For Students, By Students…and Former Students: Co-ops Become Colleagues

Why Two Former Interns Jumped at the Chance to Return to TD Lab Full-Time

Since 2014, almost 200 co-op students have worked a term (or two) at TD Lab in one of three roles: developer, designer, and business analyst. From first time employees to almost graduates, they spend their term working on prototypes of solutions that focus on our mandate: “For Students, By Students.” They are mentored by full-time employees with the type of career and academic experience that spurs on creativity and innovative solutions.

Every once in a while, a full-time role opens up at TD Lab. Two of our last few full-time roles have actually been filled by former TD Lab co-op students. We chatted with Isaiah (two time co-op student and current full-time developer) and Matt (one time co-op student, former part-time employee, and current full-time business analyst) about their experiences at the Lab and why they jumped at the opportunity to work full time at the Lab.

Matt, Business Analyst

“For business and finance students, you typically become either a consultant or a CPA.

As a consultant, you’re a part of a bigger project and won’t necessarily see something from start to finish in these types of roles; as a financial analyst, you’re behind the scenes, neck deep in tables. As someone with a love of strategy, the Lab offers opportunities to get involved in both macro and micro strategic decisions. I need to be a part of the action, getting involved from the strategic alignments to user testing to go to market plans.

With the projects that I’ve gotten to work on at TD Lab, there is a satisfaction that comes from seeing a project from problem generation to launch! Being a small agile team it often feels like you’re working at a startup — but inside one of North America’s largest banks. This unique environment means there’s always leadership opportunities. With the fast-paced, multi-faceted projects, there’s always something new to pick up, something new to learn. Above all, it is centred on the involvement of emotion through the experience, constantly referring back to the user, always striving for that “aha” moment when we’ve provided illuminating insights, or solved a problem, or delighted the customer through the ease of the experience.

As the Lab focuses on projects that are ‘for students, by students,’ I like to think that I bring a good mix of relevant student experience, as a recent graduate, while also being able to be an example for the co-op students of what’s possible after graduation.”

Isaiah, Developer

“During my first co-op placement at TD Lab, I worked on a financial literacy application. This project was really eye opening for me as I had never gone through a full design process before where we would iterate on a design, test out our prototype with users to get feedback, and use that for the next implementation of the app. I learned so much during my first coop with TD lab. I thought it was so cool to have the backing of TD and come up with new innovative project ideas that leveraged TD data and capabilities.

I loved my experience at TD lab the first time around, so I was super happy when I was able to come back! During my second term, my goals were to try to work on something out of my comfort zone, and try something new. I had experience in Android development, so I took it as a challenge to learn iOS development with Swift by making a facial detection app that leveraged iOS’s Vision API.

Transitioning into life as a full time developer has been an awesome experience. An interesting thing about the transition is that I understand so much more about how the Lab works, and what our process is for innovation and project management. As a co-op a lot of your job is to develop, using your creativity in the projects that are assigned to you. You still have the freedom to come up with ideas for the project, butas a full-time employee, there’s a more direct path to coming up with the ideas as well as the implementation.

All in all, it’s been a great experience becoming a full timer. It’s another chapter in my life that I’m super excited about, and another opportunity for my own growth, and to share my experience with the co-ops I get to mentor.”