This article will briefly introduce my internship experience in ShopBack UX research team. The content includes the culture and working environment and the weekly life and works of UXR internship. This blog post also published on Medium.
Table of contents:
A big step from academia to Tech company: the internship in ShopBack
Hi! For those who don’t know me, I’m Iju from Taiwan 😀
I am a Ph.D. candidate in linguistics and still working on my Ph.D. dissertation. Actually I have been quite familiar with the academic field since I was a child. But when I am about to graduate, I started to consider whether I should take a big step to try in the industry.
As mentioned in the previous article (though I haven’t translated it yet hehe), after talking with my good friends (and also role modal since I am a freshman lol) Selena, I felt UX is extremely interesting. So, after a long search, I wanted to be a user experience researcher (UXR).
However, I had a teaching job during that time, and my Ph.D. thesis hasn’t finished yet. As a result, I try to look for an internship to learn and have flexible working schedule.
Luckily, ShopBack has an opening for UXR internship in Taiwan! So I bravely sent out the resume and got the offer 😉
If you are curious about UXR; or, you are interested in the interview experience in ShopBack, you can read my previous article (but still not translated yet) to get more information.
語言學學UXR | 語言學跨領域求職準備及ShopBack UX Researcher Intern面試心得分享
ShopBack Internship Contract
The salary of an internship in ShopBack Taiwan is slightly higher than the basic wage. One of the benefits is the working hours are quite flexible.
Internship contract: Six months (But I didn’t finish the whole internship in the end. I’ll explain why later :P)
Internship hours: The working hours depend on discussion with your manager. My manager hopes I can work at least 24 hours a week but able to adjust the schedule freely.
Internship salary: 175 NTD, including labor and health insurances
Working mode: Due to the pandemic, we can WFH in Taiwan (I can count the numbers of times I went to the company with one hand lol)
Other benefits: Even though I am an intern, I can still participate in all kinds of activities! Plus several generous meal coupons and gifts!
ShopBack Culture and Working Environment
TBH I didn’t have many chances to work in the office. However, I can understand the company culture and vibes based on every activity and interaction with colleagues.
ShopBack’s Organization
As mentioned by our head of Designer, Mike, our design team lead,
ShopBack is currently in a sweet spot. It is not that messy and unorganized as a start-up, but not that “steady” as a large corporation.
(Hey, sorry Mike, I’m really terrible in memory lol So it might not be your original words, I try hard to squeeze my brain to mimic your tone)
It’s a really good description of the current ShopBack’s situation.
ShopBack is currently a mid-sized company. People are generally energetic and enthusiastic. And a large part of my colleagues are Gen Z (OMG)
But it has already passed its infancy, so most of the structure and working systems are really cleared and well established. Although many resources still need to be adjusted, the important positions are clearly divided. As a result, it is unlikely that one person needs to hold extra loading.
On the other hand, even though the structure is stable, many products still need to develop and improve. So, everyone is still very hardworking. It is also a flat organization where we can have many opportunities to communicate directly to our managers.
Internal communication platform and the boundary between life/work
In ShopBack, we use Slack as the communication channel. There is a culture that I’m really unaccustomed but love about is:
We can totally pause our Slack notification after work!!!
It is probably very common in another country, but not in Taiwan. Many Taiwanese companies use Line, which is also our personal SNS, as a communication tool in the office. In addition, many bosses demand their workers respond immediately even after work!
As a result, I was really happy that I could find a clear boundary between my life and work.
Punctuality is another important culture I love so much. Although there are many meetings in a day, people usually start and end the meeting on time. In other words, the meetings are usually efficient so that you will be very focused.
What if we are too busy to attend the meeting but have no time to do our own work?
ShopBack makes the second half-day of Thursday as “Flow Day” so that we can “Focused Deep Work.”
We can choose a comfortable place to work on the flow day, and there would be no large internal meetings during that period.
Apart from the flow day, our manager also encourages us to set a “Focus Time” on calendar to chill ourselves and concentrate on our work or inspiration.
We have a Town Hall meeting every month. They will announce information such its current operation condition, product development during these meetings. We are also able to raise our questions and concerns during the Q&A.
Others
There are also several interesting activities that we can participate in! For example, we played True Escape during our team building.
Due to the pandemic, we cannot to meet in person; but we play escape room on Gather Town in our off-site.
I also got some cute caring packages <3
What does a ShopBack UXR’s week look like?
The previous paragraph briefly introduces the general company culture and environment. Then, I want to introduce UXR team and culture in the last paragraph. Of course, the works and culture heavily depend on the manager, so the following experience might not apply to every internship in ShopBack. But if you are interested in UXR, you might get a general picture of how you can learn UX-related from this internship.
