Jamie Chen
Rice University 
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Jessica Pang, Product Designer, SiteMinder, Sydney (33.8° S, 151.2° E)

Jessica Pang is a product designer at SiteMinder, a leading global hotel industry guest acquisition platform in Sydney, Australia. In 2012, she graduated from Boston University with a bachelor of science in hospitality administration and business administration with a concentration in finance. Since then, she has worked in various roles from marketing to UX (User Experience) design in industries such as retail and travel in Hong Kong and Australia.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jessica in Sydney through a video conference while I was three hours behind in Taipei. In the interview, we talked about her unique experiences and the booming, yet still comparatively loosely defined field of UX and design.

Jessica never expected herself to be a product designer. A decade ago, terms like UX, UI Design were not as popular as they are today; there were no UX courses or majors. During her time at Boston University, she double majored in hospitality and business hoping that they would provide her with more options after graduation. Jessica knew she was interested in consumer insight and the motivation behind human behavior.

After graduation, her first job was a marketing role at a multinational company, but she wanted to work in the technology industry and moved from retail to travel two years later. After that, she landed her first design role at Cathay Pacific’s Asia Miles loyalty rewards program as a data-driven UX designer. Since then, she worked at a consultancy firm and moved back to the travel industry, to her current position, early last year when she realized she wanted to focus on travel.

Jessica talked about the concept of T-shaped generalist — where the top of the T represents the breadth of one’s skillset and the vertical segment represents the specific area one chooses to focus, and be an expert, on — and its significance for a relatively open role such as a designer. Jessica revealed that the role of designers, especially product designers, requires a diverse skill set due to the diverse nature of the work ranging from research to planning to delivery. Hence, all designers should have basic proficiency in the fundamentals, and the real value comes from each designer’s distinct expertise — the “stem” of the T — whether it be an industry focus or skill focus.

Jessica mentions that although studying broad majors may seem disadvantageous in search of a well-defined career path, experiences here and there can accumulate to form one’s own edge. In the area of “design,” this is even more relevant due to its novelty and open nature; hence, designers often come from all backgrounds. Furthermore, each design role can vary greatly for each company.

Jessica also stresses that empathy is key to human-centered design (HCD) — the framework or way of thinking behind UX/UI, product, and service design. Additionally, Jessica remarks that skills such as UX writing, a revamped form of copywriting, and storytelling have become increasingly crucial over the last couple of years and are likely to continue gaining importance in the coming years as the standard for engaging and brand-aligned content continues to rise.

Lastly, for those interested in design, Jessica strongly recommends, in addition to “improving your craft, design, and upskilling,” to get to know the design community. She emphasizes the importance of networking in a small but growing field like design, not only to meet people and learn about others’ experiences, but also to receive advice and discover one’s own interests through others.

Aside from understanding the fundamentals of design thinking, design process, and various design disciplines, aspiring designers from traditional and non-traditional design backgrounds should have a portfolio to highlight their case studies and/or personal projects.

Final takeaways for all:

•   Your experiences make up your own personal edge.
•   Don’t be discouraged by not knowing exactly what you want.
  • Move in a direction that feels right, and carve out your own way.

Highlights from the interview:

When did you first envision yourself working as a product designer, or UX designer in the travel industry?

It wasn’t something I envisioned when I was at school. When I studied at Boston University, I did a double major in hospitality and business. I wanted to study something that gave me more options. I was interested in consumer insights, why people behave the way they do. And that was the only thing I was exposed to at school. Back then, UX wasn’t even part of the curriculum. I worked in marketing at a multinational company, but I really wanted to work in the tech industry. My first design role was at Cathay Pacific’s loyalty program. It wasn’t a conventional product design role. It was more of a general UX design role. My title at the time was data-driven designer, which is different from product designer, but it has the same principles and practices. That’s how I started and then went on to different roles. Then I came back to travel again. The more I worked in the travel industry, the more I realized that that is something I want to do. You might have heard of this concept of T-shaped generalist. If you look at the shape of a T, the horizontal part is all the skills that you have. Designers should maintain a general set of skills because especially in product design, we have to do research, we have to do journey mapping and workshops and then deliver the work. The bottom stem of the T is the area you choose to focus. For example, if you’re really good at research, that could be your specialty. Alternatively, you can also have an industrial specialization. For example, I want to focus on the travel industry. That’s what I want to plan for myself. In short, I just fell into the design and travel industry. The more I was immersed in it, the more I enjoyed it and am hoping to continue down this path.

Did you have any design experience before your first design job?

No, I was not officially trained. In high school, I took a few multimedia classes and had some experience with Photoshop, video editing, and HTML coding. When I got the design job, I had to learn most things either from scratch or learn them again. I think it’s more of a matter of practice and  it takes more time to train to become really skilled.

What were your goals right out of college? How does your current path align with your expectations?

I didn’t know what to do after college. I had no goals. I’m really glad I found this career path because it gives me satisfaction and fulfillment. I think many people who study broad majors like business are not really sure what their career path will look like or what kind of roles they want to take right out of college because there is no well-defined path. But, the good thing about it is that you get to try a little bit of everything. All these experiences add up and give you your own edge. I can tell you that a lot of designers don’t come from traditional design backgrounds, and it’s actually something that’s valued. It’s very common for user researchers to come from a psychology background because they have a natural understanding of people. There are many architects who are also UX designers. It’s actually an advantage in a way because if you’ve only been exposed to design for a long time, you lose other kinds of thinking that could really help. Design is not just about making beautiful screens. You should first understand who you’re designing for. The users you’re designing for may come from a very particular industry. For example, you could be designing a platform for health professionals; so, you have to understand the day-to-day experience of a doctor or a nurse. Having exposure to a broad range of things helps you understand the user quicker and better.

Are there any misconceptions about your job, whether it’s product design or UX/UI?

Design has been around for a long time. Now it’s really become a whole practice of its own, where we start defining things differently, which is why all these terms came about. Every company defines UX quite differently. Some companies might not fully understand the concept of UX or the designer’s role. They just know that they need one. They may advertise the job as a UX designer position, but what they’re probably looking for is a UI designer. That’s a very common thing that happens, depending on the company’s design maturity. UX focuses on the experience itself, and UI stands for user interface, which is more like the actual design of screens and flows and animation. There are also other disciplines of design such as the human-centered design (HCD), which is more of a framework or a way of thinking. The word HCD itself is self-explanatory; whenever you’re designing an experience or product or service, you are centering it  around humans, their motivations, goals, and behavior.

Today, as we define product designers, we mean designing digital products. It involves some UX, some UI, and some research. They all stem from the same line, which is being empathetic. Empathy means that you’re fully able to understand your users; you walk in their shoes. If you have that understanding, then you can design whatever you want. Service design is another discipline, which has the same roots of thinking, but the approach is slightly different in a way where it’s about services such as going to a restaurant, or going to a hospital clinic to see a doctor. Service design involves physical human interactions, the process and the design approach is slightly different. But at the end of the day, the fundamentals are still rooted in the human-centered concept. 

Between UX and UI, user experience is at a higher level and more abstract whereas user interface is more technical. Is that the difference between these terms?

Broadly, yes. You described it quite closely, but I wouldn’t say UX is more of an abstract thing. It focuses more on how users think by understanding their behavior, goals, and motivation. The goal is to design for a better experience.

What experiences have led you to your current position? What suggestions do you have for people who want to go into user experience product design? What skills should they have to be successful in such roles?

It really depends on what part of design you want to focus on. If you want to focus on UI, you should have strong visual design skills. If you want to focus on UX, study HCD or psychology to understand how people think because there are some common denominators to how human beings behave in general. You should be able understand what motivates them. If you’re interested in working at tech companies, as a product designer, both UX and UI are very valuable because product designers tend to work on designs from start to end, in the entire design process. Product designers lead the process of doing user research with customers to understand what’s currently happening and the challenges they’re facing and then work on a solution, do testing, and implement the design. Alternatively, if service design is something you’re aiming for, then definitely focus on the HCD side of things, and also get really good at workshop facilitation, which is organizing workshops to identify problems and getting the team to align on something. That’s a key skill for service designers because service designers spend a lot of time aligning with different people. They’re always talking to customers to immerse themselves in the service experience, and workshops help achieve that.

Can you give me an example of some of your favorite projects in your current role or during your career?

It would probably be my first project at the Cathay Pacific loyalty program. When I joined, I was hired as a designer under the data science team. It wasn’t a traditional design job in the design team. At the time, they were building a data science team, and they wanted to have a designer to be able to design a more personalized experience for customers, or what they called the loyalty program members. That was an interesting role because I got to define what I wanted to work on. I was able to do experiments in collaboration with data scientists on what works and what doesn’t. It was quite challenging for someone like me who was not experienced in design, but at the same time, it was probably my steepest learning curve out of everything that I’ve done. I was trying to understand two things at the same time, design and data science.

How do you see your field or the general field of design and user experience interface and these types of roles developing in the future?

It depends on what you want to prepare yourself for. Some of the skills that have become increasingly more important are going to be transferable to evolving experiences. One thing that really came through in the last couple years is UX writing, which was initially more like copywriting. Designers have realized that if you write good copy, it’s more engaging for users and customers. Now, there are proper roles in companies where you’re hired as a UX writer, which means you collaborate with UX and UI designers to fill in the content and make sure that it makes sense and is engaging, and fits with the brand of the company. The other thing is storytelling; it is an emerging field of design around VR and AR experiences. In design, you’re taking users on a journey where you’re telling the story about whatever product they’re using.

How has it been working in the travel industry over the past years? Where do you see it going?

Travel is always fun. Instead of designing for travelers like you and me, today I am designing for hotels; they use our software to manage their pricing and availability. With COVID, no one was traveling [initially], and some hotels shut down or have decided to temporarily take a step back. That was a bit of a challenge for us because of very low engagement from customers. We went through a quiet period. Some travel organizations have had to downsize. It’s been rough. I think the worst part is over, at least for domestic travel. I believe that once international travel is open again, travel will come back stronger than it was because everyone really wants to travel.

Are there any interesting experiences you would like to share?

For anyone interested in design, aside from improving your craft, design, and upskilling, also make sure that you get to know the design community better. All the jobs that I’ve gotten have not been through recruiters or direct job applications but from networking. I went to a lot of design meetups. I wanted to see what’s out there. The more you talk to different designers, the more you discover what you are interested in. Most of the time, people are really nice about giving you great advice.

Coming from a non-design background, what would you say are the key skills or background you should have when you apply to an entry level design job?

Make sure that you understand the fundamentals. Understand design thinking, the design process, design disciplines that I’ve mentioned, and the main difference between UX and UI. Then do a bit of research on other types of design disciplines. The second thing is having a portfolio of case studies or projects you’ve worked on. This is very important. If you’re going to structure a case study, you should always start with “what’s the problem you’re trying to solve”? Once you have established that understanding, then show the whole process of how you went from defining the problem to designing the final solution, and then what you learned.

