Episode 16: Sahil Khoja, Cornell University

Instagram, Facebook, Intuit, Dangle

In our final episode, we are joined by none other than the co-host of this series, Sahil Khoja. We discuss his journey into product design and the resulting learnings, the Students Who Design project, and so much more.

Sahil studies Information Science at Cornell University. He has previously held product design internships with Facebook, Intuit, and Dangle, and he will be interning this coming summer at Instagram.

Portfolio: http://www.sahkho.com/

Medium: Sahil Khoja

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TRANSCRIPT

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:00:00]Students Who Design is a podcast and video series that bridges students and the design industry — by students, for students. Be sure to check out our website, studentswho.design.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:00:11]This is Students Who Design. Today’s episode is kind of special. We’ll be joined by the show’s host, Sahil Khoja. He’s currently a junior studying information science at Cornell, and he spent this past summer as a product design intern at Facebook. Today we’ll be discussing his path through product design as well as this very project. We hope you enjoy this episode.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:00:30]Students Who Design is sponsored in part by Facebook Design. For more resources and information on designing Facebook, visit facebook.design and check out open roles at facebook.com/careers.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:00:42]Hey Sahil, how are you doing?

Sahil Khoja: [00:00:42] I’m good, you?

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:00:42]I’m well! Thank you for joining us. This is quite a treat.

Sahil Khoja: [00:00:47] Yes.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:00:48]So first of all, I’d like to know where you go to school, what your major is, and where you previously worked.

Sahil Khoja: [00:00:53] Yeah. So I go to school at Cornell, I study information science, last summer I was a product design intern at Facebook, and prior to that, I was at Intuit.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:01:04]Just generally, can you describe your path into product design?

Sahil Khoja: [00:01:10] So in 2015 — I had just graduated high school so this is May of 2015 — I found out that I would be going to Cornell in the spring. I got off the wait list and they said, “We don’t have a lot of room in the fall, but by January dorms will open up.” So between May and December, I had about eight months to kind of just do whatever, I didn’t have to go to school. This was when Sketch version 2 had just released and Medium was kind of blowing up with UX articles. I was really interested in behavioral economics, and I liked art as a kid, and it’s my belief that product design is kind of a combination between behavioral economics and art. It’s how people think and interact with different products or things. So I started looking into other majors at Cornell because I was admitted for the Applied Economics and Management major, which is just a big word for business, and there is this major called information science and they had a concentration in user experience. I was like, “Cool, I’ll take some classes when I go in the spring.” But at that time, all my friends had just left for college, and it was really weird because I was just at home, so I started looking on AngelList for different startups around Dallas that I could work for. There was this one called Dangle — I’m not really sure if they exist anymore — but it was this one guy who wanted to make an app that helped parents assign tasks to their children, and they were looking for a marketing intern. I was like, “Maybe I can finesse this to be a design thing.” So I did the marketing challenge, then when I met them in person, I was like “Look, I’ll do your marketing stuff, but I really want to do design stuff.” And he was like, “OK, we need design work anyway.” I started working for them for free. He bought me my first Sketch license and Framer license, so started playing around with that and started reading as much as I could on Medium. On my way to community college — because I was taking classes — I would listen to Design Details and This Week In Startups and other podcasts, and just really immersing myself, and I was like, “This is really cool.” What really solidified my interest was that winter, my family and I went to Southeast Asia for vacation, and we had to take Ubers in all of our cities to get around. I decided to interview all my drivers to see what issues they had — kind of like a user research thing, but it became much bigger than that, than like “I don’t like the app,” or “this button doesn’t work,” but moreso like how Uber changed their daily lives for better or worse. When I came back, it was my first week at Cornell, so I wrote up a blog post about my experience with all these user interviews and some prototypes. I remember getting a bunch of e-mails from designers at Uber, and the Southeast Asia design manager — his name is Joe Prince — asked me if I wanted to come on full-time to work. I don’t think he knew I had just started school, so it was really weird. It was really cool, but I didn’t really know what to say. I remember being sitting in my bed in my dorm, and we were just Skyping, and I was like, “I’m a freshman,” and he was like, “Oh OK, hit me up in four years.” I was like, “This was cool, you know, people actually do this.” I started to look for as many positions as I could, ended up at Intuit — which was in Dallas, which is my hometown — that was a win-win situation. And that’s how I kind of got into it.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:04:32]That’s incredible, it sounds like you’re entirely intrinsically motivated.

