Valuable Lessons From My Internship at Wish
By: Michelle Chiu
Tags: Tech, Design, Internships, Product Design, Learning

3. Track your impact.

During my first week at Wish, I created my own “internship document” that outlined what I was most excited to learn, including a checklist of tasks I wanted to work on before the internship concluded. As the weeks progressed, I also added two tables: one to track notes from my one-on-one meetings and another to track all the projects I had completed containing links to Phab tickets and respective Sketch files.

By keeping and organizing this log, it was easy for me to not fall into an auto-pilot mode of breezing through the months without having accomplished all I had wanted to achieve. Usually, I asked for metrics once engineers had built and shipped my designs to add to my notes. It was nice to reflect on my progress and see a record of the tangible impact I was making on the company. For example, following the release of my designs for the launch of our “Fulfillment By Wish (FBW)” program, our marketing manager reported that close to 50,000 shipments were made to our warehouses following the approval of thousands of merchant applications.

4. Bring your other strengths to the table.

In a former life, I was a software engineer before becoming a product designer. I studied Computational Media at Georgia Tech — a major that amalgamated computer science, digital media, and design studies — and had completed software engineering internships at Microsoft, Apple, and DoorDash. I greatly value my technical background and asked if I could help the team in any way by providing this additional skillset.

My manager took this interest with great appreciation. On weeks when I had a lighter load on design requests, I was given front-end engineering tasks to complete on our platform. Moreover, when I had finished outlining certain components for the design system, I helped developed them for the digital style guide using React.

5. Interest yourself in outside opportunities.

Don’t be afraid to take on responsibilities outside of your main tasks. There are so many more ways to grow than to simply complete the projects you’re given!

For example, I volunteered for a full-day event where we hosted students from Berkeley Innovation, a design consultancy club at UC Berkeley, to visit and learn more about the work we do. The team and I gave them an office tour, chatted with them over lunch, and planned a full day of events focused on tackling design exercises. It was inspiring to be able to spend time with younger creatives who had admirable ambition and curiosity.

6. Most importantly — have fun and get to know the people you work with!

I made a conscious effort to grab personal coffee chats or lunch with everyone I worked with; this comprised of everyone on my team and all of the designers. It was great to get to know my colleagues in a more personal setting and learn more about their journeys to Wish.

For our quarterly offsite, the Platform team bonded over homemade Japanese food and soju by attending a ramen-making workshop together. Although messy, it was just as fun and delicious as it sounds (and has never made me want to purchase my own pasta-cutter machine more badly).

I also had a chance to get to know the other interns pretty well, whether it was through seeing Snakehips at 1015 Folsom on Halloween, going on weekend adventures to Lands End and Angel Island, attending graffiti workshops and bowling intern events, or even our daily conversations at lunch. We also spent happy hours together, which my friends in the Bay Area were able to attend as visitors. Our 42nd-floor views, personal bartender, and open bar definitely won the hearts of many.