If people are looking to go into design right out of college, should they just be looking at design roles, or some other roles that would be beneficial in their future design career?

It depends on how determined you are to want to become a designer. If that is something that you know you want to do right out of college, definitely aim for it as a first job. If it’s something you fall into, there are many opportunities to look internally and externally. For example, in tech organizations, there are always stories about engineers or product managers who switched to working in design because of the exposure to working with designers.

How important are the artistic or graphical skills in the realm of design?

I would say it’s relatively important, but it also depends on how much you want to specialize. If you’re more interested in UX, as you go deeper in your career, you probably don’t need to do as much screen work. Whereas if you really want to specialize more in the interface side of things, I recommend up-skilling on the visual design skills and animation. As a basis, it’s definitely important to have both tiers. Otherwise, I would suggest you spend your efforts on whatever you want to specialize in.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee. This article only aims to share personal opinions and learnings and does not constitute the interviewee’s current or former employer(s)’ position on any of the topics discussed.

Alp Yakici
Rice University
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Peter Tang, Research Engineer, IBM, Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

Peter Tang received his bachelor’s of science degree in bioengineering at Rice University in 2018. During his undergraduate studies at Rice, he worked at various research labs, such as the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center as a bioinformatics researcher and the University of Houston as a brain machine interface researcher. After graduation, he joined IBM as a software engineer and worked on the Watson OpenScale platform. He later transferred to IBM Research, and he is now working at IBM Research – Cambridge as a research engineer. In our conversation, we discussed his research interests and the differences between software engineering and research engineering. We concluded our conversation with his recommendations on how college students can gain hands-on experience to be successful as research engineers.

In his current position, Peter works in a large team of 12 people. His team has one manager, four research staff members, and seven research engineers. When asked about the work distribution in his team, Peter says “when it comes to bringing out features, everyone has a say in it, but when it comes to more academic topics, it requires more [scientific] background, and [research staff members] come up with an idea and champion it.” Even though Peter’s team works on long-term projects, he says his daily routine is very fast-paced. His team conducts triage meetings twice a week, where they assign tasks that focus on different areas.

One of the most important takeaways from our conversation is the difference between being a researcher and research engineer in the industry. According to Peter, research engineers usually hold a master’s or a bachelor’s degree and “build engineering systems for researchers.” Researchers, however, are “PhDs who come up with theories, [publish] papers, or [manage] small-scale projects.” As a research engineer, Peter’s day-to-day tasks involve building large-[scale] software [systems]“ for [researchers] to make [their projects fit] into the real world.”

Another important takeaway is the importance of extracurricular activities – even if they end up becoming one of the “tedious and boring” ones. Peter recalls the research projects he disliked, but the experiences he gained through those projects helped him shape his priorities and taught him how to communicate with researchers and managers. He suggests that “you have to communicate and let both sides know what your purpose is and try to optimize the mutual interests.”

Highlights from the interview:

What were your parent’s expectations from you, and how did they shape your career choice? 

Both of my parents are architects and my mom is more of an artist.  My mom’s side of the family has lots of artists. When it came to me, they never really had any expectations other than being an architect. And, I hated that. I told them in middle school that I didn’t want to be an architect at all.

I got into Rice to study genetic engineering because I found it interesting to edit the genome. My friends did not have any influence in my career choice, either. It has always been my choice.

During the freshman year, I started working at a genetic lab. The projects were so slow, experiments took forever; I had to wait for five days for a result and only then I could start a new experiment. I’ve realized slow-paced projects are not for me. Then, I took Comp 140 [Computational Thinking] course and I fell in love with it. That’s what made me become more interested in computer science. I stuck with biology because I was still interested in biological systems and how to optimize them, but I think of computer science more as a tool that can be applied to many different fields. Biology or human physiology was a field that I wanted to apply [my computer science knowledge] to. 

Now you are a researcher at IBM.  What field do you do research, and how did you end up becoming a researcher at IBM?

I would correct the term researcher because I’m more of a research engineer. There is a difference in the industry. Research engineers usually have masters or undergraduate degrees and build engineering systems for researchers, who usually have PhDs and come up with new theories, [publish] papers, or [manage] small-scale projects. As research engineers, we build large-scale software [systems] for them to take their projects into the real world. As a research engineer, I build systems to help the researchers showcase the capability of their products or build prototypes to help their thought process.

And how did I end up being a research engineer? I got accepted into IBM as a software engineer in the Watson Department. At the time, they had a new software platform called Watson OpenScale, which is an online machine learning model-monitoring platform. My team was physically located right across the hallway from IBM Research. So, I started talking to people from there and I told my manager about my remote goal of going back to the graduate school and asked for help. My manager suggested I look for a side project. He used to be a researcher; so, he connected me with someone he collaborated with in the past. That’s how I started doing more side projects, and it eventually led to a full-time position at IBM Research.

What keeps you motivated about being a research engineer?

There’s so much to learn and so much to build. I would like to use a quote from my manager when she first told me about this position. She said, “when you accept this position you’ll expect to build things that no one has ever built before. You will not know what you’re going to build the next day because no one knows the answer to it.” Because these are the questions that people come up with to solve things that have never been solved before, I have so much flexibility in what I want to build, and why I want to build it that way. So, it really develops critical thinking of why a system should be some way or how should I build this thing to make it robust and also enable a good user experience. I’m also learning a lot of new skills that I’d never touched before. Before, I was using MATLAB for machine learning purposes. It was useful in academic work but not in the industry. I’m now learning Fullstack, the CICD, Python, deep learning, and many more skills that will be useful for my career whether I stay in the industry or go back to the graduate school. Also, the people I work with are smart, and I’m learning a lot from them every day. Especially the researcher I work with sends me articles and “how to” guides such as “how do you become a hacker?”, “what are the ethics of hacking by yourself?” or “how to contribute to opensource projects?”. He’s really passionate about software engineering and Linux and motivates me to build something new or think about what to build. 

What recommendations do you have for students interested in becoming a research engineer? 

Have a curious mind, be willing to learn new things and jump into difficult problems and try to solve them. And have a passion about something that you know, you can hang onto. Research engineers are expected to implement other people’s ideas; so, a lot of times you may find your job less meaningful if you don’t put your heart into it. You should be able to deal with ambiguity sometimes. 

Do you find the work environment as a research engineer fast-paced?

Yes, I would say it’s pretty fast-paced. When researchers have new ideas, I have about a week to build something. Mostly they are small tasks; they take a day or two to complete, but some involve a lot of coding and learning about different parts of the code. In that regard, it’s really fast-paced, especially compared to the product development because in product development, every step has to go through quality assurance and user experience testing; the vetting process for product development is much longer.

There are a lot of things in my job that involve team effort. Sometimes I pursue a project in the back end and an engineer depends on it in the front end; finally, the project goes to the person who deploys it; so, we work as a team to create something. Recently, our team worked together  to build a demo product for the public, and it gave all of us great satisfaction at the end because we accomplished it as a team.

What is something you wished you had known when you were a sophomore or a junior in university?

Make sure you do some side projects and learn about different things. Because a lot of times I feel like I didn’t learn enough in school; the school was more of a paperwork and learning on paper doesn’t really help when you’re a software engineer. Nowadays, the technology is moving at a fast pace and you wouldn’t be able to learn all that in the classroom. So, explore them on your own and combine them with something you’re interested in life. If you like dancing, try to make automation in dance videos; in other words, combine your computer science knowledge with something you have interest in and that will be much more original, much more interesting.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee. This article only aims to share personal opinions and learnings and does not constitute the interviewee’s current or former employer(s)’ position on any of the topics discussed.

Samuel Anozie
University of Texas
Dallas (32.7° N, 96.7° W)

featuring Jessica McElroy, Software Engineer, Airbnb, San Francisco (37.7° N, 122.4° W)

After graduating from Rice University with a degree in sociology and policy studies in 2012, Jessica McElroy has been thriving as a software engineer at Airbnb since 2017. Her transition from research in public policy to software engineering in the lodging and hospitality field is a story of learning, both within her career and for her own interests. Throughout our interview, we discussed topics such as the mechanics of career changes, the future of web development, and cultural differences within small and large organizations.

Jessica’s professional journey ended up having many different twists and turns, but it was her initiative that opened up various opportunities for her. The most important aspect of her success in changing careers was the momentum she gave herself by acting early, from learning programming necessary for data analytics to networking with like-minded individuals and enrolling in bootcamps. When asked about advice that she would give those looking to change careers, she stated that trying something, whether by reaching out to people in the industry or working on personal projects, before fully committing to it as a career will usually give a signal for the right direction to go.

In terms of web development, Jessica and I discussed how the field is ever-changing in a unique way. As apps get more complicated, front-end projects scale much faster than their backend counterparts. Solutions like content management systems create an easy way for businesses to create user interfaces with dynamic data, taking some burdens off of front-end developers. However, shifting that responsibility may result in the creation of even more complex interface frameworks.

In Jessica’s opinion, the pros and cons of working for large corporations versus small startups depend heavily on the goals of the individual concerning what they want to learn. In a corporate environment, it’s expected to focus on a small set of topics within a field, so gaining expertise and specialization is easy. However, a startup may require you to wear many different hats, so those with more generalized mindsets will find it more rewarding.

By working hard and staying curious, Jessica was able to capitalize on various opportunities. As a student, it’s a reminder to be grateful for opportunity, yet curious for experiences, and to always reevaluate what you’ve learned and what you’d like to learn. This is a time of great uncertainty for the American workforce, as many individuals have lost jobs in lifelong industries. As we attempt to re-skill for a post-virus world, it’s important to keep the various methods of continuous improvement in mind.

Highlights from the interview

Could you tell me a bit about how you started off in your career, and how you moved through different fields to get to where you are now?

