Uber

02

What I did

Due to NDA, I can't disclose the specific details of each of my projects publicly. On a high level though, I worked through a full-fledged design process beginning with identifying user problems, auditing existing onboarding flows, defining product goals, ideating solutions that fit these goals, then designing a final product as project scope narrowed over time.

This seems fairly standard, but the nature of a rapidly growing and fast moving company going through many cultural and political changes made for quite the experience.

Another big aspect of my experience this summer revolves around a word many interns care a lot for: impact. At Uber, I’m lucky to know that what I was working on was both meaningful and impactful, feelings I resonated a lot with the entire summer. Not only was I impacting my teammates in the driver org directly, I was also impacting the driver partner community as a whole with the work I was doing.

One of the most substantial moments during my internship was when our Director of Product, Ivan, presented a large portion of my work regarding driver onboarding funnels to our CEO, Dara. I fondly remember waiting with my manager for the meeting to conclude so that we can debrief afterwards and talk next steps. And yes, the thoughts and feedback Dara gave us were positive!

If there's one word that can describe my summer, it's growth. It's still crazy to me that in one quick 12-week summer, I've learned more about design, industry, and myself, than in an entire career of schooling.

I'll segue that into a few major takeaways from my internship experience at Uber:

• Be people proactive

  • Wherever you go, I can almost guarantee there will be people, people who are oftentimes more than willing to pass on wisdom, feedback, or even a good-hearted banter. Be proactive about this. Some of my fondest and most impactful experiences at Uber were having 1:1s with a multitude of people there. Always ask for feedback and advice, never stop asking questions, and keep on bantering.

• Product designers specialize in the entire design process

  • I came into the internship with the misguided mindset of only working in Figma my entire time here. Though that wasn’t necessarily false, it wasn’t the only place I worked. The nature of my projects, ones ranging from start to finish, had me practice the entire design process, including ideation, research, low -> high fidelity design work, and more. It’s in our job description to be experts in each of these things, so be prepared and hungry to learn.

• Know your users

  • As an Uber rider all my life, joining the driver team meant having to learn about a set of users that I had no knowledge base in coming into the summer. I had to quickly re-frame my thinking and get into the shoes and minds of our driver partners in order to design experiences that best accomplish their needs. The act of doing this further solidified just how important knowing your user base and focusing on them from steps zero to finish is.

• Never lose sight of not only the project's north star, but yours as well

  • Most every project at Uber starts with a north star vision, one that might not entirely make its way into production, but one that will continue to live on as a point of inspiration for future thinking down the line. My mentor constantly reminded me to never stop exploring and to always include the “what-ifs”, not only for myself, but also for designers that peek at my work down the line.

  • Never lose sight of your own north star vision as well. If there’s one thing I regret most during my experience, it was not saying “no” enough. An example of this was when I knew I didn’t have the bandwidth to meet one of my manager’s requests, but I agreed to do it anyways. This led to sub-par work that I wasn’t entirely proud of, work that I forced upon myself. Stay true to yourself. It’s okay to push back at times, just know when and where to do it.