Life of a Product Design Intern amidst COVID-19
With the unfortunate pandemic happening around the globe, you may often hear that an internship during the summer break will be extremely challenging to obtain. Yet, amid all the circumstances in play, Shopee still granted a lot of opportunities to inexperienced students like myself, to learn the ropes of the actual workforce while expanding our design knowledge. Upon receiving Shopee’s upbeat “Yes”, it kickstarted my internship as a Product Design intern at Shopee amidst COVID-19.
Common Internship Misconception: Busted
In such a massive e-commerce corporation, most would form the initial impression that the scope of work as an intern was unrelated tasks or ad-hoc labour. On top of that impression, COVID-19 also meant that we had to work from home, which formed beliefs that it would surely minimise our learning opportunities. Yet, as a self-proclaimed Shopee myth-buster myself, that was totally untrue.
The inclusivity exhibited by the Shopee Design team ensured that you partake in proper design projects regardless of your position. Despite working from home, my mentor always made sure that I got involved in enriching Zoom meetings and calls to gain an insightful understanding of how design worked at Shopee. This further reassured my learning, as working from home should never be a handicap, but a motivation to fully utilise the resources we were given.
The Programme
The first couple of weeks of the Internship Programme really focused on onboarding and understanding how the team runs. To reduce the steep learning curve, ongoing and new design projects were introduced in bite-sized pieces. These projects varied from lending a hand to conducting UI reviews, to designing smaller elements of a design project, preventing anyone from getting overwhelmed with the various projects the team handled.
After familiarising myself with how the Design team worked at Shopee, I was given a lot more opportunities to participate in different projects. Namely, designing refund pages, notification tips, icons and other application features that were of relevance. One of the more notable projects would definitely be the opportunity to develop a Figma guide for Project Managers (PM) and Developers. This happened during the later part of my internship, which meant that I got to apply what I had learned from the Shopee design team over the past weeks.
Wearing both the hats of a product designer and a user, I also got to design from scratch. Starting from looking at existing content, to the flow of the Figma guide, to ensuring the learning curve is not too steep. These are all part of the designing process I had picked up as I was interning here, which also shown my growth in my design knowledge.
The Shopee Design team is always looking for opportunities to improve how the existing team runs. For instance, experimenting with different workflow, streamlining how interfaces are designed, and staying open to change. It made me realise that the lessons I had learned in the past 7 weeks barely scratched the surface of how brave and enriching the Design team is. Admittedly, it motivated me to seek change, step out of my comfort zone and stay open-minded as a budding designer myself.
To sum it up, I started out with not many design experiences. However, I was still given plenty of opportunities to explore, uncover and expand my design knowledge with the constant help from my colleagues and mentors. Without the team spirit, eagerness, and liveliness of the team, I highly doubt that I can achieve such growth in my short 7 weeks as a Product Design intern!
Shopee is the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan. Shopee connects shoppers, brands and sellers across Asia and other fast-growing markets, empowering anyone to buy and sell anywhere and at any time.
Shopee offers an easy, secure, and engaging experience that is enjoyed by millions of people daily. It offers a wide product assortment, supported by integrated payments and logistics, as well as popular entertainment features tailored for each market. Shopee is also a key contributor to the region’s digital economy with a firm commitment to helping brands and entrepreneurs succeed in e-commerce.
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