I majored in sociology and policy studies with a focus on urban issues, and I was really interested in contributing to research that would be incorporated into public policy evaluation and planning. So, I got extremely lucky when I first got out of college to find a job that was right up my alley. It was for a company called Mathematica Policy Research, located in Oakland, California. The work that Mathematica does is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to be involved in, which is, they would conduct these large-scale research studies to evaluate public policies and programs that were either already in place or that were proposed…My role was survey research assistant, so I helped formulate the survey instruments, test them out, if we were doing a different methodology—maybe like focus groups—then I would help train focus group facilitators. So I basically just did all the administrative stuff associated with carrying out the research and collecting the data…It’s funny because going into it, it was my dream job, but after maybe only six months there, I started getting antsy, and I felt bad for feeling that way because this is my dream job, why am I not enjoying myself? I just felt like a lot of the stuff that I did was really repetitive, and also I felt like that there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for growth in the role. At one point I got very lucky…there was a project I was on where they needed a data analyst, and so I ended up getting to learn a little bit of data analysis myself using a statistical programming language called Stata. I had never programmed before in my life, but I learned just basic programming in order to do this simple analysis that we needed, and I thought that was so much fun. I enjoyed that more than anything I had done at my job previously, so I wanted to get more training in that. I started looking for my own ways to learn programming. I enrolled in a couple of different Meetup groups in my area that were targeted at women who wanted to learn how to code. Fortunately, I was in the Bay Area where there’s a ton of things like this. I started going to these Meetup groups where they had hack nights and study groups; they also had these workshops that you could pay for at a discounted rate in the evenings and on weekends. So I started going to these just because I was curious about programming and wanted to see what I could do with it, and I was having so much fun with it that I wanted to figure out how I could do it full time. In the course of going to these Meetups, I learned about coding boot camps and decided to apply to a few of them. I ended up getting into Hackbright [Academy], which is a coding boot camp for women in San Francisco. It was a very scary jump to make, but I started reaching out to people who had done the program, and I heard great things—they had landed good jobs—so I decided to take the risk. It was a three-month program, and then I think I spent maybe six months of time doing self-study. I went into Hackbright with a pretty good foundation in web development, but then Hackbright really accelerated that and got me to a level where I felt like I could start applying for jobs. I landed at a small startup called Getable. They were building an app for construction equipment rentals, which was not at all what I imagined myself working on, but it was a great team and they were really supportive of me, considering I was just starting out in my career, and it was a fantastic experience. I was there for two years before an old Hackbright friend who had been in my same cohort who was at Airbnb, referred me to a front-end developer job at Airbnb, so that’s where I am now.

Do you have any advice for those looking to move into different fields? 

I think what helped me a lot was being able to dip my toes in the career I was interested in before making a leap. So, you know, at my very first job at the public policy research firm I knew that I was bored and wanted to do something different, but I didn’t know what, so I just started getting curious about other careers. And then when I started dabbling in programming I was like, “Hmm, I wonder what it would be like to do this full time,” so I just started doing projects in my free time to get a sense of what the work actually feels like and to see if it was something that intrinsically interested me and luckily it did. Another thing that I thought was really helpful was actually reaching out to people who do that career, to talk to them and figure out what their day-to-day is like, and what they like about their job, what they don’t like, what advice do they give someone looking back. I feel like anything you can do to try something on before fully committing to it will give you a signal about whether it’s the right direction to go in.

What do you think some of the most important nontechnical skills would be?

I think—this is going to sound maybe a little trite or obvious—but I think communication and collaboration are incredibly important in software engineering. You could be a complete whiz at programming, but then if you don’t know how to connect it to the problem that you’re solving, and explain technical concepts to nontechnical people, then you’ll have a hard time progressing in your career, so I think just as important as being a good developer is being able to communicate about what you’re doing to other people, whether they have a technical background or not. The most effective developers I’ve seen are people who can approach a problem and very clearly communicate what the different approaches are, and the advantages and trade-offs to those approaches.

What are some of the things that you’ve learned just by working at startups versus bigger corporate organizations?

I’ve had one startup experience and two big corporate experiences, so my startup knowledge is limited to just that one, those two years that I was at Getable. But I did feel like it was a pretty good taste of what startup life was like. I think what I learned is that when you work at a startup, the survival of the business is the driving factor every day, so what that means is even as an engineer, you’re constantly having to think about what is the most impactful thing you could be doing at any given moment. And if you’re not working on the most impactful thing right then, then you should probably rethink what you’re doing, because startups often have runways…numbered in months or years. Within that time, they need to figure out their product market fit and grow, become sustainable, become profitable. At startups, you just have to be really thoughtful about how you’re spending your time…your work is much more time sensitive. Time is a precious resource…as an engineer, you become much more involved with the rest of the company. You’re not just thinking about, “Oh, what is the very best, most optimal way that I can solve this problem?” You’re also thinking, “How do I solve this business problem, and how do I do it in the most efficient way possible?” I do think it makes you a more well-rounded engineer because you’re not just thinking about the code that you write, but you’re also thinking about the problem that it’s solving, and often because these startups are really small, you’re often having to play multiple different roles. You know, maybe you don’t have a technical project manager, so you’re playing that role; maybe you don’t even have a project manager, so you’re also playing that role; and maybe you don’t have design resources, so you’re designing things on the fly. It’s a really cool experience because instead of being just a cog within a system, you become a jack of all trades. It’s all hands on deck; you do whatever you have to do to keep the business going even if that goes beyond just coding.

So I guess that leads to what the corporate experience is like, where…rather than getting this broader view of things that you do at a startup, in a corporate world, you tend to be focusing on one thing. At my company, I focus on compliance with home-sharing regulations, it’s a very specific topic, and I’ve been working on that for three years. So you develop expertise that you wouldn’t at a startup because you are focusing on one domain. You get the time and the space and the resources to solve problems in the most optimal way, and you get the time to drive projects to completion and perfection. Oftentimes your teams are very well-resourced, you’re going to have project managers, technical project managers, designers, data scientists, so you are left to just really focus on your role as an engineer, which is to write technical specs and code.

Where do you see the future of web development going?

Interesting question. Well, I don’t think the career of the web developer is going to go away anytime soon. I think…online experiences are becoming richer and richer, and I think, especially when you look at front-end development, the front end of an app is often more complex than the back end. I do think there are some interesting tools coming out…we, of course, already have things like WordPress and other CMS sites that have been around forever for creating websites through a GUI [graphical user interface], but they don’t necessarily solve the problem of how to make a data-driven site, like a full stack application through GUI. There are also some innovative tools being built that to make it so that a nontechnical person could connect an app to a database and build data-driven displays, so I think it’s really cool that they’re trying to solve that problem. But I think there’s just infinite possibilities and sophistication that can exist in an app, as well as constantly evolving browser technologies. I think tools like that…are never going to capture or do everything that you want, and so there’s going to continue to be a need for web developers.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.

Jimmy Ren
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia (39.9° N, 75.1° W)

featuring Rick Song, Co-founder & CEO, Persona, San Francisco (37.7° N, 122.4° W)

Becoming a Forbes 30 Under 30 doesn’t necessarily mean the person went on a well-crafted path, driven with unlimited inspiration and drive to achieve a dream they had since they were a child. Instead, Rick Song, co-founder and CEO of Persona, a start-up that offers a comprehensive and automated identity and verification software, stayed grounded and explored the opportunities he had while staying open and friendly to those around him. Something I know many people worry about is the fact that they don’t see themselves anywhere, but Rick’s story reassures people that staying open to pursuing new opportunities along with sharing genuine connections with people will get you to where you want to be.

Currently, Rick is pursuing the opportunity to transform an industry with new ways for organizations to uniquely verify a customer’s identity to prevent fraud and ensure trust and safety in any transaction. He grew up in Texas and attended the Texas Academy of Math and Science (TAMS) before moving on to graduate from Rice University in 2013 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Economics. He moved on to serve as an engineering fellow at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (Kleiner Perkins). There, he gained some experience and eventually joined Square Capital the following year, where he spent five years working as an engineering manager working on underwriting, fraud, and identity. During this time, his passion for the identity space grew, and in 2018, he left Square to co-found Persona with room-mate, best friend, and CTO Charles Yeh. As CEO, he oversees many responsibilities: most importantly, building the right team to do continue to fulfill their company’s mission. Rick primarily focuses in on creating an effective team that not only gets the job done, but also getting people who have a positive impact on the company’s culture and values. By having happy and enthusiastic people at work, it encourages new employees to feel the same and produces an environment that allows for the company to flourish. Rick also focuses on producing sales and product direction, and most importantly dealing with the issues that may come up as Persona continues to grow.

When I first heard about Rick, the first couple of words under his description were “Forbes 30 under 30”. As a freshman in college who had no idea about what he wanted to do, the prospect of speaking to him was immediately intimidating. Someone with so much success at that age seemed like they would have each detail of their future worked out. But by the first minute of our conversation, I could tell that Rick isn’t the type to tediously plan out his life. Instead, he stood by his principles passed down to him by his parents like treating others with kindness, leaving the door open for new horizons to explore.

Various relationships in his life helped shaped him on the path where he is now. His parents also passed down to him the importance of relationships with people, an idea that has served Rick well throughout his profession. Without a doubt, treating others with respect and kindness is essential to what Rick believes in. Each small act of kindness in the interactions he shared contributes to where he is today and towards the person he is now.

Looking back, his close relationships with his computer science professors led him to join the Kleiner Perkins Fellows Program, which led him to Square Capital. There, he grew new relationships with his mentors, who constantly challenged him to do better while offering important lessons about leadership along the way. In turn, his decision to start Persona came alongside his strong relationship with his roommate, who helped convince him to take the enormous risk of starting a company.

In retrospect, Rick’s career wasn’t exactly clear. His original goal was to move into finance and graduate, but quickly shifted towards software engineering. At Square, he grew as an engineer, a leader, and as a human being, and also discovered a deep passion for the challenges in the identity space. This, alongside the support and mentorship from his peers and colleagues alike, gave way for him to start Persona.

By appreciating life at the moment and not forcing the future to happen, Rick offered refreshing insight into what I believe everyone should remember to appreciate. Life is short, and the real interactions you have with other people should be something you are proud of. And in the midst of the tumultuous times of a new pandemic that we could have never foreseen, Rick’s message about the importance of solid human interactions stands more clear than ever.

P.S. Rick (rick@persona.com) is hiring

Highlights from the Interview:

Is there anything that your parents taught you that sticks out in your mind?

The value of hard work, without a doubt. My mom, in particular, felt it very important that we grew up being social. Another thing I think a lot of was about being a good person. It is incredibly impactful just to be a good person. It’s not easy, and good is obviously a very subjective thing. But I think there is something really important about being kind. In addition, getting far in career or being happy is much more about the people around you than anything else. It’s not about your job, it’s not about your money. A huge emphasis is on being healthy, and just taking care of yourself, which I’m still not very good at. And lastly, I would say that they taught me to be kind, which has had an enormous impact. Looking back, it just astounds me how these small interactions throughout my life have had such meaningful impact on any success I’ve had up to now.

What helped you take the step to become an engineer? What inspired you to continue along that path instead of going straight into economics?

There were two professors in the computer science department that I was relatively close with. It was actually, I believe, one of them who actually recommended me for the Kleiner Perkins Fellows program the first year that it was created. The firm suggested that I apply, and I decided, “Why not? I’ll go for it.” And one thing led to another and I wound up out here.

