Spring 2027 Co-op, Human-AI Work and Organization Design

Job Description

Kickstart Your Career at Vertex!  
Are you ready to make a real impact? At Vertex, our mission is to tackle serious diseases and to change lives, for the better, for the future. Our aim is to give you the skills, insights, and career guidance to be an important part of that future; to turn your potential into progression. As a Vertex intern or co-op, you’ll work on meaningful projects, collaborate with talented teams, and learn from industry leaders. We’re passionate about innovation, inclusion, and supporting your growth—inside and outside the lab. 

Why Vertex? 

• Real Projects: You’ll work on assignments that make a real impact, not just busy work. 

• Mentorship & Networking: Connect with leaders and peers who want to see you succeed through professional networks, connections, and collaborations that will shape your longer-term career. 

• Flexible & Supportive: We offer flexible work options with Flex @ Vertex and prioritize your wellbeing. 

• Inclusive Culture: Collaboration and inclusion are embedded in everything we do. 

• Career Launchpad: Build skills, explore career paths, and get guidance for your future career. 

Your Impact 

The Vertex Human-AI Work and Organization Design Co-Op is a 6-month experiential training program for students currently working towards an advanced degree in Organizational Design, Organizational Behavior, Industrial-organizational Psychology, Human-Computer Interaction, Strategy, Management, Operations, Sociology, Anthropology, Organizational Sociology, Learning Sciences, Organizational Learning, Systems Design, Service Design, Process Design, Information Systems, Data Science, or other related fields focused on Human-AI interaction. If you are passionate, collaborative, and growth-minded, a co-op at Vertex will help you gain meaningful experience in our Workforce Strategy & Innovation functional areas and serve as a launchpad for your career.  

The application deadline for this co-op is November 15th. Please note that Vertex reviews applications on a rolling basis and reserves the right to close this job posting prior to the listed deadline. Applicants can expect to receive an update about their application before or shortly after the application deadline.  

Ready to apply? Submit your application and let’s turn possibilities into reality! 

 What you will be doing:  
Vertex is advancing an enterprise AI transformation that will evolve how work is performed, how teams operate, and how Vertexians collaborate with AI agents to deliver value. Human-AI Design is a major component of our transformation, and involves analyzing work at the task level, designing future-state human-AI processes, and translating those processes into roles, team structures, workforce plans, and organization designs.

The Graduate Co-op, Human-AI Work and Organization Design will report to the Senior Director of Human-AI Process Design and work closely with Human-AI Design Leads and other stakeholders within HR and beyond to capture lessons from active transformation work, synthesize insights across initiatives, and translate emerging experience into improved methodologies, tools and standards.

The co-op will also conduct research on human-AI collaboration, the future of work, AI-enabled organization design, team evolution, organizational learning, and measurement. By connecting external research with evidence from Vertex’s transformation initiatives, the co-op will help Vertex develop a rigorous and practical approach to redesigning work for an AI-enabled future.

This role is well suited for a graduate or doctoral student interested in conducting applied research at the intersection of Future of Work, artificial intelligence, work design, organization design, and enterprise transformation.

Key Responsibilities:

Capture and synthesize lessons from Vertex’s AI Transformation

• Partner with Human-AI Design Leads working across transformation pods to document design decisions, methods used, challenges encountered, and lessons learned.
• Review outputs from pod-level work, including future-state processes, task and work inventories, role definitions, team structures, organization designs, and workforce impact analyses.
• Identify recurring patterns, differences, and unresolved questions across transformation initiatives.
• Distinguish broadly transferable practices from approaches that are specific to a particular function, process, or business context.
• Translate pod-level experience into concise case studies, research summaries, design guidance, and recommendations for methodology improvements.

Evolve Vertex’s Human-AI design methodology

• Help refine the methodology used by Human-AI Design Leads to analyze work at the task level and identify opportunities to automate, augment, simplify, or reallocate work.
• Support the development of frameworks for determining which activities should be performed by people, AI agents, or a combination of both.
• Help improve methods for translating future-state processes into role definitions, team structures, decision rights, workforce implications, and organization designs.
• Identify gaps in the methodology based on evidence from active transformation work and relevant external research.
• Support the continued development of Vertex’s playbook for executing end-to-end human-AI work transformations.

Advance Organization Design for the AI era

• Research how AI-enabled work may affect roles, team composition, organizational structures, coordination mechanisms, and spans of responsibility.
• Explore how teams may evolve when people work alongside AI assistants and autonomous or semi-autonomous agents.
• Help adapt established organization design principles and tools for work environments in which AI performs a meaningful share of tasks.

Research measurement in the age of AI

• Research emerging approaches for measuring the impact of AI-enabled work and organization redesign.
• Help distinguish measures of AI deployment or usage from measures of sustainable business and organizational impact and identify potential qualitative and quantitative methods for evaluating human-AI workflows and transformation outcomes.
• Work with Human-AI Design Leads to identify measures that can be applied consistently across pods while accounting for differences in business context.

