Product Design & Experience Co-Op

Toyota Material Handling North America Inc; North Carolina; Hybrid; USD 28,000 - 41,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Housing (paid housing) Disabled for QA

Mentorship program

Executive exposure to leadership

Team events & socials

Wellness & mental health resources

Job summary

Toyota Material Handling North America is seeking a Production Design & Experience Co-Op for Spring 2027 in Columbus, IN. You’ll research how customers and internal users interact with connected products and translate insights into journey maps, prototypes, and product requirements.

Collaborating with Product, UX, IT, and Operations, you’ll develop end-to-end experience models, conduct usability assessments, and help define future-state experiences through wireframes and service blueprints.

Qualifications

• GPA of 3.0 or higher
• Onsite in Columbus, IN January–May 2027
• Enrolled in a degree program related to design, business, or technical fields
• Ability to translate ambiguous inputs into structured findings
• Experience creating journey maps, user flows, service blueprints, wireframes, prototypes
• Strong communication across cross-functional teams
• Familiarity with Agile practices

Responsibilities

• Support product and UX research via interviews and observations
• Develop end-to-end experience models across MyInsights and iWarehouse
• Conduct usability assessments including heuristic evaluation
• Map the connected-solutions ecosystem with stakeholders
• Analyze experience gaps linking user friction to business rules
• Define future-state experiences with journeys and wireframes
• Translate research into product requirements and user stories
• Prioritize recommendations based on value, usability and feasibility
• Maintain traceable research artifacts and present findings

Skills

UX research

Product management

Systems analysis

User flows

Service design

IoT

Education

Graduate degree program in related field

Tools

Figma

FigJam

Miro

Lucidchart

Visio

Azure DevOps

Jira

Power BI

SQL

Job description

Workplace Type

Hybrid

Full-time/Part-time

Co-Op

Shift

1st

Sponsorship Statement

Toyota Material Handling North America will pursue visa sponsorship for this position, as needed, for eligible candidates.

Job Description

Join our Team as a Production Design & Experience Co-Op!

The Role:

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.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• 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.

What We’re Looking For:

• 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.

What Sets You Apart:

• 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.

Where and When You’ll Work:

• Enjoy the best of both worlds and work hybridly at our Columbus, IN office— work onsite on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays with the opportunity to work remote on Thursdays and Fridays.

What You’ll Get in Return:

Wage - $20.00 - $30.00+ per hour. Compensation depends on the selected candidate’s education and experience.

Early Career Benefits:

• 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!

Big Name | Big Opportunities | Life is Better at Toyota

Toyota Material Handling North America (TMHNA), the industry leader in forklift sales, comprises two main brands: Toyota Material Handling and The Raymond Corporation. We believe investing in the best people, products, and processes will fuel our future success, and we will always be driven by our foundational principles of “respect for people” and “continuous improvement”. With opportunities across North America, we are confident you will find the right position within TMHNA that can help you build a long, fulfilling career.

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