I could’ve gone into another internship in high-frequency trading. I think at the time, the industry was in somewhat of a decline, but it wasn’t quite as bad as it currently is. That was my original path, but I ended up taking this one because I was like, “What are the chances that I would get to work at a tech company?” I didn’t even really know what tech was, but I decided to just go for it.

Could you talk about how your mentors impacted you? Specifically, what aspects of your professional career have they left a mark on?

My mentor and former manager [Andy Kimball] had such a big impact because he constantly took bets on me. He gave me larger and large scope projects and always had confidence in me. These, days, I often talk a lot about the difference in being a manager and a leader. I think many folks always believe that management is leadership, and it’s just not. These days we look towards these titles to effectively grant some form of a leadership. Whereas leadership, as Andy taught me, is recognized. Your team will recognize you as a leader. You will know that you are a leader.

Andy gave me a lot of opportunities as I developed to be able to consistently become more of a leader. In this way, I had the chance to interact, hopefully, with almost everyone on that team in some meaningful way. He also taught me a lot about what it means to be a really great engineer. He’d taught me a lot about what it means to actually develop and grow, which is a very different kind of mindset from what I would consider the standard Silicon Valley mindset of growth. He also taught me about what it means to be a great engineer in the technical sense as well, as opposed to a lot of folks who are always focused on the next fancy technology, building something cool, and other things like that. He focused on drilling the fundamentals, great infrastructure, and great abstractions, some things that he always talked about. That, and also not over-engineering problems.

Lastly, he taught me, similarly to my mom, about being a good person. I think that with him, you just want to follow him because he represents so much of who you would like to be and grow into. So I ascribed so much of my career towards him in that sense. I still keep in pretty close-contact with him.

What skills do you think you use from college to fulfill your role and what’s asked of you?

Naturally, the foundational engineering skills I built up in college definitely helped me, but it doesn’t end there. The moment you graduate you realize everything you’ve learned was actually incredibly remedial, and that suddenly you have to constantly really push yourself to constantly improve at just the fundamentals of your engineering. Software engineering is just hard. So I’d say it was really important to learn various things from other folks.

Success for a startup oftentimes is mostly luck, frankly. But at the same time if you’re not good, you won’t catch that luck. And with all that, I’d say one of the critical skills to have is self-awareness. The fundamental thing about startups is to think about why people want yo work with you. I think in college you gain a lot of that perspective because you suddenly realize where you are. I think that keeps me grounded.

What advice would you give for someone in computer science or someone wanting to kind of build their own startup?

I would say number one, find a problem that you really do enjoy a lot. It won’t necessarily mean that there’s a startup there, and there is always an element of luck. For many folks who studied computer science 20 years ago, they got very lucky that it is blowing up right now. Back then it was not attractive whatsoever and it wasn’t a very well-paying job. I think you should find something that you enjoy, which is very helpful.

Number two, find people you know and work in a place longer than you think is comfortable. Build meaningful connections with other folks. These people, if you do well, may join you or help you. Find people like that, it will be the most important thing. I do not believe it’s possible to do a good startup without folks like that, and I think you have to find them out.

Three, be kind with people all along the way. Do something that sometimes doesn’t look always great for your self in the short-term. I think Steve Jobs said it first: you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you only can connect them looking back, but you got to make sure that the dots are there. And the only way to do that is by doing the right thing over and over and over. And that’s what sets up a trail of dots that will one day magically connect. 

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Yi Luo
Rice University
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Yoko Li, product manager, Transposit, San Francisco (37.7° N, 122.4° W)

Graduating from Rice University with a computer science degree and a mind of an entrepreneur, Yoko Li kept seeking opportunities to start her own business while exploring the technology market. She didn’t envision herself as product manager when she first entered the industry, but the opportunity arose when Transposit launched a new product. She took the role of product manager to lead the team in 2019. 

Throughout the interview, I found the product manager (PM) role to be a very flexible role, where the tasks, working environment, and team dynamics depend on the size of the company. In bigger companies like Google and Apple, PMs are more likely to prioritize engineering tickets based on what you hear from other departments. Depending on the product itself, they might not directly talk to the users because the company has a user research team dedicated to that. In startups like Transposit, however, a product manager is a translator between different people with different perspectives. Thus, you need to have “more multifaceted skills.” Communication is one of the most important ones. Yoko spends most of her time with customers to understand their needs so she can specify the products the engineering team needs to build. Her technical background allows her to communicate with the engineers very effectively. Startup PMs need to be more entrepreneurial, Yoko says. You need to clarify the project’s direction and push it through, which requires more leadership skills to convince people to trust your decision.

When talking about her experience working in a startup, Yoko likes that roles are not well-defined and that she could “create something that didn’t exist before.” She used to work as a very specialized engineer in a bigger company, but she did not enjoy the repetition aspect of the specialization. Wanting to acquire different skills, she joined an emerging startup called Transposit. The challenging side of working in a startup is that startups do not have a career ladder for you to climb, Yoko says; you must think hard about what to do for the next step. However, this downside for one person could be an upside to another. If you prefer a predictable job with a stable salary and projectable career path, a larger company is a better option.

Even though she enjoys her current role as PM of a startup, Yoko’s career goal is to be an entrepreneur. She has been determined to start her own company since her graduation, and she is taking steps to get there. To equip herself with enough firsthand knowledge of the market and the process of starting a company, she planned to join different types of startups ranging from a very early stage startup to a more later stage startup that was later acquired. During her years at Transposit, she has seen the company grow from a three-person team to its current state. She has learned how a company is shaped and how it changed over time. These experiences are very valuable on her path to build her own company.

For students interested in embarking on an entrepreneur journey, Yoko encourages you to understand the motivation behind this goal because this is a path that needs full commitment. She explained that it is important not to choose something “out of peer pressure instead of what you want,” because “eventually you will go down the previous path you were going to take anyways.” It may “not [be] worth the longer route to get there.” There were only around 60 people majoring in computer science in her class, and most of them went to companies like Google and Facebook after graduation. Now hundreds of students are majoring in computer science, and it is possible that most people now want to start their own company. What is most important, however, is not which path most people plan to choose but what you really want to achieve.

Highlights from the interview:

When did you first envision yourself as product manager?

I actually never did. It [was an] opportunistic opportunity after I started working. While I was at Rice, I wasn’t sure what to major in, so I thought, “I’m going to major in something that’s needed in every field.” That’s why I chose computer science. After graduating, I became a software engineer and then started working at a startup years after I graduated. This opportunity just came where we’re launching a new product.

Can you describe what kind of work are you doing right now?

For product management in a technical world, like a tech company that has a tech product offering, what we do is talk to users and then learn about what kind of product they would buy and that would solve their problems. And then we work with the engineering team to build specific features. I spend my time talking to customers, working with the engineering team, sales and marketing and see myself as the glue for the team.

Can you explain some common misconceptions about this role?

This role is relatively new in the tech world; it can be very different from companies to companies. For a startup, a PM in a startup helps with everything—sales, marketing, customer success, design, and engineering. We help to make sure that the system works the way it should, and then different departments understand each other.

What do you think is the most important quality to succeed in this industry?

For this specific industry, I think it really depends on the type of a PM you are. A PM in a startup tends to be more entrepreneurial, so as a PM you really need to get clarity of different directions and help to push these directions through, and there’s more leadership skills required for you to convince people, and you need to have a very low ego. This role is different for a bigger company, for some companies, a PM’s day job is prioritizing engineering tickets based on what they hear from other departments. That is a very different job specification where PMs need to do a lot more due diligence in prioritizing things and why such technical tickets can or cannot be prioritized. They do not worry about making money because for a big company like this, everything is already figured out. I would say that for a smaller company like ours, you need to have more multifaceted skills: communication is one of the more important ones, of course, since you are the translator between different people with different perspectives.

I saw on your LinkedIn profile that you have a lot of technical backgrounds, like in computer science.

For a PM at a technical company, it’s still a technical role, where you still need to understand everything technically. You might not be the person who codes it up, but you do need to understand how hard or easy it needs to be. So, in that case, you are not the executor, but you still need a technical foundation in these things. That’s important also…because we’re working on technical products. To sell it to this audience, you need to speak their language.  At the end of the day, you do need a technical foundation to be able to do that. And in terms of talking to the engineering team, you still need technical credentials to be able to say, “I understand what you are trying to convey technically, and here’s what I think from a product perspective.” I would say it’s more technical communication where you’re able to convey what’s technically complex to people with clarity.

I saw that you do paintings and art in your free time. How do you see this artistic background and your technical background blend together?

I think the different skills you have given you the ability to empathize with different people. I can relate to our designers’ perspective better because of my passion in art. I am also able to relate to engineers because I wrote code for a long time. I would say it is more like being able to take that different point of view and being able to see yourself in different people’s shoes and being able to execute efficiently.

There’s a book called Hackers and Painters [Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas From The Computer Age by Paul Graham]…This book was talking about how, at the end of the day, artists and hackers (people who built software) are essentially the same people. They both try to create something that did not exist previously. So, the philosophy here is the same, but it just takes a different path for execution.

What was your most memorable experience in your career that helped you develop as a person?

Years into my startup journey, [I realized] the reason I work at a startup is so that I can create something that didn’t exist before. I think the moment of reckoning for me was more working in a startup for a while, and ups and downs with that, makes me think more like someone who can build a company. I guess that’s an experience that shapes my career the most.

What do you like and do not like about the startup environment?

I like that the roles are not well-defined in the sense that it can be a downside for some people. “Not well-defined” means that you are not pigeonholed into doing one thing and one thing only. For my previous job in a bigger company…the role was very defined; I needed lots of specialized knowledge to do my job, and that was not very interesting to me because after I acquired my skills, I didn’t want to keep repeating what I did—although a bigger company has the motivation to keep engineers there since they are very good at their job. What I wanted to do is to acquire other skills. I want to switch to other teams to build different products using different technologies. But that’s not always streamlined in a bigger company so that’s why I like a smaller company like ours. I think the downside is the career path here. Because the org chart is so flat, I report directly to the CTO. So, there’s really no defined ladder to climb, so you really have to think very hard about what you want for the next step, whereas for a bigger company you can just climb the ladder—senior engineer to staff engineer to principal engineer, so on and so forth.

What is your advice for people who want to either work in a startup or start their own company?

Asking yourself why you want to do it, because this is a path that needs full commitment. When I graduated, most of my classmates joined a bigger company. Back then, we had 60ish people

in computer science. That is the road most people travelled. You really need to stay true to yourself and ask why you are doing it…and what is the motivation behind your choices.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.

