Linguistics → UXR | Experience of ShopBack User Research Internship
This article will briefly introduce my internship experience in ShopBack UX research team. The content includes the culture and working environment and the weekly life and works of UXR internship.
A big step from academia to Tech company: the internship in ShopBack
Hi! For those who don’t know me, I’m Iju from Taiwan :D
I am a Ph.D. candidate in linguistics and I’m still working on my Ph.D. dissertation. I have actually been quite familiar with the academic field since I was a child. But when I was just about to graduate, I started to consider whether I should take a big step to try out more things in the industry.
As mentioned in the previous article, after talking with my good friend (and also role model since I am a freshman lol) Selena, I felt that UX was extremely interesting. So, after a long while of researching and understanding more about the scope, I decided I wanted to be a user experience researcher (UXR).
However, I had a teaching job during that time, and my Ph.D. thesis was not completed yet. As a result, I tried to look for an internship to learn and at the same time, hopefully be able to accommodate a flexible working schedule for me to complete my other commitments.
Luckily, ShopBack had an opening for UXR internship in Taiwan! So I took a chance, sent out the resume, and got the offer ;)
If you are curious about UXR; or, if you are interested in the interview experience in ShopBack, you can read my previous article to get more information.
語言學學UXR | 語言學跨領域求職準備及ShopBack UX Researcher Intern面試心得分享
ShopBack Internship Contract
One of the great benefits of ShopBack is that the working hours are quite flexible.
Internship contract: Six months (But I didn’t finish the whole internship in the end. I’ll explain why later :P)
Internship hours: The working hours depend on discussion with your manager. For myself, my manager hoped I would be able to work at least 24 hours a week but allowed me to adjust the schedule freely.
Insurance: It includes labor and health insurance!
Working mode: Due to the pandemic, we can WFH in Taiwan (I can count the numbers of times I went to the company with one hand lol)
Other benefits: Even though I am an intern, it was standard practice for interns to be able to participate in all kinds of activities! Plus get multiple generous meal coupons and gifts given out by the company!
ShopBack Culture and Working Environment
TBH I didn’t have many chances to work in the office. However, I can understand the company culture and vibes based on every activity and interaction with colleagues.
ShopBack’s Organization
As mentioned by our head of Designer, Mike, our design team lead,
ShopBack is currently in a sweet spot. It is not that messy and unorganized as a start-up, but also not at that stage of a large corporation whereby things get a bit too rigid.
(Hey, sorry Mike, I’m really terrible in memory lol, so it might not be your original words, I tried hard to squeeze my brain to mimic your tone)
I feel that it’s a really good description of the current ShopBack’s situation.
ShopBack is currently a mid-sized company. People are generally energetic and enthusiastic. And a large part of my colleagues are Gen Z (OMG)!
But it has already passed its infancy, so most of the structure and working systems are really clear and well-established. Although many resources still need to be adjusted, the important positions are clearly divided. As a result, it is unlikely that one person needs to hold extra loading.
On the other hand, even though the structure is stable, alike all companies — many products still need to be further developed and improved such that we can support our customers and retailers better. In that sense, everyone is very hardworking and committed towards the same goal. It is also a flat hierarchy organization where we can have many opportunities to communicate directly to our managers and senior management.
Internal communication platform and the boundary between life/work
In ShopBack, we use Slack as the communication channel. There is a culture that I’m really unaccustomed to, but love:
We can totally pause our Slack notification after work!!!
It is probably very common in other markets, but not in Taiwan. Many Taiwanese companies use Line, which is also our personal SNS, as a communication tool in the office. In addition, many bosses demand their workers respond immediately even after work!
As a result, I was really happy that I could find a clear boundary between my life and work.
Punctuality is another important culture I love so much. Although there are many meetings in a day, people usually start and end the meeting on time. In other words, the meetings are usually efficient so that you will be very focused.
What if we are too busy to attend the meeting but have no time to do our own work?
ShopBack makes the second half-day of Thursday as “Flow Day” so that we can “Focused Deep Work.”
We can choose a comfortable place to work on the flow day, and there would be no large internal meetings during that period.
Apart from the flow day, our manager also encourages us to set a “Focus Time” on calendar to calm ourselves and concentrate on our work or delving into finding inspiration for work.
We also have a Town Hall meeting every month. They will announce important information such as the company’s current operational condition, and product development progress during such meetings. We are also able to raise our questions and concerns during the Q&A.
Others
There are also several interesting activities that we can participate in! For example, we played True Escape during our team building.
Due to the pandemic, we cannot to meet in person; but we play escape room on webpages such as Gather Town in our annual off-site (sadly virtual this time round).
I also got some cute caring packages from the People team ❤
What does a ShopBack UXR’s week look like?
The previous segment briefly introduces the general company culture and environment. Then, I want to introduce UXR team and culture in the last segment. Of course, the work and culture is heavily dependent on the manager, so the following experience might not apply to every internship in ShopBack — although I believe the general culture is roughly similar across the company. But if you are interested in UXR, you might get a better idea of how you can learn UX-related information from this internship.
