Role Overview

This is an entry-to-mid-level research position within M-KOPA’s Customer Intelligence (CI) team. As a CI Research Associate, you’ll support end-to-end UX and product research from study design through to insight delivery; working closely with senior researchers and cross-functional teams. You’ll be doing real research, on real products, for real customers whose financial lives depend on experiences that actually work.

This is a hybrid role, you would be working from our offices in Kenya, partnering with a diverse group of employees from our different markets and locations across the UK, Europe and Africa. You will be reporting to the Research Operations Lead.

Why this Role is Different

• Most research associate roles put you in a support lane indefinitely. Here, you’re working on products that are genuinely novel — serving first-time smartphone users, first-time borrowers, first-time digital finance customers across five markets. The research problems are complex, the stakes are tangible, and the team takes craft seriously.

What You’ll be doing

• Conducting moderated usability tests, semi-structured interviews, and surveys — managing fieldwork logistics end-to-end for both remote and in-person sessions, and ensuring sessions are set up for quality data collection from the start.
• Coding and synthesising qualitative data using defined frameworks — producing affinity maps, insight lists, and structured reports that translate findings into clear, actionable outputs for your immediate team and stakeholders.
• Contributing to team research rituals, raising questions when briefs are unclear, and applying AI-assisted tools (including Claude and Notion AI) with the critical judgement to know when the output needs human scrutiny.

What You’ll bring

• Demonstrable experience conducting UX research — including moderated usability testing, semi-structured interviewing, and survey design — with an understanding of when and why different methods apply.
• Proven ability to work with qualitative data: coding responses, identifying patterns, and producing synthesis artefacts (affinity maps, insight lists) with a structured, methodical approach.
• Familiarity with M-KOPA’s markets or the broader context of first-time digital financial services users — and a genuine curiosity about the usability challenges that come with that territory.