Design Is Life
As a child, Gabrielle Nguyen always expressed her artistic side. Through a love of painting, sketching and sculpting, she learned the value of the creative process and making things by hand.
“I realized that all the things I loved most in life were all shaped by design,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen has been a product designer for eight years, the last three of which have been spent at Toyota Connected as a UX Designer focusing on innovation and safety for connected car services.
UX design at Toyota Connected isn't just about producing a good-looking interface for new products and services but also about creating that experience within technical, behavioral and safety constraints. Using a mix of research, testing and feedback, Nguyen and her team work to create better experiences for Toyota and Lexus customers.
“My work begins with understanding how customers actually use our services in their day-to-day and then identifying where those experiences can be improved,” Nguyen said. “I like to think that my role is about bringing Toyota Connected closer to our customers.”
Nguyen believes success as a UX Designer is simple: providing a good experience.
“The experience is what people pay for,” she said. “It’s the feeling of wearing a well-made jacket, staying up late because you’re so immersed in a game with friends, or driving in your safe, reliable vehicle. These [types of] moments shape my curiosity and continue to guide me.”
Fitting the Pieces Together
Jack Titzman has always been a fan of puzzles, and in his role as an Engineer on the Mobility team, he gets to solve them every day.
Titzman and his team work on the company’s vehicle data ingestion platform, which securely processes hundreds of data points from millions of vehicles every second. They collect and process the data safely and efficiently so it can power Toyota’s connected data services. On a daily basis, they tackle challenges around data at scale, optimizing for speed, volume and cost, while also helping to ensure customer data remains private and secure.
“Each data point we ingest is like a puzzle piece that, when combined with others, helps tell the customer’s story,” Titzman said. “Engineering allows me to think creatively about how that data can be transformed to make a real impact for them.”
For our customers, Titzman’s work might mean a rental car company can monitor mileage, fuel level, and tire pressure across their entire fleet in near real time. Or a customer can receive predictive maintenance alerts based on their vehicle diagnostics, helping keep their vehicle running smoothly with less unexpected downtime.
Titzman has been with Toyota Connected for three years, one of which was spent working in Japan with colleagues from Toyota Motor Corporation. He collaborated with engineers from around the world and helped shape how Toyota’s data platform will expand globally. It was a unique opportunity to see firsthand how global teams work together to build shared technology at scale.
“Everyone is focused on innovation and quality,” Titzman said. “It’s rewarding to work in an environment where the goal is to deliver an excellent experience from driveway to highway.”
Engineering Behind The Scenes
Tim Zhu has spent nearly five years as an Engineer in the TechOps department, supporting Toyota Connected’s Developer Experience team.
While many engineers build products for external customers, his role is focused internally. But the behind-the-scenes work Zhu does has a ripple effect on the customer experience. He works on tools and processes that help his peers do their jobs more efficiently and with less friction, streamlining day-to-day workflows and building applications that make it easier for them to collaborate across the organization.
“It’s just as rewarding because I know my work directly supports the teams who build the final products,” Zhu said.
Zhu’s long-time love of computers had him learning programing at a young age. He went on to pursue a degree in computer science, and today, designing and building software is exactly what he’d hoped to do for a living.
Beyond full stack development, he gets hands-on experience with a wide range of tools and technologies – from writing Terraform and automation scripts to collaborating with external teams. He also gets the chance to be an early adopter of tools before they’re rolled out more broadly, which makes the role especially exciting for someone who enjoys learning and staying up to date with the latest tech.
“Everyone here is genuinely enthusiastic about technology and is always willing to help each other out,” Zhu said. “I feel surrounded by people who share the same curiosity and passion.”
The Tinkerer
As an Engineer on the Drivelink team, Zack Campbell designs, builds and deploys software that powers critical safety-related services, including automatic collision notifications, SOS requests, call center routing and stolen vehicle recovery. This is Toyota’s Safety Connect system, which offers customers peace of mind when the unexpected happens.
While his day-to-day work may be similar to other software engineers, working in the automotive space gives him the unique opportunity to leverage vehicle data and telephony capabilities to drive innovation in a rapidly evolving, software-driven mobility landscape.
His role often requires close collaboration with teams across Toyota Connected and Toyota Motor North America, as well as external partners such as 911 vendors, law enforcement agencies, and technology providers.
The road to a career in engineering was one that blossomed from his fascination with machines.
“I’ve enjoyed building things and figuring out how they worked for as long as I can remember,” Campbell said.
He started taking foundational engineering and programming classes that involved 3D modeling, fabrication and hands-on testing, then quickly found his passion in electronics and software. Prior to joining Toyota Connected, Campbell worked on F-35 flight simulators at Lockheed Martin.
“My favorite part of being an engineer is the constant opportunity to solve challenging problems while working on features that truly matter,” Campbell said. “Most rewarding of all is hearing feedback from our drivers and call center agents who’ve seen firsthand how our work made a difference during critical moments in their lives or the lives of their loved ones.”
The Problem-Solver
Trey Chadwell has always been drawn to roles where he could overcome challenges, decipher ambiguous situations and be hands-on learning new technologies.
“I love the aspect of problem solving and constantly learning new things,” Chadwell said.
He did some consulting and even worked at a fashion tech startup before joining Toyota Connected in 2019 to help build the Voice Assistant platform in the Toyota Audio Multimedia system. This platform allows millions of drivers to say “Hey Toyota” for hands-free assistance with their vehicle – anything from adjusting the HVAC controls to tuning to a different station and more.
Over the years, Chadwell has worked on the Voice Assistant ecosystem across multiple vehicle generations ranging from things like navigation, notification delivery and observability tooling to over-the-air machine learning model updates and resolving audio compatibility issues for next-generation hardware. Now he serves as a manager focused on supporting his team of engineers in their shared ikigai, or passion: tackling new challenges and delivering products that delight our customers.
