For people going places
How we founded the design interns programme at Wise
From my first day at Wise in 2022, I’ve been talking about an interns programme with our VP of Design, Josh Payton.
Why was this a high priority on my list when I started? First, design is a difficult industry to break into. For aspiring designers, it’s very hard to get started as you have to have some experience to get a role and until you get a role you don’t have the experience. It can be a crushing cycle. Second, design leadership struggles with diversity across the board because 20 years ago, it was privileged white men who could afford to work for free that got the leg up. We want to do our part to change that. And finally, I’ve been there myself. I had two formative internships — one was an exhilarating experience; the other, I cried in the bathroom every day at lunch. … And I was keen to make Wise’s intern program like the former.
It’s probably worth a quick PSA about what we mean by “Design” at Wise. Design is a multidisciplinary team and we sometimes call it capital “D” Design. Brand design, content design, designOps, product design, research, resOps and visual design. While our craft is varied, human-centred design and design thinking unite us.
I’ll walk you through how we set it all up at Wise, reflect on what we’ll be doing differently this year, and share some of the experiences from our sponsors and interns as well.
So…how do you set up a design interns programme from scratch?
Step 1
Get Leadership buy-in.
When I joined Wise, Josh was already talking about succession planning and designing the future we want to see. Many of our design leaders have also been involved in similar programmes at previous places of work. So I didn’t have to sell the idea in the design team.
However, if your leaders need some convincing, here’s a few compelling arguments besides the obvious you can use to get them onboard:
- It’s hugely beneficial for potential managers to try managing without long term commitment
- It’s a good way to source potential junior hires without long term commitment
- It will raise the profile of the design team of your organisation in the industry
Step 2
Funding and Partnerships.
This is not the 90’s. Your interns should be paid.
You’ll need to work with your finance partner to secure the budget for their salaries, and agree on an amount and duration. Our programme was 10 weeks, paid at 80% of a grad role (£28,000 pro-rated), with holiday, for 8 interns. They also had MacBooks issued with all the latest design software, and flexibility to be remote 1 day a week.
Fortunately, Wise has a rich history of welcoming engineering interns and grads into the business. Early Careers at Wise is run by one of the best people partners I have had the privilege to work with — the formidable and generous Libby Cook. Her team are unsung heroes. Every year they advocate for budget, secure placements, support recruitment, design hackathons, host lunch and learns, and the list goes on. They are actually changing the lives of hundreds of people. Without her team, it would be doable but not nearly as fun or to as high a standard.
>Learning:
- Be prepared to be flexible. Originally we planned to hire 8 interns, but remember the tech winter in early 2023? Yep. We compromised at 5, which we were very fortunate to keep and only did so because our finance partner, a wonderful woman called Daphne, challenged our Chief Product Officer and made a strong case. Finance is your friend.
Step 3
Sponsors.
As mentioned, a massive benefit of an interns programme is that it affords Individual Contributors (ICs) the opportunity to manage. They can try out some of the core skills of a lead (what we call managers here at Wise), see if they are suited for it, and it’s beautifully time boxed. I created an open call doc and sign up sheet, using our communication channels and rituals to promote it.
>Learning:
- It’s a lot to ask of people. Now that we know how to run it, we’ll create a full overview of the commitment so they know what to expect.
Step 4
Recruitment.
Since we’d never done this before, this was in some ways the most intensive stage. Job descriptions, portfolio criteria, a bar of what good looks like for an intern, interview guides and interview questions. Not to mention 2,200 people (woah!) applied, and that is a lot of portfolios to review. I worked with Libby and the sponsors to design the material we needed and put processes in place.
>Learnings:
- Our window of recruitment was November to January. This is way too long (see also, 2,200 applicants to review). This year when we recruit, we’ll have a short, 3-week opening.
- We didn’t clearly call out the constraints. The roles were London-based only, visa support and relocation were not provided, and there was no option to be fully remote. 15% of our applicants were rejected for this reason.