Sahil Khoja: [00:04:36] Yeah, I think I’ve always been interested in people and how they interact or how they think. This was the perfect blend between people and design.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:04:49]So I kind of have this unique privilege where I am discussing somebody’s design journey as a very part of that design journey, through this podcast series, Students Who Design, that we’re working on together. I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about that. So, in creating the podcast, both you and I have had to jump through a number of logistical and creative hoops, and we’ve met such a diverse group of designers along the way. First off, what made you come up with the idea to do this podcast?

Sahil Khoja: [00:05:23] So a lot of the credit goes to Jared Erondu who started the podcast High Resolution, which is fantastic. It’s a podcast that sat down with 20 leaders of the design industry, and it was really great to listen to, but a lot of the content wasn’t as relevant to students or just beginners — you know, listening about how to become a good design manager or influence your team or being a solo designer. It’s great because those things could happen to you, but right now, you don’t even have the opportunity to get to one of those scenarios. I think the industry has a lot of great resources for people who are in the industry, but not necessarily for people who want to get into the industry. I knew that the podcast and video series was a good model, and what I found is that — we teach a class at Cornell called Introduction to Digital Product Design, it’s a student-taught class and Andrew talked a lot about it — and I was like, “What if we open-source that education in the form of a podcast or video series?” So with High Resolution and this class, merging that, and trying to create better resources or kicking off a new area where resources for beginners could emerge was kind of why I had thought this would be a good idea, why this idea even came up. Then it was a matter of just stalking as many people as I could, which — I think you and I both know — friends of friends, or just hitting up people on Facebook because they’re students too, so it’s not weird. I think that’s what’s cool about doing this, there isn’t a PR team you have to talk to or a company you have to get by. It’s just like, “Yo, you know the struggle of breaking in as an unconventional person and so do I, so what if we talk about it and see what can happen?”

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:07:13]Definitely, it’s very organic in that regard. So, we’ve talked to more than a dozen very different types of designers — people who are your senior or your junior within digital product design, but also a photographer, a 3D artist, all kinds of different things. With such a broad scope of things that have been discussed, are there any big learnings that you’ve had? Big takeaways?

Sahil Khoja: [00:07:43] Yeah. The first is that a lot of the people that we talked to were in positions that didn’t really help them get to where they wanted to be. They had to hustle, they had to work very, very hard to do what they wanted to do. I think that’s the number one takeaway — you have to work hard. Being at a specific school or knowing someone or what not, like, sure that helps, but — I think there’s this famous quote where it’s like, “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” All the people we talk to are extremely hardworking in what they do, and that’s why they’re so good at what they do. That’s number one, and number two is there are a lot of different fields of design, and I didn’t realize that. I knew we were talking to designers, but from Dio who does social virtual reality to Cameron who is a photographer, these are completely different domains. I think it’s a new thing for me, or has recently been a new thing for me, to go and explore those domains. Digital product design is great, but at some point — you can read as many articles as you want about UX, but at some point, they all say the same thing. By looking at other domains, you get another dimension about product design, even though you’re not looking at product design. So, I think the second takeaway is to explore different things — pick up a camera, pick up Unity, something else to get your brain reset and make it more uncomfortable. It will give you a better idea of what other designers do.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:09:16]Yeah, I’m sure that this is something that you can — I guess these interviews that helped inform certainly my own design philosophy, I’m sure you’ll probably see the same thing. Something you can take to industry, definitely make your work even better.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:09:31]So I’d now like to speak with you about your professional exposure. As you mentioned, your first official design internship was at Intuit. Could you talk a little bit about how you got there?