If I need to include my whole experience of internship into a sentence, I would say:
It is nothing like an internship. I was not treated as an intern.
But don’t get wrong, it is a really positive comment haha. Let me explain!
ShopBack UXR Team!
There are 4 members in our UXR team (including me). You might think it is quite small compared to big corporation; however, it is a sizable UXR team compared to Taiwan’s general companies and a start-up.
The least diverse feature among our team is gender (it is just a coincidence haha). Apart from that, our nationality, personality, and major are different. However, this diversity somehow makes our group work together perfectly.
It is a collaborative and caring group with a strong profession 😉
ShopBack UXR’s weekly schedule
We have a stand-up meeting every morning. It is a short but casual time to list our works yesterday and share our to-do list today. This meeting helps us “wake up” from the early morning and check whether other members need support.
Another essential thing every week is 1:1 with our team lead, Naning.
In Taiwan, people tend to think this kind of 1:1 is useless because no one is telling the truth; their manager might give them more work during the 1:1;
But actually I love the 1:1 so much. Before the meeting, we will record things that we want to chat about or do; during the meeting, I can share my actual feeling and difficulties without hesitation. I can also ask to learn a specific research method. Of course, chatting non-work stuff is another fun part for 1:1 😛
Apart from 1:1, there is a sync with the whole design team every week. We will chat about the weekend’s activities to get to know each other and report our works in the past week so that designers and researchers can overview of each work.
Retrospective and Biweekly Sync are two other important works held biweekly.
As for biweekly sync, it’s free time to discuss everything. For example, if you need to check your research plan or share interesting reports, it’s the best time to share!
Retrospective, another meeting I am very excited for, is a meeting for us to reflect our past two weeks. We can share our current emotions, feelings, work-related thoughts, and daily life. We will share our happy, meh, and sad related-stuff and thoughts so that we feel closer and more bunding.
If you’re interested in our retro, our team lead Naning wrote an excellent article to introduce it: Making Retrospectives more Personal
ShopBack UXR intern’s works
As I mentioned before, “It is nothing like an internship!”
The main reason is that my working content and involvement of ShopBack exceed what a general intern can do and be involved.
Our lead Naning is super open to what we want to learn. Even when I was about to prepare my portfolio after the internship, she was willing to make suggestions!
During these 5 months of internship, I participated:
- A diary study conducted in Taiwan (You can see more on Amy’s articles: 1 2 3)
- A qualitative research across three countries
- Two quantitative survey analysis
- Two research of other teams
- A workshop
Although I mainly supported these research, I learn so much by accompanying these amazing researchers!
Apart from research, I also helped to host activities in the Taiwan company and presented our Design Team in Design Exchange with other company.
Compared with my friend whose only work is transcription, my job if ShopBack UXR was so colorful lol
Research methodology-wised, we do both qualitative and quantitative research.
ShopBack provides introductory quantitative courses in our onboarding; plus, our quant data are strongly supported by our data analysts and PMs.
In sum, I think this internship was really not like an internship.
What I’ve learned here is entirely sufficient as a junior UXR.
After ShopBack internship…
As I mentioned before, I didn’t finish the 6 months internship because…
I got a return offer! I am an official ShopBack UXR now!
There are still many stories that I can share about this return offer, but I will end this article by summarizing the internship in ShopBack.
About this company.
I really like the culture and environment in ShopBack.
It allows me to distinguish between work and life clearly. The working schedule is flexible. The organization is flat. Every colleagues are talented and enthusiastic. It’s a great environment to learn and work.
About this UXR and Design team.
I love every member of our UXR and Design team.
There is a saying in Taiwan:
Good colleagues in the company; Strangers after work. (上班好同事，下班不認識)
But I won’t think that way in our team. I want to keep in touch and be friends with all team members even after work.
Since I have so much academic research experience, doing research and reporting isn’t a big problem for me.
But the biggest challenge to stepping into the industry is, our research is no longer to simply answer our own curiosity or question. Instead, we need to put ourselves into the position between our users and the company. So, as a result, I think it was not easy to balance the research perfectly.
Another challenge for me is in the E-commerce industry. I did invest much time in learning terms and related knowledge. But after the clear guidance from my supportive team members, I improved and learned a lot 🙂
I appreciate that I bravely took a big step five months ago. I hope this article helps you to find a path to your future!
Finally, if you are interested in ShopBack, we are hired! You can find several awesome jobs on this page😉
Feel free to comment or contact me if you have any further questions 😉
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