Tacktern Series: My Summer at Thumbtack as an Experience Research Intern

By Chelsea Kim

How I came to intern at Thumbtack

With a year and a half to go in finishing my PhD, I began questioning my future career path: academia vs. industry research. I saw benefits in both paths. Since I was already familiar with academia research, I decided to explore whether my knowledge and skills transferred to the industry side. Putting my dissertation on pause for the summer, I made the decision to dip my toe in the water and spend 12 weeks as an Experience Research Intern at Thumbtack.

What I did as an Experience Research Intern

As an intern with the Marketplace Trust and Safety(MTS) team, I worked closely with cross-functional partners in the team including a product manager, data analyst, designer, and various engineers. I was the only researcher on the team, and it was fascinating how much agency and voice I was able to have over the research projects.

I worked on three projects in total during the 12-week internship program. The first was on understanding how customers use different cues on Thumbtack, such as star ratings and number of reviews, to evaluate pros and how accurately these cues reflect pro trustworthiness. These were important questions that the MTS team was facing, because providing high-quality cues that accurately convey pro quality is a key to building trust on Thumbtack.

I took a mixed-method approach to this project, combining interview, survey, and log analysis. While I worked independently on deciding the research questions and the methods, I had plenty of support from my research mentor, who helped me stay on track and access any resource or advice I needed on a daily basis.

After writing the research plan and incorporating inputs from stakeholders, I launched the study. I interviewed recent Thumbtack customers on their hiring experience, created a survey questionnaire measuring pro trustworthiness, surveyed ~350 recent customers, and analyzed the survey result with the log data, including different cues.

The entire process of planning, conducting, and communicating research was so fast and seamless. At Thumbtack, I always had people working toward a common goal of building a better product. They were just a Slack away. I was able to focus on conducting research and inferring meaningful insights, as I had access to so much support on recruiting participants, accessing data, and clearing the blockers that I faced throughout the process.

What I loved most about working at Thumbtack

I loved everything about Thumbtack, but there were two things that stood out the most. First, I loved how people care for each other while being remote. Thumbtack is now a virtual-first company and thanks to this new way of working, I did half of my internship in Davis, CA where I lived and another half while staying in NYC. There were so many fun events planned for the interns, including the terrarium building workshop and virtual game hours — Gartic Phone, anyone?

Second, I loved having the opportunity to bring what I know to the table and also learn new skills. I have a quantitative social science background and was able to lead a project applying my quantitative research skill starting Week 1 of my internship. It was very rewarding to see my knowledge and skills being used to make an impact on the actual product. Thanks to my mentor and other researchers, I became familiar with qualitative research methods, such as in-depth interviews and usability testing. Prior to my internship, I only had very superficial experience with qualitative research, but by the end of it, I’d led two research projects using the methods I’d learned.

How my internship experience helped me grow

My time at Thumbtack helped me grow not only as a researcher, but as a person. I learned so much about what working with diverse stakeholders is like, what it means to balance work and personal life, and what it is like to make an impact as a researcher. I didn’t expect I’d walk away with this much when I started. I thank everyone at Thumbtack who guided and supported me throughout this short, but memorable journey.