Jimmy Ren
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia (39.9° N, 75.1° W)

featuring Connor Hayes, Head of Product, Jumpstart, San Francisco (37.7° N, 122.4° W)

Connor Hayes’s bright career as a manager in Silicon Valley was only beginning to blossom during his time as a student at Rice University, where he operated a business with his friends to sell food to students across campus. Connor graduated from Rice in 2009 with a bachelor of arts in philosophy and policy studies. Unlike the strong STEM background people usually pursue to obtain a job in the technology sector, Connor utilized his own skills to go on a unique path—a leap of faith—on his journey to work at big technology companies like Facebook.

Connor Hayes has spent the past decade working on a variety of major projects in companies like Facebook and Instagram as a product manager, and he recently moved on toward a new job as the head of product at a new startup, JumpStart, a company that offers undergraduates an easily accessible platform to look for jobs. As a product manager, he manages a diverse team of individuals, each holding their own expertise and special way of thinking that allows them to develop the ever-evolving features on apps like Instagram Direct Messaging. In general, he partakes in an essential professional role that takes control of ensuring new features launch successfully. To reach this point in his career, he has utilized different aspects of the college education he received from 2007-2011; most of all, he was open to trying new things.

When thinking about those working in Silicon Valley, an image instantly comes to mind for me—a person with a strong technical background or a new, groundbreaking entrepreneur coming in with an industry-disrupting idea turned into a business venture. A background like Connor’s is something that may, on the surface, seem unconventional, but is now becoming essential in the tech industry.

While speaking about impactful experiences throughout his life, Connor said that one of his biggest strengths as a product manager is gaining insight into how people think and how they might interact with each other. This perspective is what gave him the basis for his job as a product manager, and it later became a fundamental part of how he works successfully with his team today. Alongside the mentorship he received from his employers and colleagues, Connor was able to flourish at a job where roles seemed to grow and change the longer he was there.

Starting off in a new position at Facebook after applying to hundreds of jobs, Connor took the opportunity to work in a job role that he had never even heard of; that choice eventually led him to become a product manager, a new role at the company. Connor has become a pioneer in the role, working tirelessly over the past 10 years to make sure that the products he and his team are putting out are of high quality and have excellent service. 

In the growing world of technology, the number of product management jobs have increased exponentially in the past decade; the role went from being almost unheard of when Connor entered the industry to becoming an exciting and popular job role many students currently aspire to become a part of. While colleges and universities across the world do not offer a specific major or field of study for the job, Connor offered some fair advice about entering the role. For current students looking to become a product manager, entering a technical role at a company for the first year or two may offer more insight and experience into the role; in reality, there isn’t much to prepare you for this role, other than taking on the responsibility. The only way to take on such a job is by gaining experience in the company and being able to take that leap of faith that you can properly manage a team to create an amazing product.

Connor’s unique path toward his current career may reflect the current need for unique backgrounds in a tech-savvy environment; his career path offers insight into potential backgrounds for more of the management roles in the field and could open up new doors for people to walk through. Taking chances and being able to adapt to one’s new environment can offer success on the “road less travelled.” Perhaps, that leap of faith to pursue the new paths that open up to you is what leads toward new discoveries and advancements in the current startup environment.

Berk Alp Yakıcı
Rice University
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring James Grinage, Rotational Product Manager, Facebook, New York (40.7° N, 74.0° W)

James Grinage received his bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Rice University in 2018. After graduation, he worked as CEO of Cherrypick Analytics, a startup he cofounded during his studies at Rice that provided sports analytics using machine learning and computer vision. He started his current position as a rotational product manager at Facebook in 2019. In our conversation, we talked about his interests in entrepreneurship and product management, as well as his transition from working on a startup to working at Facebook. We concluded our conversation by talking about his advice to college students who are interested in product management roles.

One of the important takeaways from our conversation is that the mindsets that make a successful product manager and entrepreneur are similar. In his current role, James makes use of the experience he gained through his entrepreneurial endeavors in the past. He makes sure that “the current work issues are being executed on” as he looks through the “full bird’s-eye view of the ecosystem” to ensure that “it makes sense…to be working on the things [they’re] currently working on.” Further, he adds that being a product manager is “a lot of reading and learning and listening.”

Another important takeaway is the difference between product managers and project managers. In his daily job as a product manager, James writes product briefs, which entails “what is the problem [they are] focusing on, why is it a problem, how does it impact the consumer…what is the proposed solution, and what are next steps.” His job is really fast paced and involves a never-ending momentum, as he attends numerous meetings and “still find[s] time to sit down and do deep thinking and properly come up with these new ideas and document everything.” Whereas, according to James, project management involves more team and resource management rather than “deep strategy and thinking.”

James emphasizes the amount of experience students can potentially gain through extracurricular activities. He encourages students to “build things outside of school,” especially when it comes to preparing for a product management role. These “things” do not necessarily have to be tangible products that require coding. To him, a successful product manager should “validate that the problem exists by pretotyping it first.” The documentation process is equally important, so students should “get into the habit of documenting [their] ideas and explaining what the problem is, what the solution is, and the steps [they are] going to take to test the solution.”

James recommends the book Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup by Bill Aulet to those who would like to pursue a career in entrepreneurship and learn more about the thought process that makes a successful product manager.

Highlights from the interview

I want to know what was expected of you when you were a child or high-schooler, and did you basically adhere or stray away from that?

I’ll start off by saying, I’m a first generation college student, and I grew up just my mom and me, my dad wasn’t around, so a lot of what was expected of me was everything related to school, related to sports, and related to also being the “man of the house” early on. But I think the biggest thing for me was that my mom always put a big emphasis on school and specifically being an engineer. My mom grew up in Mexico, and from her understanding, the people that end up living the best lives were engineers. They had the best work-life balance. She assigned a lot of prestige to that. So early on I was always told, you should be an engineer and I would say I adhered to that, but partially because I was always in love with math and math was just something that came easy to me, so it just made sense for me to be an engineer. Once I got to college, originally I started as a computer science major, but eventually I switched to electrical engineering. So, I would say I stayed along the path.

Did you ever envision yourself as an entrepreneur? How did you end up actually continuing to work on Cherrypick Analytics after graduating?

This is going to sound ridiculous, but I like control, I like when my opinion has a lot of weight, so I always felt that entrepreneurship was the ultimate form of—this sounds bad—of power, but also at the same time being able to direct yourself in any direction you want, right? And it gives you a lot of flexibility. So, when I was younger, I never imagined it; I always imagined going into industry. It wasn’t until my sophomore year, like towards the middle portion of my sophomore year, where I started to imagine what it would be like to be an entrepreneur, and I started to catch the startup bug. And then me and friends would always just talk about different ideas, and it was a common thing to sit around at Rice, and just talk about different ideas, and then basically go back and forth on whether or not it’s a good idea, what it would take for it to be successful. Eventually I started to take entrepreneurship classes at Rice. The first half went over what it takes to start a company, and the second half went over what it takes to raise money. So, second part was funding, first part was strategy. And that got me excited, and that’s when I started to formulate an idea for a company with a friend at Rice. He didn’t take that class, but he ended up taking another entrepreneurship class, so a lot of our thought processes were around, “Oh, if we want to be entrepreneurs, we need to be educated about it.” We also started reading a lot of books. There is great one that [professor] Hesam Panahi gave us called Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup.

We pitched our senior design project as Cherrypick Analytics so that we could work on our startup while taking the senior design class. We got to a point where we felt like we found a pretty decent product market fit throughout senior year, and we made the conscious decision to not apply to any industry jobs. This was essentially the moral contract that me and my cofounder made at the time was, “All right, we’re not going to apply to any jobs; this is what we’re going to do,” and then we just gave it everything we had throughout senior year. We hit summertime, or we hit graduation, we rented an apartment, and we found other roommates so that we could live as cheaply as possible…And then we did that for as long as possible. I mean, essentially we did it for about a year.

So now, as a rotational product manager [at Facebook], what is the essential difference between a regular product manager? I know that you have relocated recently, so I’m assuming it’s like changing teams, but can you define it more?

As a rotational product manager, you rotate across three different teams every six months…for example, I was just on Facebook Portal, which is a hardware device that Facebook makes to do video calling with friends and family. Most people don’t know about it, but I requested to be on a hardware team because having an electrical engineering background, I am interested in a physical product, so I thought it would be fun to work on hardware, especially because it’s very different to work on hardware from software. But yeah, to answer your question, three six-month rotations, so I was in San Francisco working on Portal, now I’m in New York working on Instagram Shopping and Facebook Marketplace, and then in July I’ll be in New York again…then at the end of the program, I roll off onto one team, and stay on that team indefinitely. But the whole point of the program is to condense a lot of growth into a short period of time. Your classic route for being a PM is, you start on a team and you stay on that team for a long, long time, and then something major happens that requires you to find a new team. But the issue with that is you learn the techniques and the strategies just for one area…So that’s the hypothesis that Facebook is working off of, that by exposing you to three different areas, you will have this new formed idea of what it means to be a product manager.

How easy is the transition between the teams, especially considering that you only work there six months at a time for the team?

Starting on a new team is always hard, mainly because—it depends on the problem space, but part of the onboarding process is…as a product manager, you need to know everybody. So I joined this team early January, that first two weeks, and even today I had a meeting where I met somebody for the first time. But you have to get a lay of the land, and you have to understand the space holistically from every angle—so from finance, from legal, from privacy, from policy, from engineering, from design, from research, from quantitative research, from all of these areas that you don’t necessarily know even exist, you have to meet all these people so that you’re aware of all the hoops you need to jump through when you go through the process of ideating a new feature, or a new product, and then getting the green lights from all those people, executing on it from an engineering and design standpoint, and then shipping it to all of your customers. So, it’s difficult in the sense that it’s a lot of reading and learning and listening. You just have to be a sponge and just take in as much information as possible so that you can move fast, because like you said, you only have six months, and at the end of the six months, they measure how much impact you had on the team. So if you take two months to onboard, you only have four months left to execute, so a lot of it is just fast-paced, meet as many people as you can. If you look at my calendar, my calendar is just booked all day long, of just back-to-back meetings. So, it’s difficult, because also in combination with that, a lot of being a product manager is writing. You need to write what we call product briefs, so you need to write a strategy for your team, and then within the strategy of different work streams, and you need to write product briefs for each of those work streams. And a product brief just entails—what is the problem that we’re focusing on, why is it a problem, how does it impact the consumer, how does it impact Facebook, what is the proposed solution, and what are next steps. So having to meet everybody, and then still find time to sit down and do deep thinking and properly come up with these new ideas and document everything, is—it can be really tiring, but also it’s so fun, so, I really can’t complain.

From your experiences, what are some misconceptions about your job, or product managers in general?

