Co-op, User Experience - Robotics

Description

The company is a global technology firm that helps manufacturers become more productive, sustainable and agile. It has more than 28,000 employees.

The User Experience Robotics Co-op sits in the Robotics Center of Excellence, which the company calls its innovation engine for robotics.

You would join the UX team within a technical robotics research group and work on how people and autonomous machines interact.

This is not a purely visual design role. The work covers how people, robots and machines communicate through interfaces, behavior and other modes, and much of it has no established name yet. Some of it is traditional UX.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to current work on human-robot interaction, operator interfaces and bringing robots into enterprise tools.
• Plan research: frame the question, design the study, speak with operators and partners, then summarize findings in a form the team can act on.
• Explore and prototype new ways to interact with robotic systems, such as voice, gesture, ambient signals, chat-based agent control and spatial interfaces.
• Share work with the team early and often. Defend your decisions, take feedback from designers, researchers and engineers, and take part in peer review.
• Document your process and findings in case studies, internal research reports, and external publications or talks.

Requirements

• You are currently enrolled in a bachelor's or advanced degree program at an accredited college or university.
• You must graduate in December 2027 or later. (Preferred)
• Comfort designing and running UX research. (Preferred)
• Comfort with coding, vibe coding, prototyping and large language models. (Preferred)
• Interest in robots, autonomous systems, or how AI is changing human-machine interaction. (Preferred)
• Experience working on a multidisciplinary team, both in person and online. (Preferred)
• Experience with Figma or an equivalent design tool. (Preferred)
• Experience with ROS or ROS2. (Preferred)
• Familiarity with research repository tools such as Dovetail. (Preferred)
• Prototyping experience in React or a similar framework. (Preferred)
• Experience with AR, VR or spatial computing. (Preferred)
• Experience with research, reading academic publications and literature review. (Preferred)
• Background in human factors, HCI or interaction design research. (Preferred)
• Experience engaging with design or research communities through writing, talks or open work. (Preferred)
• Live within 50 miles of the Waterloo location and be able to work in the office at least 3 days a week.

Conditions

Hybrid work: you are expected to be at a company location on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, unless you have a business reason to be elsewhere.

The role is not eligible for relocation assistance.

This is a co-op position filling an existing vacancy. Pay is hourly, between $20 and $32, and the exact rate depends on skills, knowledge, education and experience. The role is part of a job family, and experience determines level and compensation.

The company is an equal opportunity employer, including for disability and veteran status. Candidates who do not match every qualification are still encouraged to apply.

Benefits

• Health insurance, including medical and dental.
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
• Paid holidays.