👋🏻Introduction

I don’t have any formal education in design and ended up learning design from various free resources such as the YouTube Channel of King Siddharth and Abhinav Chikara. After my internship at Scaler Academy, I was sure that I wanted to explore a bit more about startups and hence took more interest in the Indian startup ecosystem.

I was sure that I wouldn’t have to return to college till January and hence wanted another 3 months internship. This time around, I was more particular about what I wanted, and I was ready to sit idle than intern just for the heck of it

How did I apply?

I always wanted to start out in Fin-tech and hence shortlisted some companies at first. Here’s how it looked from thereon:

1. I noticed that the Upstox design team had been expanding, and after a bit of research, I felt that I could fit in at Upstox. So I got in touch with one of the Lead Product Designers, and after reviewing some of my work he referred me for an internship.
2. I needed this to go well. After the referral, my 1st interview was scheduled in 2 days, and it was the most thorough and efficient interview I’ve faced to date!! This round went well.
3. The next round was scheduled in 2 days. In my case, it was with the Design VP, so I was a bit nervous, but the interview went well, and in a week, the entire process was over. On the 1st day next week, I had the offer letter in my hand! 😎

The process was extremely smooth, and I received timely updates. In a way, the process itself set high expectations about the team culture and my expectations were not let down one bit :)

P.S.: The process might change in the future to include tasks for interns depending on candidature (not sure about this). But yes, the process followed in my case would be the bare minimum that an applicant would have to clear.

💻The internship experience — an overview

From what I’ve observed, this is what Product Design interns usually look for:

1. Ownership of work

2. Good design leadership

3. Warm work culture

4. Compensation as per their value (difference of opinion might exist)

Well, at Upstox, all the criteria mentioned above were met for me.

In my first week, I started catching up personally with all the design team members to know what everyone was working on and get to know them a little better. I didn’t understand why this was important, but now I realize that it definitely helps! Unless we connect properly with the team, we’ll not be able to share openly, and that’ll show up in our work and eagerness to work in a company. Also, it helps later when you have doubts relating to any specific tribe.

Mind you, Upstox is a high-growth startup, and multiple features are being worked on simultaneously, so it’s not a company where you can slack off. This is precisely what I needed — enough work to be done but a great team with an abundance of learning opportunities.

📝What did I work on…

The work that I did at Upstox can be categorized into three segments:

1. Quick fixes: These tasks came in from time to time and needed to be dealt with ASAP. These might not sound impressive, but as a full-time Product Designer, quick fixes would also be a part of my responsibility at some point since some things need to be amended till a permanent fix comes along, which has already been planned. Hence I never shied away from such work.
2. High Priority: I was involved in some high-priority projects that would have a massive impact and worked with Senior and Lead Product designers. These involved defining patterns for a certain point in the experience of the app as well as revamping an entire page. It was great cause we used to catch up almost every day, discuss our progress, brainstorm together, clean up files, present in review meetings, and much more!
3. High impact individual project: Even though I interned for 2.5 months, I got a project for which I took responsibility under the mentorship of my Manager/Lead Designer. It was an end-to-end project for which I designed the first version. It was an exciting project and will be released soon.

✅Key takeaways

1. Taking responsibility for a project becomes easier by showcasing and accepting feedback cycles. I never presented anything to the design, product, and engineering team in one go.
2. Before working on any project midway or even towards completion, knowing the deadlines (upcoming and missed ones)and roadmap is imperative. This will save yourself and others a lot of confusion later on.
3. Most important: My lead/manager didn’t have to micromanage things I was working on. It’s better to give a timely update so that your manager isn’t left stranded! Design leads have much more on their plates than interns do, and if you can make their lives a bit simpler, they’ll appreciate it.

❤My favorite part

Upstox caters to two types of users who have different requirements and benefit the company in different ways. Striking the right balance was interesting to me since at times their ways were opposed to each other and we had to be careful while scoping the features.

In order to design any feature or flow for the users, it was imperative to understand which bracket they fell into and what their investment journey looked like.

The time I took to get updated on these topics was enjoyable since I was already interested in this sector. It was intriguing how the smallest of changes could interrupt the speed and efficiency of some flows and hence result in poor ratings.

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Thanks a bunch for reading till this point! My internship has ended, yet I’m rooting for this company; maybe that’ll tell you something about its culture.

If you’re interested, do check out the Careers Page at Upstox, you won’t be disappointed by what it has to offer.

Did you know that you can give 50 claps to this article by pressing the clap button? If you found this article to be useful, then that’s something you could do for me xD.

Feel free to stop by and say hi!

Mail: [email protected]

Twitter: SaiSwarup_33