes, stakeholders, roles, and pain points to identify where systems and tools can create the most impact.
• Collaborate with product managers to frame the right problems and validate solution spaces.

Bring Service & Systems Design Thinking

• Apply service design and system design methods to clarify complex workflows and dependencies.
• Develop journey maps, service blueprints, and stakeholder diagrams to create shared visibility across teams.
• Translate findings into actionable frameworks that guide product and operations strategy.
• Data-driven mindset—comfortable defining, measuring, and optimizing service KPIs

Execute High-Impact Research

• Conduct interviews, workshops, contextual inquiries, and observational research with internal stakeholders.
• Use mixed methods to synthesize insights, balancing qualitative depth with quantitative validation.
• Create artifacts (maps, frameworks, narratives) that clarify complexity and inspire confidence in decision-making.

Enable Collaboration & Alignment

• Partner with product, design, engineering, and operations to ensure insights translate into action.
• Facilitate workshops to align stakeholders and build consensus around priorities.
• Evangelize research through clear storytelling, ensuring leaders and teams see themselves in the insights.

You are a fit if…

• You thrive on making sense of complexity and ambiguity.
• You bring expertise in service design and systems thinking, with experience applying these in real-world contexts.
• You've led research in operational or enterprise settings (manufacturing, supply chain, B2B tools, or other complex ecosystems).
• You are fluent in both strategic discovery (framing problems, mapping systems) and tactical evaluation (testing concepts, validating solutions).
• You're skilled in facilitating cross-functional workshops and building shared understanding.
  You care deeply about empowering teams, not just delivering insights.

Tools & Methods

• Service design tools: journey mapping, service blueprints, stakeholder analysis
• Mixed methods: interviews, contextual research, surveys, concept testing
• Collaboration & visualization: Figma, Miro, Notion
  Analytics & synthesis: AI-assisted tools, repositories, insight libraries

Initial Focus

Success in this role begins with deeply comprehending and mapping the end-to-end manufacturing processes that bring our products to life. You'll partner with product managers and designers to:

• Identify and document key stakeholders, roles, and pain points across the lifecycle.
• Articulate the problem spaces and opportunity areas with clarity.
  Help prioritize where to begin, focusing on the initiatives that will deliver the most value to our internal stakeholders and the broader business.

This foundational work will set the stage for building better tools, systems, and processes that enable Fanatics Collectibles to scale with confidence.

Let's Build the Future of Collectibles Together

Sports trading cards may look simple in your hand, but behind them is one of the most complex and exciting businesses in sports. Help us design the systems and tools that make it all possible.

We know job descriptions can be intimidating. If you don't meet every single requirement, we still encourage you to apply. We value unique perspectives, scrappy builders, and people who think in systems.

In Los Angeles, the salary range for this position is $140,000 - $175,000, which represents base pay only and does not include short-term or long-term incentive compensation. In NYC, the salary range for this position is $155,000 - $193,000. The listed salary ranges are specific to Los Angeles or NYC and may not be applicable to other locations. When determining base pay, as part of a final compensation package, we consider several factors such as location, experience, qualifications, and training.

Ensure your Fanatics job offer is legitimate and don't fall victim to fraud. Fanatics never seeks payment from job applicants. Feel free to ask your recruiter for a phone call or other type of communication for interview, and ensure your communication is coming from a Fanatics email address (including ). For added security, where possible, apply through our company website at

Fanatics Collectibles is a new model and vision for the hobby, fundamentally changing the experience for current and future collectors, leagues, and players across many U.S. and international professional and college sports. The organization has long-term, exclusive rights to design, manufacture and distribute trading cards for several sports and entertainment properties, including MLB, MLBPA, the Premier League, MLS, UFC, Formula 1 as well as Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars, among others. In January 2022, Fanatics Collectibles announced the acquisition of Topps, establishing the preeminent licensed trading card brand as the cornerstone of Fanatics' trading cards and collectibles business, and jumpstarted its MLB and MLBPA rights to design, manufacture and distribute trading cards

Fanatics is building a leading global digital sports platform. We ignite the passions of global sports fans and maximize the presence and reach for our hundreds of sports partners globally by offering products and services across Fanatics Commerce, Fanatics Collectibles, and Fanatics Betting & Gaming, allowing sports fans to Buy, Collect, and Bet. Through the Fanatics platform, sports fans can buy licensed fan gear, jerseys, lifestyle and streetwear products, headwear, and hardgoods; collect physical and digital trading cards, sports memorabilia, and other digital assets; and bet as the company builds its Sportsbook and iGaming platform. Fanatics has an established database of over 100 million global sports fans; a global partner network with approximately 900 sports properties, including major national and international professional sports leagues, players associations, teams, colleges, college conferences and retail partners, 2,500 athletes and celebrities, and 200 exclusive athletes; and over 2,000 retail locations, including its Lids retail stores. Our more than 22,000 employees are committed to relentlessly enhancing the fan experience and delighting sports fans globally.