Product Design & Experience Co-Op

Toyota Material Handling•Columbus, IN

10d•$20 - $30•Hybrid

About The Position

We’re seeking a motivated Production Design & Experience Co-Op to join our team in Spring 2027! The Connected Solutions Product Experience Co-op will help shape a more unified telematics experience across Toyota Material Handling North America’s Toyota and Raymond brands, including MyInsights and iWarehouse. In this role, you will research how customers, dealers, and internal users interact with connected products, identify experience and capability gaps, and contribute to defining future-state opportunities. Working across Product, UX, Operations, Engineering, IT, and Business, you will translate complex user, process, data, and technical insights into journey maps, system visualizations, prototypes, product requirements, prioritized recommendations, and leadership-ready deliverables. This opportunity is designed for a design-minded, technically curious problem solver interested in product management, user experience, IoT, systems integration, and connected-product ecosystems.

Requirements

Cumulative GPA of at least 3.0
Availability to be onsite at our Columbus, IN office from January through May of 2027.
Currently enrolled in a degree program in a design, business, technical, or related interdisciplinary field with demonstrated coursework, project work, or experience in areas such as UX, Human-Computer Interaction, user-centered design, systems analysis, or technical product development.
Ability to translate ambiguous user, business, and technical inputs into structured findings, system models, and actionable recommendations.
Experience creating journey maps, user flows, service blueprints, wireframes, prototypes, process models, system diagrams, or technical presentations.
Strong analytical, written, verbal, and visual communication skills, with the ability to work across Product, UX, Engineering, IT, Operations, and Business teams.
Demonstrated systems thinking, attention to detail, initiative, and ability to manage multiple work streams independently.
Ability to synthesize differing stakeholder perspectives, document assumptions, and communicate technical and product tradeoffs clearly.
Alignment with Toyota core values, including respect for people, commitment to continuous improvement (Kaizen), and a collaborative spirit rooted in teamwork and customer-centricity.

Nice To Haves

Strong Currently pursuing a graduate degree in Human-Computer Interaction, UX Engineering, Computer Science, Business, Product Management, Product Design, or related design field.
Two to three years of relevant experience through internships, co-ops, graduate research, or professional roles in technical product management, UX research, systems analysis, service design, or connected products.
A portfolio or project examples demonstrating technical problem-solving and user-centered design.
Exposure to APIs, system integrations, telemetry or IoT data flows, usability testing, enterprise platforms, or fleet-management solutions.
Familiarity with tools such as Figma, FigJam, Miro, Lucidchart, Visio, Azure DevOps, Jira, ServiceNow, Power BI, SQL, or similar platforms.
Experience applying Agile product-development practices and translating research into product requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, or implementation recommendations.

Responsibilities

Support product and UX research through stakeholder and user interviews, workflow observation, product walkthroughs, customer feedback, support-ticket analysis, and technical documentation.
Develop end-to-end experience models across MyInsights and iWarehouse using personas, jobs to be done, journey maps, user flows, and service blueprints.
Contribute to cross-platform usability assessments, including heuristic evaluation, information-architecture review, accessibility considerations, and analysis of navigation, terminology, interaction patterns, and interface behavior.
Collaborate with Product, Business, and IT to map the connected-solutions ecosystem, including application boundaries, APIs, telemetry data flows, identity and access dependencies, third-party services, and upstream and downstream systems.
Analyze product-experience gaps by connecting user friction to business rules, process handoffs, capability overlaps, data dependencies, and technical constraints.
Help define future-state experiences through target-state journeys, revised user flows, information-architecture concepts, wireframes, prototypes, service blueprints, and system-context diagrams.
Support the translation of research findings into problem statements, opportunity hypotheses, product requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, dependencies, and implementation considerations.
Contribute to the prioritization and validation of recommendations based on customer value, usability impact, business value, technical feasibility, architectural complexity, implementation effort, and risk.
Maintain traceable research and decision artifacts, and communicate findings through design reviews, technical assessments, executive-ready visualizations, and cross-functional presentations.

Benefits

Wage - $20.00 - $30.00+ per hour. Compensation depends on the selected candidate’s education and experience.
Paid Housing (furnishings, utilities, & Wi-Fi included) — eligibility limited to employees residing 50+ miles outside the work location
Hands-On Experience in TPS and industrial engineering
Mentorship from Experienced Professionals
Direct Exposure to Senior Leadership & Executive Team
Company-Sponsored Events & Intern Socials
Paid Community Service Hours
Occupational Health Clinic
Mental Health Advocate Services
Best in class work culture!