# Aravind Asokan > Infotainment Product at Rivian VW Tech | MIT Location: Palo Alto, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/aravindasokan I am a UX Designer, Product Designer, Systems Thinker, and Design Leader with over 15 years of professional experience. I thrive on solving complex problems with plenty of ambiguity, and I love defining new products or innovating on existing ones in equal measure. I take my entrepreneurial spirit with me wherever I go, and I have been tasked with establishing design as a function in several organizations I have worked with in the past, including establishing and leading design teams. I consider adaptability to be my topmost skill, and I am comfortable wearing different hats and playing different roles. While my experience is in the transportation, mobility, and aviation domains, products I have designed have been on multiple platforms including mobile, web, in-vehicle displays, in-flight displays, bespoke workstations, and information display systems. ## Work Experience ### Senior Lead Product Manager - System Experience @ Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies Jan 2025 – Present | Palo Alto, CA Sr Lead PM for R2 infotainment, VWG infotainment projects, instrument cluster, UX frameworks, and infotainment system experience. ### Lead Product Manager - System Experience @ Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies Jan 2025 – Jan 2025 | Palo Alto, California, United States Lead product manager for infotainment system experience and UX frameworks. ### Lead Product Manager - System Experience @ Rivian Jan 2024 – Jan 2025 | Palo Alto, CA ### Lead HMI Architect @ Rivian Jan 2021 – Jan 2024 | Palo Alto, California, United States Lead HMI Architect for software features for consumer and commercial infotainment, as well as UX frameworks, privacy and localization. ### Sr. UX / HMI Engineer @ Terrafugia Jan 2017 – Jan 2021 | Woburn, Massachusetts UX design and HMI architecture for Terrafugia Transition flying car. Full cycle of design from high level requirements to concept development to implementation for the UX design centered on the instrument cluster display. Drove consensus on features for prototypes. Supported flight test as a means of UX research into operational issues. Wrote the pilot operating handbook for the Transition flying car. ### Sr. UX Designer @ nuTonomy Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 Early UX concepts for AV in-car experience, teleoperation of autonomous vehicles, and fleet management systems for autonomous vehicles. ### Graduate Teaching Assistant @ Massachusetts Institute of Technology Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | Cambridge, Massachusetts TA for Architecture of Complex Systems course on EdX, taught by prof Bruce Cameron ### Co-Founder @ Magpie Solutions Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | Watertown, Massachusetts, United States Co-created a clean energy company with an MIT classmate. Wrote business plans, marketing and pricing plans, created product specifications, designed brand identity, product wireframes and company website, and created investor pitches and video. Gained initial funding from MIT Sandbox initiative, selected for round 2 of MassChallenge. Advised by MIT Prof. of Building Technology Leslie Norford, and MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service. ### Graduate Student @ Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 | Cambridge, Massachusetts ### Country Manager & UX Instructor - Mexico @ Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Jan 2015 – Jan 2015 | Veracruz Area, Mexico As Country Manager / Design Instructor for MIT's Global Startup Labs initiative in Mexico, I lead a team of three other instructors teaching technology, entrepreneurship and design skills to students in Xalapa, Veracruz who want to become entrepreneurs. My duties include organizing and coordinating the academic, administrative and communication aspects of the overall programme, as well as teaching user experience design to the students. The ultimate aim of the programme is to help the students not just in becoming entrepreneurs and creating companies, but also to help them attain the skills required to navigate the world of investors, capital and users/customers. Design being a new addition to this programme, I am also tasked with developing the curriculum for UI/UX classes. ### Marketing Intern @ MIT Technology Licensing Office Jan 2015 – Jan 2015 | Cambridge, Massachusetts Marketing Intern at MIT's Technology Licensing Office, tasked with creating marketing briefs of cutting edge technologies developed at MIT with the aim of promoting them to a wider industrial audience. ### Lead Designer @ Tata Elxsi Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 Lead designer for the user experience design team at Tata Elxsi, tasked with leading multiple projects in domains as diverse as automotive driver experience, telecommunications application, digital information and signage systems for rail transport, and web based testing applications. ### Lead Designer - Aerospace Human Factors @ Honeywell Jan 2012 – Jan 2013 Lead Designer for the aerospace human factors team at Honeywell Bangalore. I was the domain expert for flight deck human factors for the Bangalore team, and led early design and prototyping efforts for touch screen flight deck controllers for American and European aircraft programmes. Worked extensively in the flight support services domain as well, leading the design activities for iPad applications for flight plan filing. ### Senior Designer - Aerospace Human Factors @ Honeywell Jan 2009 – Jan 2012 As a Senior Designer in the design innovation team at Honeywell in Bangalore, I led design efforts on an Advance Surface Movement Guidance and Control system that was pitched successfully to Dubai airport. I also worked on UI design for the integration of AVOD into our line of Cabin Management Systems for business aviation. I successfully cleared the selection criteria (nomination, examination, simulator check, HR evaluation and interview) for Honeywell's private pilot's license programme for employees in India, and after training at Chimes Aviation Academy, I am now a PPL holder endorsed with 70+ hours on Cessna 172R Nav III aircraft with Garmin G1000 flight deck. ### Designer @ Honeywell Jan 2007 – Jan 2009 Hired as the first designer in the user centered design team (later known as design innovation team) to work exclusively on aerospace projects, I was tasked with expanding the team's presence and portfolio in the aerospace domain. Initiated engagements with the aerospace engineering group, and successful UI design efforts on the KSN770 multi function display programme led to more human factors projects from the aerospace business unit. I also led a team of designers to explore future flight deck concepts for general aviation, and the team built a modular COTS flight simulator for early feasibility evaluation of the concepts created. The prototyped concepts were presented at various internal fora, and helped strengthen the design team's aerospace portfolio. ### Intern @ National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore Jan 2006 – Jan 2007 Redesigned the cockpit for the Hansa-3 composite ab-initio trainer aircraft. ## Education ### Master of Science (M.S.) in System Design and Management Massachusetts Institute of Technology ### Private Pilot's License in private pilot's license Chimes Aviation Academy ### GDPD in Industrial Design National Institute of Design ### Udyogamandal School ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/aravindasokan - Portfolio: https://www.aravind.work --- Source: https://flows.cv/aravindasokan JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/aravindasokan/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13