- It took a while but was definitely worth it to create a shared understanding of what good looks like for early careers portfolios. Ultimately, we agreed we’re not looking for fantastic work because we’re not likely to find it this early in their career. We’re looking for potential, for evidence of design thinking, for narrative. We also found it was very important to hire someone with foundational skills and knowledge in the area they were applying for. This round, we’ll have our seasoned sponsors teach the new sponsors.
Step 5
Interviews and selection.
From 2,200 people to 15 people; 5 interviews, 3 candidates per role, 5 roles offered. Libby and I workshopped a whiteboard diagram that looked like a scene from the film “A Beautiful Mind” to work out the interview pods. We asked our candidates to do a 45-minute interview: a 20-minute case study presentation, 15-minute competency assessment, and a 10-minute Q and A. In the end, our acceptance rate was 100%.
>Learnings:
- Be very clear that you want to see the most relevant case study for the role. We had one person present us a furniture design project which — while cool — is miles off the product design role they were going for. We’ll be introducing a short prep call with a veteran sponsor to help candidates prep before the real interview. Ness Grixti, our sponsor in Design Systems, also created this handy guide on do’s and don’ts.
- Have a more experienced manager in the interview as well as the sponsor to make sure that the interviews are consistent.
- Be honest about what you expect. We weren’t clear if we were doing a career education program for low design IQ or if this was more of a talent pipeline for exceptional up-and-comers we would potentially hire. For us, for now, it’s the latter. In the future we’d love to do more of an apprenticeship programme.
Step 6
Programme prep (and a win).
We launched our rebrand in March 2023 and it was very well received, especially in the design industry. Riding the wave of success, I managed to negotiate another intern for our programme for design systems with Cam Worboys, our Design Director behind the rebrand. We ran the recruitment process again and welcomed a lucky sixth person.
Now we set ourselves the task of designing all our programme materials. Our programme looked roughly like this:
Week 1 — Global onboarding with all interns (around 200)
Week 2 — Onboarding with your Design team
Week 3 to 9 — Your project
Week 10 — Case study presentation and wrap up
We created a standardised but customisable onboarding document that included everything from the history of Wise, to topical podcasts or hot topics, to practical information about the team, our rituals and channels, etc.
>Learning:
- The sponsors all had a keeping in touch call with their intern before they started, and co-defined a focus area. This was scoped and became their key project. It really helped to have this touchpoint so the interns were able to shape their experience.
Step 7
They’re here!
Libby and her Early Careers team managed the global onboarding to Wise and a cool hackathon. They also hosted lunch and learns with senior leaders…Fun fact: Josh and Cam were actually the favourite talks by a mile. That’s the future of ProdEng developing an appreciation of Design early (win!).
Each intern worked closely with their sponsor and the team on their focus projects. We designed our performance evaluation to be as close as possible to how we’d evaluate a grad. Our career framework skills are Strategy, Influence, Craft and Impact. The interns had regular checkpoints, so they could gain a deeper understanding of their strengths and areas for growth. I also worked across the org to create 101s to each discipline to help the interns gain a deeper understanding of capital ‘D’ Design.
The culmination was a case study presentation in their final week. I came up with this idea because A) we present constantly in Design, B) it’s a tangible takeaway for their portfolio, and C) one of our principles in Design at Wise is “Storytelling isn’t optional.” And they smashed it. We were so impressed.
>Learnings:
- Libby and I weren’t sure we could secure grad roles at the end of the programme, as we’d never done it before. We will do better next time to be clearer with our interns at the start on how likely a grad role will be.
- Don’t share an intern among 2 leads. 10 weeks is too short to be split across teams or business areas. It’s a much better experience to pair one on one.
Step 8
Let’s do it all again.
We’re gearing up to do it all again, with tons of learnings under our belt.
The interns left on a Friday. By Monday, my dance card was completely full for sponsors for 2024. We did manage to secure grad roles as well for 2024 (thanks again to Libby and Daphne) and will be inviting our 6 interns from this year to apply for those.
Applications for the 2024 Design Interns programme at Wise open in November 2023.
Update: Applications are open. Apply now.
