3 Key Lessons Learned as a 2016 Google User Experience Intern in New York City

Kaye Mao
Kaye Mao
Aug 24, 2017 · 6 min read
Photograph by Andrew Gombert

I’ve found I don’t notice personal growth until I find myself back in a familiar environment. It is when the new you confronts an old environment that the changes become obvious. You don’t react or think the same way anymore.

Last summer, I had the incredible opportunity to work at the Google New York office as a user experience intern with the Cloud Storage team. No, not Google drive. Databases in the cloud.

I want to document what I learned for me, for you aspiring Googlers and for everyone who’s asked me “How was Goooooglleee??!!?!”.

1. You will never have all the information. Act anyways.

Share your work early and often. — Hannah Johnston (my wonderful manager)

I considered myself a fairly technical designer, I knew how to code my own web apps, use SQL, debug. Until I joined Cloud. The ins and outs of distributed storage (databases that support global use) was vastly different from my puny ability to use SQL on a local machine. My knowledge gap looked a little like this.

Started at the bottom…and now we’re at floor 11 (The best floor)

In response to this knowledge gap, I delayed taking action until I felt I had all the information. I would plan out my next steps…in super fine detail. 0/10 would not recommend this form of fear driven procrastination.

It was both exciting and terrifying for me to be in charge of a project with so much potential. But time will quickly slip away if you don’t take action. Through the encouragement of my mentor, I learned that the best way to make progress is to just start doing. Often times, you won’t have all the information you need to make a decision, the key is to make them anyways. You’ll learn what you need to know as you go along.

A great tactical way to do this as suggested by a coworker is to visualize what the final outcome looks like. Then get as close to that as possible. Need to design an app? This may look like wireframes of the core screens. But you haven’t done any research? That’s ok. Sketch out those wireframes. Think of it as a bad example. You now have a tangible artifact to drive conversation. This helps you identify your assumptions and knowledge gaps much more effectively than trying to predict what you might need to know.

Many thanks to Hannah, Jason and Priscilla for teaching me this.

2. Perks are nice. But it’s really about the people.

People always want to know if the perks at Google are real or not. They are. They blew me away when in my first week at the NYC Office. These include but are not limited to:

  • The amazing skyline that you’re surrounded by on all sides that only gets more amazing as you go up the 16 floors. Oh did I mention the 16 floor patio?
The 16th floor patio view. It really does take your breath away. credit: myself.
  • All the free meals and snacks you could possibly eat, a gabillion types of water, and my all time favourite, Aloe drink.
  • Nap pods for you to rest in
  • Massages for when you’re sore. A gym onsite and fitness classes when you feel like exercising.
  • I got the chance to travel to Mountain View. Twice. And made pizza there. (And worked of course…)
  • Intern Boat cruise around Manhattan!
Working hard in Mountain View, California.

Would you be shocked if I told you that all of those perks fade away after your second week? After the second or third week, you stop noticing all these things and they become your new normal.

What remains are the people. The people are truly the greatest part about Google. They’re incredibly intelligent, capable, but most importantly, genuinely kind and helpful.

People are your greatest resource. Use them.

When I first started at Google, I was hesitant to waste people’s time with questions related to my project, choosing instead to spend hours combing through research on my own. That was not an effective use of my time. Despite knowing this, I still wasn’t comfortable asking for help.

Turns out, great professional relationships are built on great personal relationships.

Taking the time to get to know co-workers on a personal level goes a long way to fostering successful collaboration. My manager, team, and even designers on the greater team made a huge effort to get to know me as a person. As a result, I got more comfortable with my team and it became clear that everyone was more than happy to help me. I wasn’t being a burden, it made them feel good to help me.

Ultimately, people are your greatest resource. Beyond googling a problem or reading a book, asking the right person will get you answers faster and more effectively than any other method. Once I started asking for help more openly, my project came together much easier.

Thanks to everyone who went out of your way to make me feel welcome with special shoutouts to Hannah, Chris, Melanie, Marty, Marc, Jarzabek, and Tegan.

3. How to collaborate. At scale.

I thought I knew how to collaborate with people. However, collaborating with someone who shares the same interests and education as you is vastly easier than collaborating with an expert in an entirely different field who may not understand the your value. Google is an enormous company composed of many experts who must work together in order to accomplish extraordinary goals. The ability to collaborate with many different personalities is crucial.

An example of this was a developer that I needed information from. It was initially very hard to schedule a meeting with them. As it turns out, they didn’t understand who I was or the value of my project. As a result, it didn’t make sense for them to make time to meet with me. However, once I was able to frame my work in terms of the goals they cared about, they became a loyal ally to my project.

This experience made me realize the importance of understanding the goals of your stakeholders and communicating the value of your work in a tailored way. Just as we preach empathy for users, it’s also crucial to empathize with our stakeholders and coworkers. When people feel like you took the time to understand their goals, they’re much more receptive to yours.


Credit: ozopanda

This experience was hard and pushed my limits daily. However, it made me a better designer, collaborator, and person. A huge hug and thank you to everyone who supported me throughout this. To my mentors, team members, fellow interns, and boyfriend, thank you ❤

)

Kaye Mao

Written by

Kaye Mao

I write to make sense of my thoughts about the world, design, and growing up. Interaction Designer / maozillah.com

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