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 the exploration and definition of new human-computer interaction paradigms for the AI era, at the intersection of intelligent devices, AI experiences, and emerging interaction. Develop a forward-looking view of how the relationship between people and systems will evolve, and identify the key future interaction forms, research questions, and directions.

• Grounded in today's technology, user behaviors, device form factors, and real-world scenarios, identify promising interaction opportunities, explore how established and emerging interactions can evolve together, and turn these opportunities into testable system concepts, research prototypes, and potential product directions.

• Tackle key challenges in how people interact with intelligent systems by proposing original interaction concepts, mechanisms, and system approaches that take advantage of new technical capabilities.

• Turn forward-looking ideas into clear concepts, scenarios, and testable proposals, and work with design, engineering, and technology teams to validate key assumptions and experience value through prototypes and experiments.

• Evaluate new interaction directions using user research, experimentation, and technical evaluation, measuring efficiency, learnability, understandability, controllability, trust, and quality of collaboration, and derive principles that guide future design and technical decisions.

• Partner closely with AI, software, hardware, sensing, design, and product teams to move promising concepts from research into implementable system capabilities, technical solutions, patents, and product directions.

• Guide researchers and cross-functional teams in frontier exploration, providing leadership in problem framing, research direction, solution development, and technical judgment, and help build a clear, coherent long-term research agenda.

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 in Human-Computer Interaction, Interaction Design, Industrial Design, Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, Human Factors, Cognitive Science, or a related field. We welcome diverse backgrounds; above all, you're curious about emerging technologies and enjoy exploring new tools, devices, and capabilities to discover new interaction possibilities.

• 6+ years of experience in interaction innovation, intelligent systems, consumer electronics, digital products, or interaction research, design, or engineering.

• A strong, independent perspective on how evolving AI capabilities will reshape human-computer interaction, including how new intelligent interactions relate to traditional GUIs, input devices, and user behaviors, and the ability to tell meaningful interaction change apart from technology that is simply added on.

• Comfort working with ambiguous, not-yet-defined problems: identifying opportunities worth exploring and forming clear, compelling points of view and research directions.

• A proven track record of originating interaction concepts and advancing them into system concepts, technical solutions, experience proposals, patents, or product directions.

• Strong systems thinking, with an understanding of technical capabilities and constraints, and the ability to work with design and engineering teams to define feasible interaction solutions.

• Familiarity with relevant methods such as user research, experimentation, or system evaluation, and the judgment to choose the right approach for each problem.

• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to present forward-looking ideas clearly and build alignment across research, design, engineering, and product teams.

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.