# Varsha Jagdale > User researcher Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/varshajagdale I'm just in awe of humanity. I love distilling insights about humans into user-centred products or poetry. I feel a surreal sense of joy when I see the world through others' eyes, notice their unique ways of being and co-create synergy. I'm an incredibly lucky people-person who has been blessed with diversely talented and caring tribemates, strategic leaders, and a unique opportunity to push the envelope of user research in an enterprise context. For the past 7 years, I've contributed to up-levelling the business impact of user research. It has involved creating techniques to holistically solve problems on the product, people, and process dimensions. This journey has helped me discover my ever-evolving operating principles: 1. Aim for user-centricity, unbiasedness, and critical thought 2. Act as one tribe for users 3. Think holistically - deep, broad, long term 4. Distill specificity, nuance, and systemic tenets 5. Agency and nimble steps 6. Elevate the lows 7. Count the business impact If you think I could be of your help as you explore user research, product design, software engineering, and project management don't hesitate to say hi :) ## Work Experience ### Lead User Researcher @ Cisco Jan 2023 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area Focused on developer experiences and sales experiences. ### Senior User Researcher @ Google Jan 2022 – Jan 2023 | United States Led research team for a product suite that efficiently manages Google’s planet-scale IT data centres. Quickly ramped up to meet the team’s impending deadlines, and started delivering in the first week. Led a research program to uplevel the business impact of research. Aligned with cross-function OKRs. The program had multiple streams - participant panel, discovery research, rapid research, UX measurement, research visibility Led discovery research that helped distill the MVP for one area of the product suite. Distilled systemic tenets applicable to the entire product suite, preventing the reinvention of the research wheel. Helped measure UX through CSAT and JTBD frameworks - insights incorporated in the roadmap. Contributed to unifying UX measurement process across different products in the business unit. ### Staff User Researcher @ VMware Jan 2016 – Jan 2022 | San Francisco Bay Area (Progressed through 4 levels) Business & User Impact Led research that had a strategic impact across 8bn+ revenue-generating products. Collaborated with cross-functions to achieve business impact. Leading metrics of business impact include - optimised business metrics such as retention & adoption, identified MVPs with value differentiation and value delivery, identified needs of a new market, changed product path based on market trends, contributed to company-wide interoperability OKR efforts, made research integral to product planning offsites and to sprint acceptance criteria. Practice Impact Helped formulate and up-level strategic research practice for 2 business units with 20+ products. Created techniques to make research have an actionable strategic impact on business. Techniques were - Picking high-impact problems, distilling systemic issues, durable insight tenets etc. “Show not tell” of user research potential, within the company, including GM/leadership levels. People Impact Collaborated across disciplines & levels to drive business decisions with more confidence, unbiasedness, and user-centeredness. Contributed to the democratization of research for 200+ cross-functional teammates. Helped interview and hire 20+ positions such as researchers, managers, designers, and interns. Process Impact Contributed to creating scalable research processes and systems - large-scale research at customer events, research consultation, closing feedback loop with customers, participant panel and incentives, insights repository, and research trainings. Created a program that enabled 20+ designers to mentor 50+ students during the COVID crisis. ### User Researcher (Pro Bono Project) @ Women Who Code Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco Bay Area Identified investment opportunities for Women Who Code to further help women stay or get into technical careers. Outcome documented here - https://www.womenwhocode.com/blog/core-team-2017-year-end-review ### Teaching Assistant @ Georgia Institute of Technology Jan 2015 – Jan 2016 | Greater Atlanta Area Guided 12 student groups on projects that used technology for good of underserved communities in the Atlanta neighbourhood. ### Research Assistant (EdTech Lab & Children's Museum of Atlanta) @ Georgia Institute of Technology Jan 2015 – Jan 2016 Led E2E foundational research for a National Science Foundation project to explore ways of getting children interested in STEM through informal learning environments (literature review, observations & interviews). ### Research Assistant (Smart Home Lab) @ Georgia Institute of Technology Jan 2015 – Jan 2015 | Greater Atlanta Area Won two categories in an Innovation Contest at Georgia Tech for creating a prototype of smart home safety alert system for elderly. Outcome documented here - http://cic.gatech.edu/spring-2015/winners ### UX Researcher & Designer (Intern) @ Autodesk Jan 2015 – Jan 2015 | New York City Contributed to the product roadmap by identifying opportunities in the design and collaboration phases of the digital footwear design journey. Led E2E foundational research (interviews, competitor analysis) and communicated insights to cross-functional teams and leadership via user journey map and design concepts. ### Software Engineer and Scrum Master @ SAP Jan 2011 – Jan 2014 | Bengaluru Area, India Received ‘SAP Values Recognition’ award for customer engagement and leadership. Was assigned the additional responsibility of being a Scrum Master to a global cross-functional team of 17 Developed enterprise mobile apps (iPhone, Android, and Windows). ## Education ### Master's Degree in Human Computer Interaction Georgia Institute of Technology ### BE in Information Technology (Sardar Patel Institute of Technology) University of Mumbai ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/varshajagdale - Portfolio: http://www.varshajagdale.com - Portfolio: https://medium.com/@varshajagdale --- Source: https://flows.cv/varshajagdale JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/varshajagdale/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-25