Hitting X birds with one stone
Over the last few months, a lot of students interested in the Times’ Product Design internship have reached out to me and asked about the application process and internship experience at large. This article will outline some frequently asked questions and more niche questions I think would help interested applicants/candidates!
— Section 1: The Application Process
Who is eligible for the internship?
Usually internships are reserved for sophomores and juniors only (or anyone who’s returning to school after the internship), but this opportunity is open to recent grads (for both undergrad and grad), people looking to switch careers, and people who graduated from bootcamps, on top of sophomores and juniors. Also, you don’t need previous product design internship experience!
- International students are eligible (I am one!). If you’re on an F-1 visa, you have to be coming from a U.S. accredited university. If you're a US citizen, you can be coming from any university around the world.
- Exchange students are eligible, as you’re authorized to intern throughout the duration of the internship.
What was the application timeline?
The timeline might look a little different this year, but here’s a rundown of the timeline for when I applied for the internship last year: I applied sometime in November last year, heard back in late December, had two interviews in January, and heard back at the end of February.
What do you think made you stand out during the application process?
- Some of my design strengths are 1) visual design and polish/interface design and 2) my proficiency with using Figma to the lowest level, and I think this was evident through all the case studies I had on my portfolio. I believe that each hiring manager will be likely coming from a different team and will thus be looking for different skillsets — they may be looking for more product thinking skills, design systems skills, user research skills, etc. instead of visual polish.
- When I asked my interviewer (who also happened to be my summer manager) what made my application stand out, two things he mentioned were 1) he could tell that I was proficient in Figma (linking back to point above), and 2) I studied Computer Science, which is the first time I genuinely realized that maybe, my degree did matter.
- This might be a stretch, but I highlighted my editorial design work with university publications and my experience founding a publication in my (old) portfolio. I’ve always had an interest in writing and journalism, and these might have caught the recruiters eye. I also mentioned it a bit during my behavioral interview, or so I think I did.
— Section 2: The Internship Experience
Is the internship remote?
Yes, the internship was remote! It was up to us if we wanted to come to New York City over the summer and work in the office, as long as we talked to our managers about it.
What did/are you working on?
I’m designing the Home page alongside three other senior+ designers to help readers around the world catch up on what the “stories of the day” are. Like the front page of the newspaper, our goal is to provide a dynamic surface for journalists and editors to showcase their stories.
What did you like about the internship? What didn’t you like about it?
- What I liked: Everything—the top two contenders being 1) the fact that you get to work on actually meaningful and long-term impact projects, and 2) the people???? Everyone is genuinely super cool and accomplished. The Product Design department is not just passionate about their craft; they also recognize and embrace their identities as humans beyond their roles as designers, evident in the way they treat each other with humanity and respect. Most, if not all of my coffee chats with Times designers have been about l i f e (like, actually).
- What I didn’t like: Nothing. The fact that there weren’t intern-wide program events (more below)? It’s not the BEST internship program out there, but it’s something I have taken away a lot from—more than I expected.
What did/does your day-to-day look like?
The Times work culture is very meeting-heavy. Mondays and Fridays are a lot more relaxed, and the bulk of my meetings were/are on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Wednesdays were reserved for our intern cohort design challenge, but since that’s done, I set Wednesdays as focus time for my work. Again, this totally depends on what team you’re matched with.
The Product Design department’s working hours, I believe, are from 10am-6pm. People start settling down by 5pm.
Did you feel like there was a lot of catching up to do? How much guidance do you get for work?
I personally didn’t feel that I was significantly lagging at any point during my time working here. But what I’m about to say here is what I think: it seems that they’re expecting interns to need some level of guidance in certain areas (that’s what an internship is for!), but not for every single thing: you can’t be a complete beginner and need someone to hold your hand through every single step.