I think a common misconception, and this is just in general…people conflate project management and product management, which is a very—they are very different in my opinion. The way I would define project management is, you have a set goal—you have a deliverable, and then you have the team that’s going to execute on that deliverable, and it’s your job to make sure everybody is doing the right thing. So it’s a lot of micromanaging of other people doing tasks; it’s not a lot of deep strategy and thinking, whereas product management is a combination of project management, but also having a holistic view of the product. You have to have your hundred-foot view of the project and make sure that the current work issues are being executed on, so that’s the project management lens, but then you also have to have that ten-thousand-foot view, the full bird’s-eye view of the ecosystem, and you need to make sure that…does it make sense for us to be working on the things we’re currently working on, where are we going in the next six months, where are we going in the next year, what is our strategy for getting to those places in the next six months and the next year, and then, yeah, and convincing people of that strategy. So that’s the first one is the misconception of project management, product management. Other things, it’s different at every company, I would also say. So, another misconception is that you have to code to be a product manager. That is not the case, at least not a Facebook. At Google it is, but at Facebook product managers don’t code.

What skills do you find utilizing in your current position, and what can college students do to help them actually prepare for becoming a product manager?

I would say the first thing is being able to break down a problem to the core. I think a common issue people have is they’ll think about an idea and they’ll start with the solution. They’ll start with like, “Oh, it would be really cool if you could do this.” But they don’t think about the underlying problem, like, “Why is it cool that you can do this?” It’s cool—like for example, why is it cool that I can call an Uber and go from A to B? It’s…cool because beforehand, I would have either had to walk, which takes a long time, and there’s issues with weather, and prior to that, the other solution is if you’re not in a big city like New York where you could call a cab, you have to take public transit, or you have to get a friend to drive you, or you have to deal with these other solutions that effectively are super cumbersome. So I would say entrepreneurship allows you to really think about people problems first.

You need to start with the problem and then think about the solutions. From being here at Facebook, the best product managers are the ones that start with the problem and then think about the solution. There are product managers that just start with the solution, and then you have to go through all the steps of making up what the problem is in order to go in that direction, but that’s—it doesn’t lead to a good outcome. So that would be the first one…and then the second one is being able to MVP something…coming up with the most basic version of the solution, and thinking about, what is the way we can properly test this without having to build out the full feature set. And I think this is something I see an issue a lot. I had a friend that just made a fitness tracking app, and he built out the full suite of features, like the whole thing, and then started beta testing, which is realistically the worst thing you could do. What you should do is find—what is the number one problem you’re trying to solve, build the only feature, the main feature that solves that problem, don’t build anything else, don’t make it pretty, just make a robust solution around that, and then test that. And then as issues, other issues or requests come in, you build out the feature set. So having that mentality as a product manager is super helpful, because it allows you to execute on projects super fast, whereas I’ve seen other product managers that have a team build out the full solution, when in reality, 85 percent of that solution hasn’t been verified by people problems.

What can a college student do that could help them prepare for your current position?

Build something. I feel like there are a few things. One is build things outside of school. Come up with ideas and build them. You don’t need to build it from a coding standpoint. It could just be an idea that you want to test, and not every MVP needs to be tested through code; it can be tested manually. So, for example…doing food delivery on campus, technically the end solution ideally would be an app where you could request…[food]…and then somebody goes and gets it. Yes, that would be the most ideal solution, but to first test it, really what you should do is you should create an email account or a Facebook page, because it’s so easy to do, and post that page into all of the relevant Facebook pages…then update and say, “Hey, we’re doing delivery service from this time to this time, message us if you want us to get you something, and then do Venmo for the transaction,” right? You can—and then this gets into the topic that I think the book talks about, pretotyping versus prototyping. So, doing that, actually going out of your way to start something new, and like I said…I think people get caught up in this false understanding that they have to build out the full solution, but in reality you should validate that the problem exists by pretotyping it first, or prototyping it, but if you prototype it, it should be very, very minimal.

Entrepreneurship classes help. I think another thing that’s important is, if you do have an idea, making sure you talk to customers and get into the habit of documenting your ideas and explaining what the problem is, what the solution is, and the steps you’re going to take to test the solution. Documenting that to get a product manager role would be super helpful, because…you can show in your interview, you can bring it and be like, “This is the stuff I would do before even going out there and starting; I would fully think through the whole process.”

Did anything I asked spark anything else that you want to mention, or do you want to mention anything else to college students?

I would just say that, for the computer science majors, and electrical engineers, and most engineering majors in general, I think people don’t realize how fun and exciting it is to be a product manager. They get caught up in all of the prestige and success that can come from being a software engineer, which by all means is fantastic and it—the reason why it has that aura about it is because it’s real, there’s a reason that Silicon Valley is founded by software engineers, right? I think that nobody is fully aware of what it means to be a product manager, and not a lot of students end up becoming product managers. There’s not that much awareness, so my main takeaway, or feedback, is I hope people look into it more, apply to more PM internships, especially because getting a PM role without doing a PM internship in undergrad is incredibly hard, really, really hard… So, I would just say that if you are interested, you should definitely do an internship in it, because once you get out of undergrad and you start working in an industry, say as a software engineer, it’s so much harder to switch over from a software engineer to a product manager. So, it’s worth getting a taste of it when you’re in undergrad because it’s easier to get a taste of it then, and it still keeps the door open in the future in case you want to go back to it.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.

Samuel Anozie
University of Texas
Dallas (32.7° N, 96.7° W)

featuring Albert Wei, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, ProUnitas, Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

As a chief strategy and growth officer at ProUnitas, Albert Wei works with his team each day to ensure school districts’ student support departments can provide on-demand, personalized care for 170,000 students in the Houston area. From mental health agencies to social service organizations, ProUnitas creates automated networks between stand-alone student resources and enables school administrations to focus on one thing—quality education. Their debut service, PurpleSENSE, ensures a 60 percent reduction in administrative busywork, with a 90 percent reduction in the time it takes for at-risk students to be identified and receive services. That translates to streamlined support for students from systems already in place to help them and informed decision-making on the part of administrations concerning the systems available to their students.

As an educator, Albert has taught in some of Houston’s most disadvantaged schools as part of Teach for America. After graduating from Rice University with a bachelor’s degree in political science and education policy, he has earned multiple teaching-related awards, including the 2013 Beginning Teacher of the Year distinction for Houston Independent School District. He contributed greatly to his school, becoming social studies department chair and the director of the College and Career Center at Sharpstown High School, before eventually moving to ProUnitas.

Throughout our interview, we discussed the importance of quality education, in the obvious facets as well as the less apparent ones. We agreed that the role of education does not stop in the classroom and workplace, but seeps into every part of developing modern society, including politics and policy, economics, and culture. We also discussed the future of technology in education and the importance of the mindsets with which they are created. Having a clear vision of impact, and sticking to that vision, is a challenge that every product team must deal with, especially organizations working in such an influential field as education. Retaining and nurturing that vision can result in a powerful catalyst for an organization’s success.

The most consistent theme from our conversation was the concept of humility. As a director, educator, and son, Albert has experienced the power of humility within many aspects of life. Company culture can influence the way interactions occur with target audiences, so a culture rooted in humility revolves around attentiveness toward the needs of that audience. Teachers have large amounts of influence over students’ lives, which means that teachers who do not take the time to put themselves in the shoes of students may not use their influence effectively. Finally, children can grow to be more accomplished than their parents, but it takes humility to understand the sacrifices that enabled opportunities to grow.

Highlights from the interview:

Let’s say that you are in a room with the lawmakers of this country responsible for education policy, budgeting, and programs that they do. What would you rant to them about?

Certainly, you definitely see funding being taken out from schools constantly. Education isn’t always a priority for our country, which is disappointing. I definitely would specifically talk to them about two things. The first thing would be early childhood education. We don’t really invest in our pre-K, we don’t invest in prenatal care. There’s not a lot of funding for it; it’s really based around a parent’s ability to pay for additional schooling, and it’s not compulsory to go to school until…kindergarten. Not everyone goes to preschool. But just having that availability of getting kids early in so that they’re not falling behind, that’s super, super important…That’s where the biggest bang for your buck comes from too, when they’re kids and babies, not when they’re juniors and seniors in high school. A lot of the resources tend to go when the kids are already in third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, and that’s too late already as well. There’s a statistic that says that they plan for prison beds, the capacity for prisons, based around third grade reading levels…If you can’t read by the time that you’re in third grade, chances that you’ll enter the prison pipeline [are] way, way higher. So, get them while they’re young is the first piece. So, really investing in universal pre-K, and even prenatal care—so when mothers are pregnant with children, how do we care about them, how do we teach mothers to be better mothers to their unborn child…things like that.

The second piece is kind of what we do here at ProUnitas, is to invest more in infrastructure around how we create more efficiencies between systems. So right now…we all operate in silos, in individual silos, so school districts are like, “Oh, we’re the school district. We teach kids…This nonprofit over here is doing their thing, this church over here is doing their thing, this person over there…” so everyone’s doing their own thing and focusing on that. Where do we go to build in a lot more connection between all these different parts? And part of that is investing in these kinds of dialogues and conversations, getting people to work together and collaborate more. And technology has to be a part of it. So, how do we get technology to help facilitate relationships between partners, nonprofits, and school districts, so that a school district doesn’t have to be everything. A school district cannot be the food, the housing, the mental health for kids. They are responsible for teaching your child, but they can’t possibly do everything else, so where do we fall then, to get those things met, and that’s why we have all these nonprofits.

The United States is really, really powerful in the philanthropic world. You don’t see this in Europe, because obviously the taxes are so high, there’s a lot more government support…And so, if we’re going to stick to this idea of low taxes, everyone focuses on themselves—that’s why we have philanthropy that fills in those gaps. So, then, how do we use them more, how do we use nonprofits better, philanthropic dollars better, to connect kids to holistic things. You and I needed a lot of stuff to grow up successfully. We needed, again like I said, housing and food and emotional love and support…how do we provide that for kids that don’t have it? And if you think about something that a kid needs, there’ s a nonprofit for it. It’s somewhere in the city. How do we get them to connect to the kids? So we start there. We start there with the urban centers. I mean, if you think about the more rural parts of town where they don’t have a lot of nonprofits around, it’s just the one school and their homes; we haven’t figured that out yet, but there are so many kids here in the urban centers, in Houston, in Dallas, in Austin, in Los Angeles, New York…that is a lot of kids that need lots of support…We haven’t invested in that infrastructure to connect people, so I think we need to do that.

What do you think the impact of education tech looks like now? And what do you think it will look like in 10 years in relation to now?

I think ed tech is booming like crazy. There are so many organizations out there that are focusing on education technology to help support finance algorithms for school districts to be more efficient with their money and budgets. There’s online tutoring programs now…online tech platforms like Schoology that help kids organize their homework, allow teachers to communicate with their students through text messaging. There are so many organizations that are out there doing great things for ed[ucation]. And it’s become almost saturated; there’s too many ed tech companies that are just trying to do one thing or another. Again, how do we then connect them, or how do we collaborate to build better products for kids? So, as we see all this really great innovation happening—in San Francisco you see tons of it—how do we then learn from those individual organizations, collaborate so that we can all learn together?

