Designer Intern (May 2025 – 16 months)

Introduction
The Canada Lab in Markham, Ontario is one of the largest R&D facilities in Canada. As a intern at the Canada Lab, you would be part of a team that transforms our customer’s challenges into solutions.
The mission of ‘s global organization is to empower users to do their best work through intuitive and visually engaging interfaces. As a Designer, you’ll play a crucial role in creating end-to-end customer experiences.
This is a 16 month work term commencing in May 2025. It is mandatory that all applicants are enrolled in full-time studies at a post-secondary institution and returning to full-time studies upon completion of the work-term.

Your Role and Responsibilities
This position resides in Markham, ON and is a 16 month work term commencing in May 2025. It is mandatory that all applicants are enrolled in full-time studies at a post-secondary institution and returning to full-time studies upon completion of the work-term.

As an IBM Z Designer, your focus will be on meeting individual and team objectives, learning your craft, contributing to the design of a product and learning about IBM and IBM Design practices. Generally, your efforts may be concentrated around one or more products in your business area, with guidance and feedback from a more senior designer or design leader. You will also contribute to the design community by supporting community activities, sharing, learning or maintaining a part of the community operation.
As designers, we focus on ensuring the experiences we create meet the needs of our customers and end users and strive for design excellence in our work. You will apply a user-centered perspective to your design work and advocate for the customer / end user in all interactions with your teammates and colleagues. At times you may also engage with customers or other users of the product in the design process.

Key/Strategic Responsibilities

• Grow domain knowledge by learning the value proposition of your product, its market position, the basics of its technologies and how it’s used by our customers.
• Develop enough domain fluency to contribute ideas that differentiate the solution in the market.
• Attend and participate in design and product-oriented activities, such as stand-ups, Town Halls, product demos or design critiques.
• Develop the ability to find and apply relevant industry references/trends.
• Identify improvement opportunities at the individual product level

Cross-Functional Responsibilities

• Attend client / sponsor user sessions; establish your own client relationships.
• Contribute to the design of a product by advocating for the user experience and value.
• Learn about the org structure and key stakeholders of your PM and dev teams
• Seek and provide feedback on outcomes to your entire team.
• Support advocacy of design thinking across the team.
• Communicate with other designers and your 3iab team about your project status.
• Attend and participate in design reviews and playbacks to share experience design and related artifacts.
• Understand how your work fits into the department mission, strategy, and vision.

Functional Responsibilities

• Contribute towards delivery of project needs, such as research insights or user experience deliverables, in alignment with timeline and roadmap milestones.
• Participate in concept ideation informed by an understanding of users, clients, and their desired outcomes.
• Adapt work and processes according to guidance and direction from design leads.
• Strengthen your craft skills in your discipline through learning, mentorship, and producing.
• Expand competencies across t-shape to better contribute to personal and team outcomes.
• Acquire Enterprise Design Thinking fluency and infuse practices into work.
• Develop foundational knowledge in the technologies needed for your product/org, such as AI.
• Develop entry-level knowledge of IBM Experience Standards.
• Participate in internal and external design community activities.
• Familiarity with accessibility guidelines and principles (e.g., WCAG)

Required Technical and Professional Expertise

• Support user research activities and customer interactions.
• Contribute to research sessions/planning.
• Design research plans (with oversight).
• Demonstrate the ability to ask effective questions.
• Synthesize research
• Adjust designs based on formal and informal feedback
• Demonstrated experience with design tools such as Figma, Adobe Creative Cloud, Survey tools etc.
• Must have a portfolio showcasing previous design work.
• Must be eligible to work 16 months in Canada starting in May 2025

Preferred Technical and Professional Expertise

• Understanding of modern design thinking and design trends, including responsiveness and accessibility.
• Knowledge in planning and moderating design thinking workshops.
• Registered in a formal co-op/internship program