Facilitate organizational learning and knowledge transfer

• Research effective approaches for transferring learning among groups participating in Vertex’s AI transformation.
• Help establish a recurring process through which Human-AI Design Leads share methods, findings, challenges, and reusable solutions.
• Support workshops, retrospectives, working sessions, and communities of practice focused on human-AI work design.
• Prepare cross-pod learning summaries, presentations, research briefs, and playbook updates.
• Surface emerging questions that require additional research, experimentation, or leadership decisions.
• Help shorten the learning cycle between pod-level experimentation and enterprise-level methodology improvement.

Collaborate across the transformation

• Build productive working relationships with Human-AI Design Leads and selected partners across business functions, HR, technology, data, transformation, change, and learning.
• Participate in selected pod working sessions to observe how human-AI design methods are applied in practice.
• Conduct interviews, working sessions, artifact reviews, and structured retrospectives to capture knowledge.
• Facilitate organizational learning and knowledge transfer

Qualifications:

• Currently pursuing a master’s degree, doctoral degree, or equivalent graduate-level program in a relevant field, such as:
  • Organization design or organizational behavior.
  • Industrial-organizational psychology.
  • Human-computer interaction.
  • Management, strategy, or operations.
  • Sociology, anthropology, or organizational sociology.
  • Learning sciences or organizational learning.
  • Systems design, service design, or process design.
  • Information systems, data science, or another interdisciplinary field focused on human-AI interaction.
• Strong interest in the future of work, artificial intelligence, human-AI collaboration, organization design, and/or workforce transformation.
• Demonstrated ability to conduct structured research and synthesize findings from academic research, practitioner experience, interviews, and work products.
• Experience in using AI tools to evolve own ways of working (e.g., reviewing/synthesizing information, developing deliverables, automating tasks)
• Strong conceptual and systems-thinking skills, including the ability to connect task, process, role, team, workforce, and organization-level implications.
• Strong written, verbal, and visual communication skills.
• Ability to translate complex information into practical frameworks, tools, playbook content, and executive-ready materials.
• Ability to work effectively in an environment where methods, technologies, and organizational requirements continue to evolve.

• Ability to manage defined work independently while collaborating with experienced practitioners and cross-functional partners.
• Legal authorization to work in the United States, now and in the future. Please note that Vertex does not provide sponsorship for internships/co-ops or entry level roles within this part of the organization. 
• You must be enrolled in an advanced degree program if graduating before May 2027 
• You must be available to work full-time, 40 hours per week from January – July 2027 

Program Details:  

• Full-time, paid co-op $30.00 – 50.00 USD/hour 

• Program Dates: January – July 2027 

• Application Deadline: November 15th, 2026

At Vertex, we believe that when you feel your best, you can perform at your best. That’s why our US benefits and global well-being resources are designed to support you.

• Free 24/7 onsite gym access and free access to group exercise classes 

• Subsidized commuter benefits- transit and parking 

• Provided meals—free breakfast daily! 

• Career development opportunities and events, including C Suite engagement 

• Social events—both intern-only and company-wide 

• Location-specific perks and extras! 

• Recognition of National Intern Day  
  
Our Ways of Working  
Flex Designation:  Hybrid - Boston

Flex Eligibility Status:  Hybrid: work three days per week on-site with ad hoc flexibility. 

Note: The Flex status for this position is subject to Vertex’s Policy on Flex @ Vertex Program and may be changed at any time.  

This job posting is for a temporary role with a third-party agency partner that provides services to Vertex.  The individual selected for this role will be offered the role as an employee of that third-party agency; compensation, medical benefits, fringe benefits and other terms and conditions of employment shall be presented by the third-party agency upon offer. 

At Vertex, we embrace continuous learning and encourage employees to stay informed on advances in AI, technology, automation, and industry trends. We seek talent who bring an external perspective, demonstrate curiosity and sound judgment, and thoughtfully adopt new capabilities that improve decision-making, drive innovation, increase efficiency, and help deliver better outcomes for patients.

At Vertex, we embrace continuous learning and encourage employees to stay informed on advances in AI, technology, automation, and industry trends. We seek talent who bring an external perspective, demonstrate curiosity and sound judgment, and thoughtfully adopt new capabilities that improve decision-making, drive innovation, increase efficiency, and help deliver better outcomes for patients.

Pay Range:

Disclosure Statement:

Company Information

Vertex is a global biotechnology company that invests in scientific innovation.

Vertex is committed to equal employment opportunity and non-discrimination for all employees and qualified applicants without regard to a person's race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, marital status, or any characteristic protected under applicable law. Vertex is an E-Verify Employer in the United States. Vertex will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with known disabilities, in accordance with applicable law.

Any applicant requiring an accommodation in connection with the hiring process and/or to perform the essential functions of the position for which the applicant has applied should make a request to the recruiter or hiring manager, or contact Talent Acquisition at ApplicationAssistance@vrtx.com