Sahil Khoja: [00:09:42] I went to a hackathon during my semester off — so in the fall. This is YHack, Yale’s hackathon, and Intuit was one of the sponsors. I was just talking to them, and I was like, “Hey, I’m looking for product design positions. I’m going to be a freshman at Cornell.” And they mentioned that they actually had an office in Dallas, and I was like, “Oh that’s perfect, I live right there.” I was really interested in the fact that I could possibly be home and work at Intuit. I interviewed in March, so it took them like five or six months to get back to me, and I was able to interview in person since the office was close to home. What every designer there remembered, whoever I met, they were like, “Oh, you’re the kid who did the Uber thing.” James — James is the V.P. of design for Intuit Dallas — had briefed them on what I had done or who I was. What was interesting is that Uber project is what kind of helped me kickstart my career in design, because not only was it for Intuit, but it was also with Facebook, that’s the same case study I use whenever people ask, “How did you get into design?” I always refer back to that experience. So I think the importance of side projects should not go unnoticed because sometimes it’s a side project, not your actual experiences, that can help you out in the long run. I’ll never forget — during my interview with Intuit, I was interviewing with James Helms, who was the V.P. of design in Dallas, and he was scrolling through my uber case study and he was like he like — point blank looked at one of the screens I had mocked, and he was like, “What the fuck is this?” I was like, “I don’t know if you’re upset or you want to see what I respond.” I think sometimes interviewers are going to be point blank, and you should be able to back up what you’ve done and why you did it. I was able to work at Intuit, which was a great experience. Awesome place, awesome people. They are so great that they were like, “You know, you should try something else for your next summer,” which I think is great from a company’s perspective to care about you more than their own head count. Then with Facebook, it moreso came to refining my portfolio and understanding how an app critique works because that’s very unique to their interview process.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:12:06]Between the two internships that you’ve held for product design, what’s the difference in the types of responsibilities that you’ve had?

Sahil Khoja: [00:12:15] With Intuit, it seemed like more of a typical internship in that you have this project and you have 10 weeks to do it, whereas Facebook was a massive rollercoaster from like internal changes and whatnot to working with a remote team in Menlo Park while I was in New York City. There’s a lot more going on, whereas at Intuit, I was at home, my friends were there. It’s The summer after freshman year, so it’s a lot more relaxed and a lot more fun, whereas at Facebook I felt like a full-time employee. I think the responsibility is a lot heavier at Facebook, but the initial growth was more at Intuit just because it was my first real experience.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:12:58]Sure, that’s sensible. So between your two internships — obviously after interning at Intuit, you have a little more familiarity with the design lexicon, and you can probably navigate Sketch a lot more fluently. What other types of things did you do to level up between those two internships?

Sahil Khoja: [00:13:28] Before Facebook, which was like in April, I knew who my manager was going to be, so I got on the phone with him and wrote up this doc of my goals for the summer. Two of them were becoming a better prototyper because your ability to prototype determines how effective meetings can be and how effective your communication is, and my second one is get better at visual design because Cornell has no true graphic design program or classes. At Intuit, I was essentially building a product from scratch, so I created all the visual design guidelines, for better or for worse. I think communicating early on with my manager really helped set up my projects for the summer. One was DesktopKit, which is on facebook.design. It’s a UI resource for designers who make desktop applications. That was strictly vector/pixel-pushing, being in Sketch for hours. I don’t think that project would have aligned so well with me if I had not informed him or other people at Facebook that these are what I want to get out of my 10 weeks here. Having an idea of what I wanted and what I wanted to improve on from my previous experience helped me have a good experience at Facebook — and even after Facebook, to understand what I want to do now.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:14:41]Do you have any idea of some things that you want to work on for the next summer?

Sahil Khoja: [00:14:46] Yeah, I think so. Still the visual design thing because I don’t think — I worked on business platforms for Facebook, which was great from a product thinking perspective, but a lot of things at Facebook visual design-wise are pretty scoped out because it has to look like Facebook, and they have really, really great design tools. I still want to develop my personal craft — being able to do things from scratch — so that means taking on more freelance work because that’s what that requires you to do. Doing graphic design abroad because it doesn’t exist here, so might as well try it somewhere else. Then joining Instagram next summer because while Facebook loves like move fast and break things, I think Instagram takes a more careful approach when it comes to design, or at least that’s what I’ve heard. Based off those rumors, I’m going to go for that experience.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:15:37]Fair enough. You’re part of this burgeoning design community at Cornell, helmed by people we’ve interviewed like Nicole and Andrew. Obviously there’s a very big component of that which is design theory education, in the form of projects through CUAppDev or the Intro to Digital Product Design class that you’re now a teacher of, but there’s also a component of it that is industry coaching, or walking through the interview process with somebody who’s already been through it. This is not something that you can get everywhere, so do you have anything to say to somebody who might not have a community like that?

