Latest / The Comeback Career Podcast with Fexingo: Returning After a Gap, Stay-at-Home Re-Entry / Returning as a User Experience Researcher After a Career Gap
Transcript
- Lucas: So today we're talking about a return to work path that I don't think we've covered yet on the show — User Experience Research. Specifically, how one parent named Maya Chen returned as a UX researcher after a six-year gap. Luna: Six years — that's longer than the typical gap we see in many of these stories. What was her background before? Lucas: She had a bachelor's in psychology and had worked for about three years as a junior market researcher at a small consumer goods firm. Nothing directly in tech or design. Then she had twins, stepped away completely, and when she started thinking about going back, she realized her old role felt both unfulfilling and probably hard to re-enter after so long. Luna: So she didn't try to go back to market research — she pivoted. How did she land on UX research specifically? Lucas: Honestly, she told me it started with a conversation at a playground. Another parent mentioned they worked in UX and said her psych background would be a great fit. Maya had never even heard of the field before. So she went home, Googled it, and spent a weekend watching YouTube explainers. Luna: I love that — a playground networking moment. So from there, what was her first concrete step? Lucas: She enrolled in a free UX design course on Coursera — the one from Google. Not the full certificate, just the first course to get a feel. She also joined a UX research Slack group and started reading articles on the Nielsen Norman Group site. Luna: Okay, but reading articles and taking one course — how does that get you hired? There's a big gap between theory and a portfolio. Lucas: Exactly. And that's where her parenting experience became surprisingly relevant. She started doing informal usability tests at her kids' library storytime. She'd ask other parents if they'd try a children's app on her phone while she watched and took notes. She did maybe ten of these over a few weeks. Luna: Wait — that's genius. She was literally recruiting participants and observing behavior, just in a non-corporate setting. Lucas: Right. And she documented everything — wrote up findings, recorded screen interactions with permission, and turned that into her first portfolio case study. Then she did a second project: she volunteered to help a local nonprofit redesign their donation page. That gave her a more traditional stakeholder scenario. Luna: So by the time she applied for jobs, she had two solid case studies, even though neither was paid. How did she handle the gap on her resume? Lucas: She didn't hide it. In her LinkedIn summary, she wrote something like: 'After six years raising twin children — honing empathy, patience, and observational skills — I am returning to research.' And on her resume, she listed her parenting period as 'Family Care Leave' with bullet points about skills she used daily: scheduling, conflict resolution, user behavior tracking — she reframed it. Luna: Did she get pushback in interviews? Lucas: Some, but she had a strategy. When someone asked about the gap, she'd say, 'I was full-time parenting, and during that time I taught myself UX research methods. Here's a project I completed last month.' She redirected the conversation to the portfolio. Luna: That's smart — you can't argue with a case study. So where did she end up landing? Lucas: She got a six-month contract role at a mid-sized health-tech startup called MedSync. They were building a patient portal and needed someone to run usability tests with actual patients. Her ability to empathize with users — especially parents managing healthcare for their kids — was a huge selling point. Luna: I bet. So she turned her parenting experience into a specific domain advantage. What was the salary like? Lucas: Starting at $65 an hour as a contractor. That's roughly $130,000 annualized, which is solid for a first UX research role. She converted to full-time after eight months and now leads a small team. Luna: That's a great outcome. And it shows you don't need a bootcamp or a master's — you need a few projects and a clear narrative. Lucas: Yeah. And I think the bigger lesson is that UX research, in particular, values skills that parents naturally develop: listening, observing without judgment, synthesizing feedback. It's a field that's more open to nontraditional backgrounds than, say, software engineering. Luna: That's a really encouraging point. If someone listening is thinking about this path, what's the one piece of advice you'd give? Lucas: Start with one free course. Then do one study — even if it's testing a friend's app for ten minutes. Document it like a professional report. That's your foot in the door. Luna: And if you're looking for a structured way to learn more, the show notes have links to the Coursera course and the Nielsen Norman Group articles Maya used. Lucas: Exactly. And speaking of resources — if this episode helped you think about your own return to work possibilities, we'd love if you considered supporting the show. It keeps us ad-free and independent. You can do that at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, every little bit helps us keep bringing you stories like Maya's. And now, let's zoom out a bit — what do you think is the single biggest mindset shift someone needs to make when returning after a gap? Lucas: I think it's letting go of the idea that your gap is a weakness. Companies that hire returners — and more are doing it every year — see it as a sign of resilience. You managed something hard. That counts. Luna: Absolutely. Maya's story is proof. Thanks for listening — and good luck out there.