Meet Shopee Design’s First UI Developer Intern
“Oh, you’re interning at Shopee Design…So you’re not coding?”
This was probably the most frequent question I got when I told my friends that I was interning at Shopee Design.
Hi, my name is Wei Xin and I am a Year 3 Computer Science student from NUS. Now that you know my major, you’re probably wondering what a CS kid is doing in the Design department. To answer the question above, yes, I am coding here at Shopee Design! For the past 15 weeks, I was a UI Developer Intern.
About My Job
I was very fortunate to be able to partake in a new project for Shopee Design, the Design Platform. Design Platform is a web application that aims to simplify the design processes for Shopee’s designers. It is an editing tool for commonly used templates in Shopee, allowing designers to quickly apply different layouts and brand elements on them. Since this was a relatively new project, there was a lot of room for me to explore and decide how I would like to structure the code for each component.
Throughout my internship, I was closely mentored by a full-time UI Developer specialising on frontend development. As one of the few programmers on the team, I was able to take up more responsibilities to develop features for two of the templates on Design Platform, Headers and Calendars.
The reason I applied to Shopee Design was due to my interest in UI/UX Design. While working on this project, I had the opportunity to work closely with UI/UX Designers to implement features that they have designed. I partook in discussions for every granular detail of each function. I even got to bring my coding experience to the table when evaluating the feasibility of these functions.
Besides coding, I also had the chance to work on a UX case study for product variations. It was an eye-opening experience to learn directly from the designers and to experience parts of the UX design process by creating interactive prototypes and conducting user studies.
What was working at Shopee like?
Due to the COVID-19 situation, I had to work from home for the first 10 weeks of my internship. This was definitely a brand new experience testing my self-discipline. During that time, I had to communicate with my colleagues virtually, and screen-sharing became the norm when trying to demonstrate my progress on projects.
However, the real fun began as we moved into Phase 2 of Singapore’s reopening! We were finally allowed to enter the new Shopee office every alternate week as part of the safety measures. Shopee even welcomed all its new-hires with a goodie bag and its signature orange t-shirt.
It felt great to finally be able to match the usernames I saw on work chats to faces and to go out for lunches together (in small groups of 5 of course). I even picked up Kart Rider (almost an L2-licensed rider here) and raced with my teammates during our spare time!
Now that my time at Shopee has come to an end, I would like to thank my colleagues for patiently guiding me and welcoming me into the team so warmly. I will definitely treasure all the lessons learned and friendships forged over the past 15 weeks! Not forgetting the free-flow coffee and snacks from the pantry, of course—you will be dearly missed.
Shopee is the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan. Shopee connects shoppers, brands and sellers across Asia and other fast-growing markets, empowering anyone to buy and sell anywhere and at any time.
Shopee offers an easy, secure, and engaging experience that is enjoyed by millions of people daily. It offers a wide product assortment, supported by integrated payments and logistics, as well as popular entertainment features tailored for each market. Shopee is also a key contributor to the region’s digital economy with a firm commitment to helping brands and entrepreneurs succeed in e-commerce.
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