Sahil Khoja: [00:16:22] Yeah, so if you didn’t go to college and you want to do this, or you don’t know people directly correlated to your school or your personal networks or whatever, don’t be afraid to contact anyone that you admire because most likely they’ll be willing to get on the phone with you and walk through that. I think a lot of people know that they should contact people in the industry — they should contact ex-interns to see what the process was like. It’s much easier to make that a very productive conversation if you have something to talk about, not necessarily like, “What did you like or what did you not like?” But like, “Here’s my portfolio, can we go over it?” Because now you have something to talk about for 30 minutes rather than making up behaviorial questions that don’t make sense. The behavioral questions are great, but you also want to utilize the knowledge they’ve had and the experience they’ve had. So don’t be afraid to contact people — and the more you contact, the better hit rate you’ll have. And bring something to the conversation. Questions are great, but actual content would be even greater.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:17:31]By this point, you’re old hat at this, but now it is time for our polled questions section, where we ask our interviewees questions that we’ve reach out to the community on Facebook and on Medium and seen what kinds of questions they’d like asked. The first one is: there are often discrepancies between what reality is and what the design industry perceives for students. Is there anything you want to speak on about that?

Sahil Khoja: [00:17:59] Yeah, I think it kind of goes back to what I said initially, the resources and what exists are great for people in the industry — they’re great to hear for students, but they’re not necessarily relevant. I think the industry is understanding that better because now you have things like “Out of Office Hours,” where you can schedule time with designers in the industry. You have Generation Design by Andreessen Horowitz, which is a fantastic program for people who are trying to break in. And now you have a Facebook University for product design. I think people are seeing it, but I think there should be more support. It’s not to the level of software engineering yet. I think Google does so many things that are software engineering-related materials, whether that’s these summer camps or the Engineering Practicum program, and other companies really help out with that. But I think design is still trying to get there, and I think companies and designers don’t realize the importance of those programs and how it really helps shape you as a student who doesn’t go to design school. There’s maybe 10 design schools that are really represented in industry, but there’s many more other universities that have potential. Understanding that this is a fuel that so many people want to do because they’re interested in this type of work means that there should be as equal if not more resources to help everyone out. Hopefully by the time this releases, there’s even more support from industry.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:19:35]You have quite a bit to manage in your life — you’re a technical major, design lead for a for a engineering project team, teaching a design class, career moves, and demanding personal projects like this one. How do you stay on top of it all?

Sahil Khoja: [00:19:51] I think the biggest thing for me is to not think about everything that I have to do. This sounds very counterintuitive, like I don’t want to psych myself out or stress myself out. For example, I like to wake up early, and I like to sleep before midnight, which is very weird for some people because I’ll respond to their messages at like 6:00 AM. But if I think about all the things that are going on, then I feel like I can’t do it. Even now, I think you slowly learn — when you start off in college, you try everything, and you end up half-assing everything, and then you realize and you cut all the stuff down to one thing you want to do really well. For example, for school clubs, AppDev is the only club I do, or side projects — this is the only thing I’ll do. With taking classes, I’ll take maybe 4-ish classes. I won’t go crazy and take 23 credits just to say I take 23 credits because I don’t see value in that. Another thing that I like to do is to stay analog, so I just write down everything that I have to do this week and then figure out when I am going to do it — to be very, very prescriptive is how I manage things. Of course things can be better, for example this podcast; maybe we could have done much more in terms of marketing and shipping and whatnot, but to some extent even getting the episodes out is a win. Considering everything that we have going on, and grades, you know — I don’t have the type of philosophy where you get a 2.9 because grades don’t matter, and I don’t have the philosophy of “get a 4.0 or die.” I’ve always been a B+ or A- type of student since ninth grade. Knowing 80% of the material is a big deal in my opinion — if you say you know 80% of data science, that’s sick. You know, 90 is cool, but 80 is not bad. I try to get what I want out of my classes and take classes that have nothing to do with my major. This past semester, I took Intro to Photography, which is black and white film. I think every designer should take it because you learn how tedious forming something can be. I think photography has direct correlations with design, and more designers should take black and white photography classes. If you have one, take it. If you have a darkroom in your university, use it, because literally you use your hands to make these prints, and it helps you see the world differently in how elements work together.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:22:32]Oh yeah, I absolutely agree. I’ve always found it incredibly funny how different our sleep schedules are, or just our day schedule. I often will be going to bed and texting you as you’re waking up at around 5:00 AM.