If I need to include my whole experience of internship into a sentence, I would say:
It is nothing like an internship. I was not treated as an intern.
But don’t get wrong, it is a really positive comment haha. Let me explain!
ShopBack UXR Team!
There are 4 members in our UXR team (including me). You might think it is quite small compared to big corporation; however, it is a sizable UXR team compared to Taiwan’s general companies and a start-up.
The least diverse feature among our team is gender (but this is just a coincidence haha). Apart from that, our nationality, personality, and major are all different. However, this diversity somehow makes our group work together perfectly.
It is a collaborative and caring group with a strong professional attitude as well ;)
ShopBack UXR’s weekly schedule
We have a stand-up meeting every morning. It is a short but casual time to list down what we worked on the previous day, and share our to-do list today. This meeting helps us “wake up” in the early morning and get a sensing of whether other members need support.
Another essential thing every week is 1:1 with our team lead, Naning.
In Taiwan, people tend to think this kind of 1:1 is useless because no one is telling the truth, or their manager might give them more work during the 1:1 — but personally, I actually love the 1:1 so much. Before the meeting, we will record things that we want to chat about or do; during the meeting, I can share my actual feelings and difficulties without hesitation. I can also ask to learn a specific research method. Of course, chatting about non-work stuff and getting to know each other as people is another fun part for 1:1 :P
Apart from 1:1, there is a sync with the whole design team every week. We will chat about the weekend’s activities to get to know each other and report our works in the past week so that designers and researchers can get an overview of everyone’s work — to understand how it all comes together to solve a bigger problem.
Retrospective and Biweekly Sync are two other important works held biweekly.
As for biweekly sync, it’s free time to discuss everything. For example, if you need to check your research plan or share interesting reports, it’s the best time to share!
Retrospective, another meeting I am very excited for, is a meeting for us to reflect on our past two weeks. We can share our current emotions, feelings, work-related thoughts, and daily life. We will share our happy, “meh”, and sad thoughts such that we feel closer and more bonded (of course: everyone can share as much or as little as they want, based off how safe and comfortable they feel).
If you’re interested in our retro, our team lead Naning wrote an excellent article to introduce it: Making Retrospectives more Personal
It’s our Design Team Retro, super interesting!
ShopBack UXR intern’s works
As I mentioned before, “It is nothing like an internship!”
The main reason is that my working content and involvement of ShopBack exceeds what a general intern can do and be involved in.
Our lead Naning is super open to what we want to learn. Even when I was preparing my portfolio after the internship, she was more than willing to make suggestions!
During these 5 months of internship, I participated and supported in:
- A diary study conducted in Taiwan (You can see more on Amy’s articles: 1 2 3);
- A qualitative research across three countries;
- Two quantitative survey analysis;
- Two research of other teams;
- A workshop
Although I mainly supported these research pieces, I learnt so much by accompanying these amazing researchers!
Apart from research, I also helped to host activities in the Taiwan company and presented our Design Team in Design Exchange with other companies.
I felt that my job at ShopBack UXR was such a “colorful” experience!
Research methodology-wised, we do both qualitative and quantitative research.
ShopBack provides introductory quantitative courses in our onboarding; plus, our quant data are strongly supported by our data analysts and PMs.
In summary, I think this internship was truly not like an internship, in the best way possible. What I’ve learned here is entirely sufficient as a junior UXR.
After ShopBack internship…
As I mentioned before, I didn’t finish the 6 months internship because…
I got a return offer! I am an official ShopBack UXR now! 😁
There are still many stories that I can share about this return offer, but I will end this article by summarizing the internship in ShopBack.
About this company.
I really like the culture and environment in ShopBack.
It allows me to distinguish between work and life clearly. The working schedule is flexible. The organization is of flat hierarchy. Every colleague I have worked with is talented and enthusiastic. It’s a great environment to learn and work.
About this UXR and Design team.
I love every member of our UXR and Design team.
There is a saying in Taiwan:
Good colleagues in the company; Strangers after work. (上班好同事，下班不認識)
But I won’t think that way about our team. I want to keep in touch and be friends with all team members even after work.
Since I have so much academic research experience, doing research and reporting isn’t a big problem for me.
But the biggest challenge to stepping into the industry is, our research is no longer to simply answer our own curiosity or question. Instead, we need to put ourselves into the position between our users and the company. So, as a result, I think it was not easy to balance the research perfectly.
Another challenge for me is in the E-commerce industry. I did invest much time in learning terms and related knowledge. But after the clear guidance from my supportive team members, I improved and learned a lot :)
I appreciate that I bravely took a big step five months ago. I hope this article helps you to find a path to your future!
Finally, if you are interested in ShopBack, we are hiring! You can find several awesome jobs on this page;)
Feel free to comment or contact me if you have any further questions ;)
❗️ Interested in what else we work on?
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❗❗️ Or… interested in us? (definitely, we hope 😂)
Check out here how you might be able to fit into ShopBack — we’re excited to start our journey together!