Ten years from now, I think that education’s going to look so different. People even talk about robot teachers and this and that, and just staying at home and learning from a computer. I don’t know. I hope it doesn’t get to that. I think there’s something that’s irreplaceable with a human component of connection between two people. There’s a reason why we’re not on a Skype call right—it’s much better to be in person. And I think education is not just about the knowledge. It’s about the human connection that you make, and the memories that you have of the teacher that really inspired you and made you feel like you were special, you could accomplish a lot. So, 10 years from now, you’re going to have even more noise, so many more tech organizations trying to do this for kids, trying to do that for kids. It’s just our responsibility to figure out how to do it responsibly, and how do we do it so that we’re not robbing children of a true human connection. . I don’t really know what it’s going to look like in 10 years. I just know that there’s going to be more and more people who want to join the market. Some people want to make money; it’s not about kids, it’s about making money, even, as an ed tech company. So how do we prevent that from happening…So, I don’t know, we’ll see where it goes, but as we see it here at ProUnitas, we see people who really, really care. We see people who really care about kids, really want to do a good job with them, and are trying to do it so intentionally and so carefully, so I’m optimistic about it. I just know that there’s a lot of folks that just want to make a quick buck, so who knows? Hopefully the people who care about kids truly and are making ed tech solutions for that will outshine and outweigh the people who are just doing it to make money…

What are some challenges that teachers face when working to improve their style of teaching, how they deliver the concept?

It comes back to this idea of humility. If you, as a teacher, don’t think you need to get better…I’ve met lots of teachers who think they’re the best teacher…that’s never the attitude you want. If you have that attitude, then you’re doomed. You’re doomed as a teacher. You will not want to get better. You think you’re already top of the line stuff, so how are you going to seek more opportunities to develop yourself professionally? You just won’t. So, it starts with humility.

Now if you do have the humility to know that you don’t know a lot, that there’s still a lot to learn, there’s so many different ways to get a better sense of style—of what is your teacher voice, what is your teacher style. A lot of it is talking to other teachers who have done it. They always say in education there’s no stealing, there’s only borrowing and sharing. Because you take as much as you can from other teachers, if that’s a style that you love, and you watch another teacher teach and you’re like, “Wow, that’s a great way to teach X,” or “That’s a great way to handle rewards or discipline or whatever, take it. Do it, and incorporate it into your own classroom, and develop your own voice.”

I think one of the biggest mistakes that I ever made as a teacher was to try to adopt and be somebody else that I wasn’t…I tried to take a formula of strict—like, “I need everybody’s attention in five, four, three, two, one,” you know, kids don’t work like that a lot of the time, and especially if I didn’t have the personality to execute like that, then I shouldn’t do it. I should just focus on how I should get attention. How should I get my students’ attention from Albert’s style? And I constantly just kept looking at other examples. Watching the teacher down the hall teach, like, “Oh, that was a great way to do it, let me do that,” try it, “Oh man the kids really liked it, okay, I’ll keep that.” And it feels more natural to me to do that, so I’m going to keep doing that. And as you have more experience you start forming your own style of teaching, and then you’re that much more effective. And kids can tell. Students tell when you’re faking it, and you’re not comfortable with what you’re doing, so that’s—it’s good feedback too, and you want to get it from your students as well. 

Outside of your professional life, what is one thing that you are the proudest of?

I think that I’m really proud of, again, just how I operate in the world as just a general person. I’m really proud of my role as a son, for example. I constantly reflect on how much my parents have supported me and taught me a lot. I remember—some of my best memories as a kid is my mom and I sitting on the bed and her talking to me about stories when she was a young woman, young girl, and the lessons that she learned from just living her life. And those are values, the values that she grew up with. Now as an adult, and as I talk to my parents more, and how much I realize that they’ve done for me, I think that being a good son means X, Y, Z. It means even though my parents are very, “Oh, go do your own thing, who cares? We’ll be here if you need us, but don’t worry about us,” kind of thing, being a good son means calling them, listening to them. My parents are big children, too. They have their own problems, and they’re not the superheroes that we thought they were when we were kids, so they have their own issues. And when they have their own issues, I think a beautiful role that I can play is to be a support system for them. So, sometimes my mom is sad, and I should be able to talk to her about that, and she should be able to share things with me. She’s human. She has her bad days and her good days, and same with my dad. So, to be a resource, and a child that can do that for their parents, I think, is really powerful, and I’m quite proud of that. And, you know, it’s also just a constant reflection of—if I can do that for my parents, then I can do that for my team, I can do that for my work, so it’s all connected in so many ways, yeah. 

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.

Jamie Chen
Rice University
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Carrie Ott-Holland, Manager, Performance Design Research, Google, San Francisco (37.7° N, 122.4° W)

Carrie Ott-Holland is an industrial and organizational (I/O) psychologist who manages a team of researchers redesigning performance management and promotion processes at Google in San Francisco. She graduated from Rice University in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and music. Between 2010 and 2015, she earned a master’s and a doctorate from Michigan State University at the nation’s top I/O psychology graduate program. I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Ott-Holland in San Francisco through a video conference while I was across the country in Houston. In the interview, we talked about her unique career path and the two “existential crises” that led her to her current work at Google.

Coming from a preprofessional fine arts boarding high school, Dr. Ott-Holland’s precollege years were focused intensely on classical music and vocal performance. Dr. Ott-Holland came into college as a voice performance major in the prestigious Shepherd School of Music, but soon found herself and her goals to be quite different from her music school peers. Two years into college, when she realized that she did not want to spend every moment of her day studying music, nor did she wish to become a professional opera singer, she had her first “existential crisis.” She realized that she wanted a more diverse college experience with a major that would open her up to a wider array of options after graduation.

With the decision to leave music as a profession, she started to explore various areas of psychology by working as a research assistant in several on-campus research labs. During her senior year, through one of her many research assistantships, she decided that she really enjoyed I/O psychology and wished to pursue a career in the field after graduation. However, she realized that she didn’t have enough time to submit applications to graduate school for the coming fall. This “late” realization, however, became her second “existential crisis.”

When she graduated in 2009, Dr. Ott-Holland decided to spend the next year applying to graduate school while working part-time and taking graduate classes at Rice. However, the economy was in a recession, and Dr. Ott-Holland spent over six months searching for a job. Since she had graduated with a double major from a nationally ranked top 25 university, she had not expected rejection letters from everywhere she applied (including coffee shops). In the meantime, she started cold-calling members of the Houston-area I/O psychology professional association, asking for informational interviews to learn about members’ jobs, their graduate training, and professional advice for young professionals. One I/O psychologist encouraged her to apply for an internship at their company. This exchange resulted in an internship at a personality assessment company, Birkman International. The experience allowed her to gain crucial initial industry experience in the field of organizational psychology.

That year, Dr. Ott-Holland applied to over a dozen I/O psychology graduate programs. She was unsure of her competitiveness as a candidate and wondered whether she would be accepted to any program. To her surprise, she was accepted into Michigan State University, a top I/O psychology program in the country, which served as another crucial stepping-stone in her career.

During graduate school, Dr. Ott-Holland applied and received an offer to do a PhD internship at Google in their People Operations department, which eventually led to a full-time job after her graduation. Dr. Ott-Holland described Google as a company that values data-driven insights and holds a positive attitude towards research. She strongly emphasized the importance of Google’s “science-based HR” mentality for her, as it helped her bridge the gap between her academic training and the realities of corporate life, where purely profit-based business mindsets often drive decision-making.

When asked about advice for students in college without a clear goal or path in mind, Dr. Ott-Holland described a concept borrowed from algorithms that applies to careers—exploration versus exploitation. Although exploring different options is extremely valuable, at some point, when you find something that is good enough, you should just go for it. Both “modes” have their pros and cons. With 100 percent “exploitation” mode, you may reach your goal faster, but you run the risk of realizing your end goal may not be where you want to be, after you have already invested greatly. With 100 percent “exploration” mode, however, you may never decide a path to take and hence never achieve anything. I think this is a practical dilemma (and fear) many young people face today. While there is no clear answer or general rule of thumb, Dr. Ott-Holland’s journey shows that, as undergraduates in college, we still have time to explore and find something we feel interested enough in to want to pursue a career in it. And once you find something you are comfortable with, which balances both practicality and personal interests, you can move along with purpose, and things will slowly fall into place.

Dr. Ott-Holland also had some advice for students on the stress of finding an internship. She recalled, “It’s good to apply to internships, but don’t put too much pressure on yourself early in your career to be remarkable or secure the perfect opportunity. Life is long! Enjoy the opportunity to explore and reflect. The summer after my sophomore year, I worked as an office admin in Rice Village, read books, journaled, went for long runs in my neighborhood, and spent time with friends. Not saying it’s the best thing, but there’s nothing wrong with it.”

Yi Luo
Rice University
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Vinita Israni, User Experience Manager, Qantas Airways, Sydney, Australia (33.8° S, 151.2° E)

Vinita Israni earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology and studio art at Rice University in 2013. After graduating from Rice, Vinita attended Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to pursue a master’s degree in communication planning and information design and follow her passion of user experience design (UX design). She explored UX design in various industries after CMU, first joining GE as a UX designer, then Ford Innovation Labs as a senior interaction designer on autonomous vehicles and public transit, and then Amazon as a voice UX designer. She started her current position as a UX manager at Qantas Airways in 2019. 

In each of her professional experiences in distinct industries, Vinita found that UX design serves a very essential role, no matter what industry the designer is in. UX design is not just about “user interface and…creating buttons,” Vinita says. It’s more about the way people think about using a product or service or try to complete a task. Although there is always a “user” in UX design, it’s not always a consumer from the general public. Vinita’s example of a project improving the workflow of pilots before takeoff proves that designers are helpful in every context. The design process can occur in many different forms beyond graphic design; during her time at Amazon, her role was oriented more toward auditory design rather than visual design. UX designers can choose to be a generalist or specialist depending on their strengths and the industry. Vinita refers to the theory of the five love languages, saying that UX is “a matter of understanding what…your language” is, and she describes the UX designer as the glue of the team. They work closely with experts with various backgrounds and speak to business, engineering, and product strategy.

Since UX design was not available to study at Rice, Vinita found her way through various activities. She practiced publication design at a student-run, research publication called Catalyst as its design director, compared the visual art education within Houston to the visual art education within Istanbul as part of Global Urban Lab, and developed graphic design skills as an active freelancer in Houston. Vinita conducted several independent studies with professors in and the use around technology, just out of curiosity, and she found that all of these experiences contributed to her later career in UX design quite well. Her advice to students interested in UX design is to experiment and try a lot of different things, to hunt for the opportunities, and to engage in the community.

