**We help the world run better** At SAP, we enable you to bring out your best. Our company culture is focused on collaboration and a shared passion to help the world run better. How? We focus every day on building the foundation for tomorrow and creating a workplace that embraces differences, values flexibility, and is aligned to our purpose-driven and future-focused work. We offer a highly collaborative, caring team environment with a strong focus on learning and development, recognition for your individual contributions, and a variety of benefit options for you to choose from. **YOUR FUTURE ROLE** At SAP University Alliances we partner with other LoBs to provide the best services to foster strategic research collaborations between SAP and academia like future of human-machine interaction. As an Senior Design Researcher with deep expertise in Robotics and AI you will help shape the future of human-machine interaction at SAP’s BTPX Innovation Lab team. This new role requires a mix of academic rigor and strategic vision to drive SAP’s direction and partnerships in key interactive innovations. A key component will be to conduct exploratory research and prototyping of emerging technologies, including user evaluation of these evolutionary stages. You will set up tests and deploy promising ideas quickly and broadly, while evangelizing them across SAP product portfolios. The role will require managing deadlines and deliverables in using the latest theories with new products, processes, or technologies. Perform as a strong advocate for the value of cognitive user research within the SAP Research and Innovation environment. Your Key Responsibilities are: + Publishing and Coaching: Define our research vision for embodied AI; publish in top-tier venues (ACM/IEEE), represent SAP externally, and lead internal seminars and guest lectures. + Drive Internal Research: Design and conduct speculative studies using mixed methods to uncover new interaction paradigms and emerging user needs. + Innovation Strategy: Partner with cross-disciplinary SAP teams to shape and evolve early-stage prototypes and proof-of-concepts; translate insights into directions that guide innovation direction, not just validation. + Research Operations: + Build and manage participant‐recruitment pipelines and vendor relationships + Oversee research allocation budgeting, and compliance with privacy/ethics standards + Develop and maintain tooling, repositories, and dashboards for tracking research impact + Streamline study logistics—from scheduling to data pipelines—to scale team capacity + Facilitate the ease of providing insights from quantitative user data + Mentoring and Culture: Mentor or develop researchers at all levels, develop a culture of curiosity and rigor, and teach design research best practice **YOUR PROFILE** + PhD in Human-Centered Design, HRI, or related field (or equivalent experience) + Proven record of publishing in top-tier venues (e.g., CHI, HRI, CSCW, IEEE) + Deep expertise in embodied interaction, speculative design, or physical AI + Comfort with ambiguity and leading open-ended, high-impact research efforts + Research Operations Expertise: track and manage participant pipelines, vendor contracts, budgeting, and research tooling at scale + Strong mentorship and stakeholder-influence skills across design, engineering, and leadership + Passion for rigorous experimentation and creativity + Familiarity with enterprise contexts or of SAP’s ecosystem + Enthusiasm for team culture and development **ABOUT THE TEAM** The SAP University Alliances (UA) program is regarded being the bridge connecting SAP and academia to educate the next generation, engage with the academic community at events, build industry partnerships with the goal to prepare graduates for the SAP ecosystem. The program enables educators to teach hands-on with SAP technology at a university, participate in strategic research activities to build high-impact collaborations with top research institutions, as well as foster close partnerships with the academic community through regional academic board **Location** : This position requires a hybrid work enviornment, with regular in-person attendance at SAP's Palo Alto office. **We win with inclusion** SAP’s culture of inclusion, focus on health and well-being, and flexible working models help ensure that everyone – regardless of background – feels included and can run at their best. At SAP, we believe we are made stronger by the unique capabilities and qualities that each person brings to our company, and we invest in our employees to inspire confidence and help everyone realize their full potential. We ultimately believe in unleashing all talent and creating a better world. SAP is committed to the values of Equal Employment Opportunity and provides accessibility accommodations to applicants with physical and/or mental disabilities. If you are interested in applying for employment with SAP and are in need of accommodation or special assistance to navigate our website or to complete your application, please send an e-mail with your request to Recruiting Operations Team: Careers@sap.com. For SAP employees: Only permanent roles are eligible for the SAP Employee Referral Program, according to the eligibility rules set in the SAP Referral Policy. Specific conditions may apply for roles in Vocational Training. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their age, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, et al), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, or disability, in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local legal requirements. **Compensation Range Transparency** : SAP believes the value of pay transparency contributes towards an honest and supportive culture and is a significant step toward demonstrating SAP’s commitment to pay equity. SAP provides the annualized compensation range inclusive of base salary and variable incentive target for the career level applicable to the posted role. The targeted combined range for this position is 141700 - 294,700 (USD) USD. The actual amount to be offered to the successful candidate will be within that range, dependent upon the key aspects of each case which may include education, skills, experience, scope of the role, location, etc. as determined through the selection process. Any SAP variable incentive includes a targeted dollar amount and any actual payout amount is dependent on company and personal performance. Please reference this link for a summary of SAP benefits and eligibility requirements: SAP North America Benefits (https://www.sapnorthamericabenefits.com/en/public/welcome) . Requisition ID: 430964 | Work Area:Software-Research | Expected Travel: 0 - 10% | Career Status: Professional | Employment Type: Regular Full Time | Additional Locations: #LI-Hybrid