AI Innovation Lab - Senior Creative Technologist

Job description

Who We Are At Kyndryl, we run and reimagine the mission-critical technology systems that drive advantage for the world’s leading businesses. We are at the heart of progress; with proven expertise and a continuous flow of AI-powered insight, enabling smarter decisions, faster innovation, and a lasting competitive edge. For our people—Kyndryls—that means doing purposeful work that powers human progress. Join us and experience a flexible, supportive environment where your well-being is prioritized and your potential can thrive. The Role As Senior Creative Technologist you are the Lab's primary builder: part interaction designer, part engineer, part researcher. Working to engagement direction from the Associate Director and the Director, you turn ambiguity into momentum - taking a customer opportunity from brief to service blueprint, agent concept, working prototype and evidence. You build the interaction, not only the screen: agent state, confidence, permissions, explanation, escalation and outcome, across interface, voice, device, spatial and physical touchpoints. You are customer-facing throughout, and on smaller engagements you carry the day-to-day customer relationship yourself. You bring depth in at least one making discipline - HCI, interaction or product design, industrial design, software development or creative technology - and the range to work across all of them. You would rather get something in front of people this week than perfect it for a month, and you are unprecious about the first version and rigorous about the evidence. What you will do Make the brief buildable - Turn a customer opportunity into users, workflows, decisions, constraints and hypotheses. Map the service blueprint and the human- agent-system model: roles, knowledge, handoffs, exceptions and what should stay human. Prototype at the lowest useful fidelity - Move from sketches and Wizard-of-Oz simulations to coded interfaces, live agents, connected devices or fabricated forms as the question demands. Put the perceived experience first and fake what is not needed to answer it. Make it behave for real - Wire approved or synthetic data, APIs, models and tools so prototypes show credible end-to-end behaviour rather than disconnected screens. Test with people before polishing - Run focused research and co-design with customers, users and subject-matter experts. Define the evidence up front, then diagnose whether a breakdown sits in the interaction, workflow, policy, data or model. Work directly with customers - Present and demonstrate your work to customer teams, lead research, co- design and testing sessions, and bring tangible work into executive workshops. On smaller engagements, act as the customer's day-to-day contact with direction from the Associate Director or Director. Capture the pattern behind the prototype - Separate reusable interaction logic, components, agent states, prompts, policies and evaluation assets from the customer-specific example. Package the work to move - Hand pilot and delivery teams the flows, code, assets, dependencies, risks and test evidence they need to continue without starting over. Explore the edge - Experiment with sensors, microcontrollers, edge devices, fabrication and ambient feedback, and use the Lab's protected moonshot capacity to test high-upside ideas in human-AI collaboration. Scope and partnerships - Y ou own the making within an engagement - the quality, credibility and learning value of the prototypes and artifacts you carry - and the day-to-day customer relationship on smaller engagements. The senior executive relationship sits with the Associate Director and Director. You own assigned workstreams and prototypes - Day-to-day design, technical exploration, build, testing, evidence and handoff, and the customer sessions that go with them. The Associate Director and Director set engagement direction - Customer journey, executive relationship, opportunity framing, prioritization and post-Lab outcome. On smaller engagements you carry the customer relationship within that direction. Engineering and Lab operations own their domains - Engineering leads own production architecture, security, integration and deployment; you own prototype behaviour and the intended human-AI experience. Scheduling, hospitality, AV, safety and equipment sit with Lab operations. Success looks like - Customers experience and question the opportunity before major investment; testing visibly changes the design; delivery teams continue the build and other Lab teams reuse the patterns, assets and evaluation methods behind it. Who You Are What you bring Minimum qualifications Education - Bachelor's degree in interaction design, HCI, industrial design, computer science, engineering, architecture or another creative or technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience. Experience - 5+ years in creative technology, design technology, interaction design or software prototyping, including 2+ years building prototypes for customers or stakeholders under time pressure. Portfolio - A link or PDF of recent work showing prototypes you built yourself, the question each one answered and what changed as a result - not only strategy decks or polished screens. Language - Business-level fluency in English. Y ou will thrive here if you have Depth in one craft, range across several - HCI, interaction or product design, industrial design, software development or creative technology, with the ability to build directly in at least one medium and collaborate across code, agents, data, devices and fabrication. Practical AI fluency - A working grasp of generative and agentic systems, an AI-native way of working and the habit of picking up new capabilities quickly and applying them responsibly. Research and evaluation instincts - Experience learning with people and turning evidence into concrete changes to an interaction or system. Fluency in both design and engineering language - The judgment to work with customers, designers, researchers, engineers and industry experts, and healthy habits for seeking feedback and acting on it. Customer presence - Comfort presenting, demonstrating and running sessions with customer teams, and the judgment to carry a smaller engagement day to day. Preferred Skills Advanced degree - Master's degree in interaction design, HCI, design engineering, computational design or a related field. Software prototyping stack - Modern web front end (TypeScript or JavaScript, React), Figma, Git, API integration and LLM or agent frameworks, with working knowledge of at least one cloud platform. Embodied and physical AI - Microcontrollers and edge devices (Arduino, Raspberry Pi, ESP32 or similar), sensors, firmware, wireless connectivity, 3D printing or CNC fabrication, spatial audio or ambient feedback. Immersive and motion - Unity or Unreal, WebGL or Three.js, AR or VR headsets, 3D tools such as Blender or Rhino, motion tools such as After Effects. Lab, studio or consultancy background - Time in an innovation lab, product studio, design consultancy, creative agency or research group, building for clients under time pressure. Mobility - Willingness to travel to customer sites and Lab locations as engagements require. Being You The “Kyn” in Kyndryl means kinship, which represents the strong bonds we have with each other, our customers and our communities. We focus on ensuring all Kyndryls feel included and we welcome people of all cultures, backgrounds, and experiences. Even if you don’t meet every requirement, we encourage you to apply. We believe in growth, and we’re excited to see what you can bring. At Kyndryl, employee feedback has told us that our number one driver of employee engagement is belonging. That sense of belonging — being a valued, respected, trusted member of the team — is fundamental to our culture and fueling great experiences for our customers. This dedication to welcoming everyone into our company means that Kyndryl gives you the ability to thrive and contribute to our culture of empathy and shared success. That’s The Kyndryl Way. What You Can Expect Your career with us isn’t just a job—it’s an adventure with purpose. We offer a dynamic, hybrid-friendly culture that supports your well-being and empowers you to grow. Our Be Well programs are thoughtfully designed to support your financial, mental, physical, and social health—because we know that when you feel your best, you do your best. From your very first day, you’ll dive into impactful work that powers the systems our customers rely on every day. You won’t just contribute—you’ll make a difference, tackling meaningful projects that sharpen your skills and fuel your growth. We’re here to champion your journey. With powerful tools to chart your career path, personalized development goals aligned with your ambitions, and continuous feedback to keep you inspired and on track, you’ll have everything you need to thrive and evolve. You’ll develop in-demand skills to grow your career and achieve your ambitions with access to cutting-edge learning opportunities—from certifications with Microsoft, Google, and Amazon to coaching and hands-on experiences. And through it all, you’ll be part of a culture that values empathy, restless learning, and a devotion to shared success. We want you to thrive here—and we’re committed to helping you do just that. Ready to make an impact? Join us and help shape what’s next. Get Referred! If you know someone that works at Kyndryl, when asked ‘How Did You Hear About Us’ during the application process, select ‘Employee Referral’ and enter your contact's Kyndryl email address.