Melissa Schmitz🇯🇵
PM, Global R&D Coordination at Toyota Industries Corporation
About Melissa Schmitz
PM, Global R&D Coordination at Toyota Industries Corporation
Update: I am currently on a year-long temporary work assignment in Japan. I will not be offering long-term mentorship at the time. Thank you for understanding!
By day, I'm currently a Research Engineer for emerging technologies (XR, automated vehicles) where I design prototypes for R&D with a focus in UX/human factors. By night, I work on creative technology projects as Lead Technical Director for LUMA (America's largest architectural projection arts festival) and through freelance projects.
As your mentor, I'm happy to help with general career questions, working in industrial tech, as well as getting started in XR. My focus is more on new research concepts and prototyping. So while I can help you with many things, some things I'm not that helpful with include formal design systems (I'm in messy, experimental research), working at big companies (sorry; I don't work at Apple or Meta!), or anything related to Toyota Motors specifically (I work in the forklift division of Toyota).
Time slots fill up pretty fast, but if you're interested in meeting with me please don't hesitate to join the waitlist! I try to squeeze people in where I can!
Expertise
Sessions with Melissa Schmitz
- General XR Mentorship (30 min): General career questions around XR (if your question is not related to XR your request will be declined).
- XR Portfolio Review (45 min): Need someone to take a look at your XR portfolio? Submit your portfolio URL and I'll take a look at it before our session so we can discuss it together. This can also be used for resume review or LinkedIn review. However, please book one session for each (I can't reasonably review more than one in a single session, thanks!)
- Start Designing in XR (60 min): Unsure of how to get started with XR design? With this 6-session series I'll help you design your first XR (AR/VR/MR) prototype within 6 weeks!
What mentees say
“Melissa was exceptional - an XR professional who shares her experience with warmth and approachability, offering useful resources throughout our sessions. I loved her methodical approach to breaking down my XR ideas. She has this way of asking the right questions that helped me clarify what I was really trying to accomplish and then map out practical next steps.”
“I met with Melissa mainly to get her critical feedback on my current portfolio and resume as a early designer, however, I came away learning much more. Melissa is very knowledge on the design process and provided practical industry advice on how I could grow as a designer while making genuine connections.”
“Melissa was very professional and approachable and shared with me a lot of her thoughts on the design projects I was currently working on as well as trend predictions in the field of augmented reality. Many thanks to Melissa for her generous help.”