Sahil Khoja: [00:22:49] But it works, that means we’re working 24 hours a day!

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:22:51]It’s true! No stops, the grind doesn’t stop, ever. So anyway, there’s a lot of resources out there on Medium, on YouTube, all kinds of places, where people are trying to give you their advice on design, give you their philosophy. How do you filter out what is good and what is just noise?

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:23:09]Earlier, I think I said at some point, the UX articles — you can probably predict what it’s going to say before it says it. I think unfollowing those tags on Medium to be very explicit, and then following things that you don’t know anything about, whether that’s digital currency, photography, whatever, helps resurface your feed. Recently, what’s been really big for me is Reddit because product design doesn’t really exist on Reddit yet. I think it’s more graphic design or photography or like — game development is huge on Reddit. I’m trying to tap into different communities where it’s not people trying to market their personal brands, but really just to understand what different software is doing, what’s the advantage or disadvantage, or are Udacity nanodegrees worth it — I think you might want to try different fields rather than reading the same thing over and over again. If I see a title where I have an idea of what it is going to say, I don’t read it. Though I might if it’s someone I know. I’ll probably look at it because I trust their content.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:24:19]Stemming off of that, do you have any mentors in particular that you follow to stay inspired or any pseudo-mentors, websites, things of that nature?

Sahil Khoja: [00:24:26] So a direct mentor would be Jared. He’s been great in terms of structuring this podcast, High Resolution. Even throughout the summer, he looked at my midpoint feedback from Facebook and he gave me some tips as to what to do. Andrew Aquino is probably the reason why I was able to actually level up in design. Nicole, who was the reason why I got into design. So those are actual people. In terms of pseudo mentors, I think — there’s not necessarily websites, per se. Most recently, books are good mentors in helping you understand how people work or people think. I think reading things that aren’t design-related makes you a better designer because, as a designer, it’s your job to understand the world and people. Design books teach you design, not the world and people. Reading fiction or reading books related to anthropology has helped shape what I want to do and how I view things, so I think books are great mentors as well.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:25:42]You teach a design class here, you are a design leader on a team here — you’re definitely, by all accounts, a design leader at Cornell. I’m sure you get a lot of feedback requests and questions about how to get into the industry. For somebody who is trying to break in, are there any pieces of immediately actionable advice you could give them?

Sahil Khoja: [00:26:02] I’m assuming people listening to this have read the Medium articles, or seen other people’s portfolios, or know what they have to do, but just haven’t done it yet. There’s always that saying that you can read all you want, but you have to do the thing to get better at it, whether it’s sports, or photography, or even design. I think other guests have said this before, and it’s helped me shape my answer to this. If you feel like you’re not actually learning anything, that means you have to do something rather than continuously reading. You could read about all the principles you want, but then you have to execute them at some point. I think hackathon is a great medium for you to do that — you have to do something for 24 hours. It’s a very good constraint, and it will be built because you have to make something, but I think a lot of people forget that you can continue things after a hackathon and really refine it. So, my immediate actionable advice would be go to a hackathon if you’ve already read a lot, and if you haven’t read a lot, I think there’s enough articles to get you kickstared. As for what books and stuff to read, there’s too many listicles out there. If you haven’t understood what product design is, just Google it and go from there.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:27:22]We’ve talked quite a bit about your very impressive background and how you’ve navigated this field. What’s next for you?

Sahil Khoja: [00:27:33] As of this podcast episode recording, going abroad and understanding graphic design principles.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:27:38]Where are you going abroad?

Sahil Khoja: [00:27:40] I’m going to Copenhagen to study graphic design.

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:27:42]Amazing.

Sahil Khoja: [00:27:43] I think that will be fun because it will be six months of pure design studio, then never looking at it again because I think that will be enough. Other than that, trying to get this podcast out there and see what happens!

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:27:57]Very admirable. Sahil, thank you so much for sitting for this interview, and I’ve had a great time working on this podcast with you!

Sahil Khoja: [00:28:05] Thanks Omar, you too!

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:28:05]Absolutely!

Omar Abdul-Rahim: [00:28:06]Students Who Design is written and produced by Sahil Khoja and Omar Abdul-Rahim. Visit our website, studentswho.design, for more information.