There were skills that I definitely needed initial guidance on — a lot of them were related to product thinking and learning new parts of the product development process, working cross-functionally, and working on extremely large-scale, high-impact products (i.e. how to make my presentations and Figma files audience-specific, product thinking, narrowing down a large problem into subproblems instead of exploring multiple moving parts at once, learning how to do a VQA, etc.).
Then, they’re expecting you to take off from there, but also expecting you to ask for help something is still unclear, to which they are more than happy to explain or guide you again.
What’s something surprising you learned during your internship, about the Times or design?
- Presentations, presentations, and presentations: Beyond just designing designs, I was surprised to learn about the significance of effectively presenting and pitching design ideas to various stakeholders. This part of the role involves a deep understanding of the Home design system and the ability to articulate the value and functionality of a design in a way that resonates with team members and stakeholders.
- Design is more of a lattice than a linear process: While the design pedagogy found in bootcamp and university courses provides a solid foundation for those new to design, that is NOT how the iterative design process goes in the real world. You don’t do lo-fi sketches, personas, affinity diagrams, etc. In fact, the bulk of my design work focuses on a teeny tiny blip of hi-fi designing + product implementation. I haven’t had close collaborations with UX researchers for example (but maybe the other interns have). And then you have to remember that said process differs between big tech companies, differs between smaller startups, and then those differ from each other, and then they all differ per industry.
What skills did you learn over the summer, and what skills do you want to improve on?
- Detail-orientedness: Over the summer, I’ve become more meticulous with my design work, especially when it comes to the tiniest details.
- Documentation: Before this internship, I was so used to designing for my eyes only, and so my Figma documentation was super disorganized. Now, whenever I have a new file to make, I peruse through other files and seeing how other designers document their work, pulling ideas from each, and coming up with my own version while ensuring clarity.
- Presentations and Public Speaking: Jumping from what I said earlier, I also feel more confident giving large presentations and advocating for my designs during meetings , whether it be a more casual Show and Tell or a Newsroom stakeholder review — it definitely just takes practice!
- Interpersonal Skills: To be honest, this takes the largest bulk of my learnings over the summer (+ Fall) and has been more challenging than the technical design skills: paying attention during (virtual) meetings, adapting to unspoken cultural norms (virtually and in-office), etc.
- Product Thinking: I hope to hone my skills in making and justifying judgment calls and design decisions, as well as in the “customer development” side of the product design process in general (i.e. digging deeper into users and prioritizing their problems).
What cool stuff do they have for interns to do?
- Within the larger intern cohort (including marketing, SWE, data, advertising, etc.): There honestly weren’t any intern-wide events for us to meet one another — it was up to us to schedule time outside to meet others, which really sucked. However, we did have Maker Week, our internal company hackathon for ALL Times employees, and that was a great chance to work with other Times interns and employees.
- Within the design intern cohort: We had a 10-week design challenge, and we were the first cohort they tried this out on! This was a great (and effective) opportunity for the six of us to meet one another. Were it not for this project, we would not have been friends, let alone have spent time with each other (as I heard other departments’ interns don’t know each other/didn’t have program-related opportunities to meet). During Maker Week, there were also opportunities like happy hours involving the design interns and the wider Product Design team.
Is there anything you wish you did earlier on? How did you make the most out of the internship?
I felt that I was “being watched” over the summer, and, as a result, narrowed my focus too much on “doing the work well” that I missed opportunities to connect with Times designers over the summer.
I was fortunate enough to get my internship extended, so I took it upon myself to schedule coffee chats and lunches (virtual and in-person) with Times designers. I can confidently say that I’ve met (or had some correspondence with) at least 50% of the Product Design department! On top of that, I felt (and feel) more like a full-time employee and that mindset has not only allowed me to do more outreach but to be less anxious and fidgety (for lack of better terms) about the work I’m producing.
That was longer than I thought it’d be, but I hope this was helpful and informative— reach out to me on LinkedIn if you have any other questions (or if you have any questions you think I should add to this list).
