Intern Insider: Product Design at Shopee

Between breaking into the Product Design space, to deciding on which company to intern at, there is much to consider when applying for an internship.

So we spoke to Kahmin, a Product Design intern with the Shopee Design team, to hear her thoughts on the misconceptions, realities and aspirations of being a Product Design intern in Shopee.

How has your experience as a Product Design intern at Shopee made a difference to you?

K: I was quite nervous at the beginning of the internship, as I came in with not a lot of design experience. 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 support from my team, I would’ve never been able to achieve the growth I had in my short 7 weeks as a Product Design intern at Shopee.

What surprised you the most about your internship?

K: Definitely the inclusivity in the Shopee Design team! My mentors ensured that everyone had a part to play in real high-impact design projects, regardless of whether you were an intern.

Despite working from home due to COVID-19, my mentor always made sure to check-in on me via regular online meetings to ease me into my work and the team. This further reassured my choice to join Shopee, as I learnt that working from home should never be a handicap, but a motivation to fully utilise the resources I am given.

Kahmin in a Design team Mentorship Session

Did you face any challenges when you first joined the team?

K: I was thankful to have had a smooth start to my journey through the initiatives shown by my team and the internship program!

In the first couple of weeks of the internship, we focused on understanding how the team worked and Shopee’s design philosophies.

To reduce the steep learning curve, I was introduced to ongoing and new design projects in bite-sized pieces. These projects varied from assisting in conducting User Interface (UI) reviews, to designing smaller elements of a design project, which helped to prevent me from getting overwhelmed.

Tell us more about your work as a Product Design intern.

K: After familiarising myself with the workings of the Design team, I was given lots of opportunities to participate in different design projects. Namely, designing refund pages, notification tips, icons and other app features.

One of my more notable projects would definitely be helping to develop a Figma guide for our Shopee Product Management and Engineering teams.

As a product designer and a user myself, I got to apply design insights and knowledge to many of my projects. From working on existing content, to developing the flow of the Figma guide, these projects helped to accelerate my growth as a Product Design intern.

The Shopee Design team Figma Guide

What is the biggest misconception people have about being an intern in Shopee?

K: Before I joined the team, I had the impression that coming into a company as prominent as Shopee, my scope of work would be relegated to unrelated or ad-hoc tasks. However, I found out quickly that that was totally false.

Upon receiving the offer letter from Shopee, my journey as a Product Design intern began with a whirlwind of experiences that allowed me — as someone who is relatively inexperienced in the field, to learn the ropes of the industry and gain tons of design insight.

Lastly, what impressed you the most about the Shopee Design team?

K: It’s definitely the passion for learning that the team has.

The Shopee Design team is always looking for opportunities to improve how the existing team runs. For instance, experimenting with different workflows, streamlining how interfaces are designed, and staying open to change.

It made me realise that the lessons I had learnt in the past 7 weeks barely scratched the surface of what there is to learn before I fully enter the industry. It has motivated me to seek change, step out of my comfort zone and stay open-minded as a budding designer myself.

As a Shopee Designer, we seek to serve our users better by creating seamless, human-centered end-to-end product experiences. Our commitment to designing intuitive and hyper-localised user experiences is the key to our mission in reaching out to millions of our users across the region.

If you love Design as much as we do, join the Shopee Design team here.

Check out our other Shopee team features here.

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