Co-op, User Experience - Robotics

Rockwell Automation•Waterloo, ON

4d•CA$20 - CA$32•Hybrid

About The Position

Rockwell Automation is seeking a passionate UX Co-op to join the Robotics Center of Excellence (RCoE), an innovation engine focused on applying the latest research to transform industrial operations. This role is embedded within a highly technical robotics research group and involves contributing to user experience research, interaction prototyping, and designing new ways for people to interact with intelligent machines and autonomous operations. The position goes beyond traditional UX, exploring novel interfaces and interaction modalities for human-robot collaboration.

Requirements

Actively pursuing a bachelor's or advanced degree from an accredited college or university.
Legal authorization to work in Canada is required.
Comfort designing and running research, including framing questions, talking to users, synthesizing learnings, and defending findings.
Comfort with code, or at minimum comfort with 'vibe coding', to create interactive prototypes.
Excellent teamwork and communication skills for effective collaboration with multi-functional and multi-disciplined teams.
A track record of working through complex, unstructured problems where the answer isn't obvious.

Nice To Haves

A portfolio demonstrating design thinking.
Genuine interest in robots, autonomous systems, or how AI is changing human-machine interaction.
Experience with Figma or equivalent design tools.
Experience with ROS/ROS2.
Familiarity with research repository tools like Dovetail.
Prototyping experience in React or similar frameworks.
Any AR, VR, or spatial computing experience.
Experience with research, parsing academic publications, and literature review.
Background in human factors, HCI, or interaction design research.
Experience engaging with design or research communities through writing, talks, or open work.

Responsibilities

Contribute to ongoing work in human-robot interaction, operator interfaces, and integrating robots into enterprise tools.
Frame UX research questions, design studies, interview operators and stakeholders, synthesize findings, and present actionable insights to the team.
Explore and prototype new modes of interaction with robotic systems, such as voice, gesture, ambient signals, chat-based agent control, and spatial interfaces.
Participate in design critiques and collaborate with designers, researchers, and engineers, defending decisions and incorporating feedback to improve work.
Document processes and findings through case studies, internal research reports, and potentially external publications or talks.