Designer Spring Co-op 2027

About the Role

This is a 16-week Co-Op position for actively enrolled undergraduate students interested in gaining hands-on, practical experience and contributing to real IBM projects. Students must be currently enrolled at an accredited university and able to pause their coursework for the duration of the Co-Op.

Your Role and Responsibilities

• Support service design research to understand how product teams work, identify friction points, and determine how to help them adopt new practices and tools.
• Synthesize interviews, observations, survey results, and usage data into clear themes, opportunities, and recommendations.
• Create journey maps, service blueprints, ecosystem maps, workflows, and other artifacts to illustrate complex organizational experiences.
• Design and prototype enablement experiences across touchpoints including onboarding, learning programs, coaching, playbooks, communications, templates, and productivity tools.
• Collaborate with product managers, designers, researchers, developers, educators, and business leaders across IBM Software.
• Participate in workshops and co-creation sessions to align stakeholders on needs, priorities, and future-state experiences.
• Contribute to reusable guidance and standards for consistent application of modern product practices.
• Help define and track measures such as adoption, satisfaction, engagement, and productivity, and use results to improve the service.
• Present work clearly, explain the rationale behind recommendations, and incorporate feedback.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• Must be actively enrolled in a Bachelor's degree program at the time of application and returning to complete the degree after the co-op.
• Available to start full-time between December 2027 and August 2028.
• Available to work full-time (40 hours/week) at an IBM location for 16 weeks between Jan 19 - May 7.
• Co-op requires a full-time commitment; students should not be enrolled in concurrent coursework during the co-op term.
• A portfolio or work samples demonstrating human-centered design, systems thinking, research synthesis, service design methods, or UI/UX fundamentals. Academic and self-directed projects are welcome.
• Experience with design and collaboration tools like Figma, FigJam, Miro, or Mural, Adobe Creative Suite, etc.
• Ability to organize qualitative and quantitative information and communicate clear findings.
• Strong written, visual, and verbal communication skills.
• Curiosity about how people, processes, technology, and organizational structures shape an experience.
• Ability to collaborate across disciplines, manage work responsibly, and learn from feedback.

Preferred Technical and Professional Experience

• Coursework or experience in service design, design research, organizational design, learning experience design, content design, or change management.
• Experience planning or supporting interviews, workshops, usability studies, events, or surveys.
• Familiarity with data visualization, analytics, or methods for measuring adoption and outcomes.
• Interest in enterprise transformation, product operations, AI-enabled workflows, or modern product development practices.
• Understanding of accessibility and inclusive design.