Six Months and A Thousand Stories Later
It was a typical cloudy morning in the middle of January. I got ready to go to the former office, took the charger from my smartphone, checked the time on the screen, and noticed something new in the notification bar -it’s an email icon. I tapped the notification and skimmed quickly.
Hi Nuha,
I want to personally thank you for taking the time to talk to us. We’re all excited to get to know you and we are happy to offer you the role of Product Intern in Pegipegi.
Woah, I got a TRIP offer!🎉
The previous day in the afternoon, I just had my last round of user interview with mas Didi, VP Product at Pegipegi, and I really didn’t expect to hear back, especially in such a short span of time. Woah, this company is kinda cool, -that’s what I thought at that time.
Little did I know, it was just the beginning of many other cool stuff I faced.
Hello, nice to meet you. I’m Nuha, one of 28 people accepted in the first batch of the TRIP program in January. Similar to many hopeful final year students, I wanted to expand my knowledge to be ready to face real life after graduation, by getting as much first-hand exposure in a start-up.
First, let me tell you a bit about the TRIP program. Tech Rookie Internship Program (TRIP) is a 6 months internship program at Pegipegi which opens positions in Tech and Product areas. Started in early 2022, now this program has been running for 2 periods. Sourcing from its website, TRIP allows you to explore, gain, and grow your skills and network while making real-impact in #RealizingTraveling to all Indonesians, -and they really mean it.
Working as Product Intern
Being a product intern at Pegipegi has allowed me to experience almost any product manager job you could mention.
- I went through a discovery process where I found problems to solve and come up with exciting ideas that we will implement.
- I learnt how to craft a concise but clear product requirement document (PRD). I communicated what we are building, created the product specs, and made sure to continuously update it according to the product’s stage.
- I experienced the art of communicating and aligning with diverse stakeholders who may have very different perspectives. I met designers, engineers, operations, data, business, and marketing teams to talk about various initiatives.
- I also had to keep track of some metrics that matter to our product.
In short, being a Product Intern at Pegipegi gives you enough experience to feel what it’s like to live as a real PM. It sounds good, isn’t it?
Although it is true, I can assure you that the journey won’t be easy🥲
First Days
Even though I got well-structured onboarding from HR and users on my first day, I still can’t imagine how it will be going. In the first weeks, I explored and familiarized myself with how the online travel agency industry works. Turns out, catching up and understanding various processes in a short time frame is not an easy thing. I got overwhelmed and felt inexperienced. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. In a word, I struggled a lot😭
But hey, we’ve all been there. As the days sped by, I realized that we just needed time to appear confident and show our worth✨🎊
Along the way, the burden is no longer haunting my night anymore. I’ve gotten used to feeling comfortable even in uncomfortable situations, because I finally know how to figure things out. Also I was lucky to have great mentors here. It surely made my life easier knowing that I had someone to ask if something had gone sideways. If there is something I’m not quite getting or just flat out don’t understand, it’s easy to ask them to help clarify.
In fact, I had a great time during my internship. I’ve been involved in multiple projects, from seemingly simple ones like maintaining flight regulations page to quite large ones like enabling flight non-economy class and flight reskin in mobile application.
Reflecting on my time as a transport product intern, so many things I can be grateful for in this TRIP. To name a few, I’ll list off three elements that surprised me most.
1. Level of growth
I was only a product intern, but I received a lot of responsibility and autonomy. The products I’ve worked on have affected Pegipegi users. This way, I can learn and grow while delivering impactful work. But not to worry, it doesn’t mean that you have to do everything on your own right away.
I still remember the first project I worked on was providing a new look on flight product in mobile application. At first, the project was still being managed by kak Yacob, our Transport PM. I observed how he led the sync and how he made the communication flow go well. After a couple of meetings, he asked if I was ready to take over the project, which he believed I could, to face the real experience. And since then, it’s my time to shine.
Besides having the opportunity to work on really cool stuff, I was also introduced to cool tools that are really useful for product managers like Tableau. As a product team, we want to make data-driven decisions. At first, it took quite a long time for me to acquire data from Tableau. Today, I can proudly say that I’m able to get it in seconds haha (actually, sometimes I still ask for help from data analyst, but not that much).
2. Inspirational Team
Pegipegi is full of such incredibly bright and inspiring people. We are all here for one mission, to provide travel accessibility for all Indonesians. We work together to solve the right problems with the most make sense solution.
As a product intern, I do a lot of product grooming with the design and engineering team. It’s not uncommon to see your ideas challenged by the team. The specifications written in the PRD will be questioned until everything is clear. One day, the project I was doing was even deprioritized because it took so much effort to make the idea come true. I still remember the legendary words from Mas Yuda, Transport Engineering Manager:
“Jangan membunuh tikus dengan bom nuklir.”
Nuclear bombs can indeed be used to kill rats, but we can certainly find other ways to do it with less effort😉
3. Fun Environment
In Pegipegi, it does not have to be work, work, work all the time.
Product management team always sets aside time on Wednesday evenings to have informal sync. We share unrelated-to-work stories and play different games each week. We take turns being game masters. One of the games we’ve played is Family 100, a game that often appeared on television back then.
Transport team also has routine activity namely Tea Time. In this meeting, we will hear each other’s stories or play around. So even though I don’t live in Jakarta and have never worked in an office, I feel engaged with the team.
Lastly, we also have a quarterly outing! In July, I finally got the chance to meet them face to face thanks to this activity. We spent the weekend in Sentul and played fun games.
My TRIP internship has been a good time for me. Working with thinker, collaborator, and passionate people here has given me the image of product manager that I aspire to be. My journey at Pegipegi doesn’t end here. I’ll continue as a Product Analyst and will explore many other great things in the future!✈️