Vinita highlights the unchanging necessity of the role of the designer in this everchanging society. Design, especially user experience design, is a very human-centered process. Although the title of UX designer has only been around for several years, this design process has existed for much longer and will continue to exist in the future. New technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and augmented reality may reshape the challenges designers face, but the actual work will remain the same. Some people argue that automation will eventually replace designers, yet the need for human touch will always exist, and that is what designers provide. The advancements of digital and physical tools are now empowering current designers, and it’s very important to understand what new tools are emerging, what the current trends are, and how designers place themselves in today’s society. As an architecture student interested in UX design, I am very inspired by Vinita’s strong motivation and her story about finding her passion. Her story sheds light on the broad possibilities of a career in UX design.

Highlights from the interview:

When did you first envision yourself as a UX designer?

To give a little bit of background, I graduated Rice in 2013 with a bachelor’s in studio art and psychology. When I first entered Rice, I actually wanted to do pre-med, so I came in as a biochemistry major, changed majors to cognitive sciences, settled on psychology, and then added studio art. I had actually finished all of the pre-med requirements when I decided I didn’t want to do it. I had grown up drawing and being pretty creative but never had really taken a real art class until I got to Rice. I was also really fortunate—my freshman year there was a graphic design course offered, that was the last year that it was being offered ever on campus, and I somehow got into that class and that started my curiosity and just fascination with more digital means of art. At Rice, the studio art major is pretty traditional fine arts. By my junior year I also wanted to just get better at more digital stuff, and so I started freelancing for graphic design, and I did a lot of publication design. I worked for the art department, and I also worked for the recreation center, but then I also found a lot of people within Houston to work for, so I built on a whole community there, which is really cool.

When l left Rice, I was looking at going to grad school—for me it was either medical illustration, because I had obviously finished all of this medical-like coursework and then marrying that with art or doing something that was more traditionally graphic design. I got into Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design program. I did my master’s there, and I graduated in 2015. That was where my eyes were really opened to what design could be. I use the term design because it is very general, and it depends on what flavor of design that you’re looking for…there’s things like graphic design, which now I call visual design, which is things that may be more paper based but can wander into packaging design…Then there’s obviously design of buildings and public spaces, which is more along the lines of architecture. And then there’s this whole new side of things which is software related, which is where user experience and user interfaces come in…again, just a different flavor of design. 

My eyes opened to user experience and the general meaning of design and what that really meant when I went to grad school. The way that the Carnegie Mellon curriculum was set up was that, for grad school, it was much more thinking oriented, so it was more about philosophy and understanding how design can fit into society, versus—for their specific undergrad curriculum—it was much more making oriented and creating things and putting it out there. It was interesting coming from a studio art background that was very much maker heavy.

Do you think there’s any misconceptions about UX design?

Yeah, there’s a lot. It’s interesting…I think everyone thinks UX is just software…just design to make things look pretty, to make things look pretty on an app, and to make it more—I’m using air quotes—”user friendly” and easier on the eyes, but it’s so much more than that. That is one way of one implementation of user experience, but it’s not just user interface and just creating buttons—it’s actually about the way people think about using or trying to carry out a task that they have, potentially, whether that means getting into a vehicle that they can’t drive and getting from point A to point B or…I worked on a project at GE where we were talking to nuclear engineers that power nuclear power plants, and how their workflow was, how they would be checking all these things and what colors meant to them and things like that. It’s understanding what the user needs are at a deeper level, not just the artifacts that you need to create for it. One of the misconceptions is definitely that it’s just to be pretty and all that stuff.

I think there’s definitely another misconception within tech, I think, that the UX designers are the creative people. I don’t necessarily think that. I think engineers are also very creative, everyone can be creative. I think it’s a matter of understanding what is your language. There’s this concept called love languages that is prevalent in psychology…there’s five love languages—for example, physical touch, acts of devotion, quality time, things like that—so there’s five of those. For you, understanding love may mean acts of devotion and for me it might be quality time. Because I know that it’s acts of devotion for you, I will do that to make you feel loved, and vice versa, even though that may not be the way that you understand love. And so I bring up this concept because I think that it’s actually applied to creativity very strongly. Everyone is creative, but it’s the language that they speak that they understand may be different. UX designers end up speaking a lot of different languages, and that’s why they end up being the glue. They can speak to the business side of things because they can understand their perspective—“Okay, this is how this could be marketed, this is how this would be actually be adopted.” They can speak to the engineering side of things because they have some amount technical knowledge to understand, “Hey, this is how this would be implemented, this would take this much time, so maybe we should do it some other way.” They also speak to the product and strategy side of things…“Okay, how will this evolve over time?” In my perspective, it’s a role that speaks a lot of different languages to a lot of people, but I think everyone understands it in their own language, so it sometimes gets pigeonholed into different things.

I think there’s also this misconception that the designers work on consumer products—like they work on Facebook, and they work on Microsoft Suite, or Google and things like that—whereas, actually, designers are pretty useful and can be helpful in every context, right? So I work in aviation…and I don’t work on anything that is actually public facing. I don’t work on the website, I don’t work on the apps, I work on something that’s internal but also very critical to pilots being able to take the planes off the ground and fly them.

For the non-digital UX designer, is it more about the entire design, the experience’s flow, or…?

Yeah, it depends on the context again, what kind of domain that you’re actually working in, but it’s about understanding what that flow is, but what are the touch points, too. Who are the people involved, how are they working together, what are those touch points, what are the things that you could actually help make better, where are things getting stuck, or where are things getting slowed down, and how can we make that a more seamless transition?

There was a project, really long time ago, where it was also around pilot workflow and how do we get the pilots to go faster, in terms of being able to turn around the plane quickly—you land and then the next flight is in maybe an hour, so how do you get them all the things they need to prep and get the plane, get everyone boarded, and off the ground again? And the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind is like, “Oh, iPad, right?” There’s this additional tool; they can just have a checklist, and you go, “Bam, bam, bam!” An iPad is actually really irritating to navigate when you’re in a really high pressure environment, because everything lives in a different app. Depending on what the fuel load is, what’s going on the plane, what’s in the cargo, you’re checking up to 10-15 different apps, and it’s not really all tied together, and it’s different for each flight. The research shows that it was actually easier to have a physical list. Pilots actually use a lot of paper, even within the cockpit, and it was easier for them to take a pen to paper and write all the thing out that they needed to do than it was to actually go through the iPad…when that’s the case, then how can we help whatever’s on the paper? Instead of just giving them a blank piece of paper, can we have some kind of template for them to start with to make it easier so they’re not rewriting and redrawing things? They can just start with this and then run with it. So, again, you’re not replacing anything…

It’s taking a step back, understanding how it’s done, and then how can we make it better from their perspective, not how you personally think it should be…Whenever someone says, “Let’s make it digital,” I always give that example—paper, because it’s literally faster. The efficiency improved significantly by allowing them to continue using  paper that was just templated to their mental model so they could go faster.

How do you think science and technology development are currently reshaping the work you do? What changes do you foresee in your specific UX design area?

There’s lots. Another thing to think about is that user experience as a field, or as an industry, has only come to light in the last, I would say, maybe 7 years. User experience has been done forever; it’s been around for years. It has never been called that, but it has been around forever…

There’s a lot of things in terms of tech on the emerging horizon, so obviously AI, voice design, definitely virtual assistants…VR, AR, all along that side, that whole realm of things, is also emerging. There’s a lot more automation that is coming to light…there’s some people that believe that designers will no longer exist because of automation, but I don’t think that’s true. I think there will always be a need for a human touch to things and that’s what designers provide, so it’s not going away anytime soon; it’s just that the title will change and the things we work on will change…

I think for designers, tools can still constantly change all the time…New tools come up all the time to make it easier to be able to create things, which I think is great, so you’re always on your tippy toes learning new things…I think the tools are changing. I think, for the most part, they are empowering. I think as a designer, you also have to figure out what are maybe two or three things in your toolkit that you just know really well, and can whip out whenever you need to, versus—learning all the different tools.  There has to be a balance—otherwise I think you could spend all of your free time just learning all of the different tools.

What advice would you give to a student that’s interested in UX design?

There’s a lot…in my time at Rice, I just tried so many different things. I was part of the Urban Policy Lab, where…[Ipek] led a group of students to Istanbul, and we were comparing public policies and researching different things, depending on our interests. I compared the visual art education within Houston to the visual art education within Istanbul. I worked for a student-run research publication called Catalyst, where I was the design director, and so I was able to fine tune my pixel-pushing skills a bit. I freelanced a lot, quite a lot, in Houston, which is awesome…Even though UX wasn’t offered in a formal way [at Rice], I learned how to find the experiences I wanted to have and pursue those, which I think is really important. That’s one piece of advice I would give—there might not be all these formal things, but just go and experiment and, at the end of the day, you’ll be surprised that it all actually comes together. It may not make all the sense when you’re at school, but I can definitely say that after the fact, I’m like, “Oh, I studied this in psychology, and then this is how you know this relates to this in design!” And things like that, so I thought that it was really incredible.

It was funny, when I went to Carnegie Mellon, and I was like, “Oh yeah, I majored in psychology and art,” and then they’re like, “Oh, that is the perfect combination for design!” But I didn’t know that at that time, so I highly encourage you to take classes in just a variety of majors. I mean psychology and art are obviously really good towards design, but just wander and see. I took an amazing creative writing course my senior year, and I regret that I took it senior year, because it was so amazing. I would’ve loved to be writing all four years and actually doing that creative writing. When I started at Amazon, and I was working on voice design stuff, it involved a lot of writing, obviously, because there’s no visuals. And I was actually thinking back to that creative writing class that I took at Rice…it’s funny how it all comes together.

So my advice would be to experiment, try a lot of different things, create opportunities if you feel like there aren’topportunities. I did a couple of independent studies with professors that I found, where I was just really curious. It’s funny in retrospect because I did an independent study around how iPads were used in hospitals and medical situations— which is totally relevant to you as a UXer—but at the time, I was like, “I just have this question, and I want to answer it.” And the professor was super supportive and helped guide me through the semester. So if you don’t find the opportunity, go hunt for it. I did that—I mean, independent studies are great, but also when I was freelancing, that was a lot of me just trying to find different things and experiment.

Get involved in the community as well. Houston has a growing design community, so the more you engage with them and understand and get connected and see different perspectives and different things, I think it helps shape your vision, too. And, also…for the longest time, I was really afraid of calling myself a graphic designer…but just own it. I had a really good friend who just really pushed me and was like, “Nope, you’re a graphic designer now!” It, oddly enough, helped me develop the confidence to just own it and then start really finding opportunities that were in line with what I was looking for. A little bit of fake it until you make it, as well.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.