IBM Internship → UX/UI Designer
Before wrapping up my undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo, I interned at IBM as a UX/UI designer for 16 months. I joined IBM Z, which is known for its mainframe that helped propel humans to the moon during the Apollo missions. Today, IBM Z is the mainframe on which the world runs. Trillions of transactions run through these mainframes, which provide security and resiliency to enterprises for critical services such as payment processing, airline reservations, and so on. My team, in particular, works on designing the mainframe software for IBM zSystems. As a designer working at an engineering-led organization, I started my internship by spending a generous amount of time understanding the context behind my role as a Z designer. This involved exploring the products I would be involved with, talking to different stakeholders, studying my user’s experience(s), and attending design thinking sessions. By learning about my business unit’s goals and visualizing the products’ strategic direction, I found myself better reoriented to deliver a positive and measurable impact, through design, for my end users and the org at large.
Throughout my internship, I worked in a cross-functional product team or what IBM calls the "3-in-a-box". This involves the offering manager, technical lead (plus devs), and design squad. Working in such a diverse team meant it was critical to justify and clearly articulate design decisions. As a result, not only did I have to frame my decisions around my user’s goals and pain points, but it was also important to vocalize how design improvements align with business strategies and goals.
As part of the #Think40 initiative, all employees at IBM are encouraged to spend 40 hours learning each year. I took this opportunity to develop T-shaped skills, a concept developed by the CEO of IDEO, Tim Brown. The vertical stroke of the “T” is a depth of skill that allows people to contribute to the creative process. The horizontal stroke of the “T” is the disposition for collaboration across specialties. T-shaped people have both depth and breadth in their skills. Beyond expanding the depth of my UX and UI design expertise, I worked on diversifying my knowledge of skills in other areas. These wing discipline skills included frameworks (design thinking, agile, systems thinking), business acumen (strategy, market analysis and trends, competitive analysis), and industry knowledge (AI, sustainability, DevOps, accessibility).
Outside of my team, I made sure to pursue different opportunities to chat or work with other IBMers all around the world. These experiences culminated in meaningful connections that continue to strengthen my excitement and passion for what I do. Visit the “recognitions” or “freelance” tab to learn more about some of the other initiatives and collaborations I took part in during my internship. Or, check out the video below announcing watsonx Code Assistant for Z, a new generative AI-assisted product that will help enable faster translation of COBOL to Java on IBM Z. It features product offerings from IBM Application Discovery and Delivery Intelligence (ADDI) that I helped research and design!
IBM Internship
May 2022 - Aug 2023
IBM Internship → UX/UI Designer
Before wrapping up my undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo, I interned at IBM as a UX/UI designer for 16 months. I joined IBM Z, which is known for its mainframe that helped propel humans to the moon during the Apollo missions. Today, IBM Z is the mainframe on which the world runs. Trillions of transactions run through these mainframes, which provide security and resiliency to enterprises for critical services such as payment processing, airline reservations, and so on. My team, in particular, works on designing the mainframe software for IBM zSystems. As a designer working at an engineering-led organization, I started my internship by spending a generous amount of time understanding the context behind my role as a Z designer. This involved exploring the products I would be involved with, talking to different stakeholders, studying my user’s experience(s), and attending design thinking sessions. By learning about my business unit’s goals and visualizing the products’ strategic direction, I found myself better reoriented to deliver a positive and measurable impact, through design, for my end users and the org at large.
Throughout my internship, I worked in a cross-functional product team or what IBM calls the "3-in-a-box". This involves the offering manager, technical lead (plus devs), and design squad. Working in such a diverse team meant it was critical to justify and clearly articulate design decisions. As a result, not only did I have to frame my decisions around my user’s goals and pain points, but it was also important to vocalize how design improvements align with business strategies and goals.
As part of the #Think40 initiative, all employees at IBM are encouraged to spend 40 hours learning each year. I took this opportunity to develop T-shaped skills, a concept developed by the CEO of IDEO, Tim Brown. The vertical stroke of the “T” is a depth of skill that allows people to contribute to the creative process. The horizontal stroke of the “T” is the disposition for collaboration across specialties. T-shaped people have both depth and breadth in their skills. Beyond expanding the depth of my UX and UI design expertise, I worked on diversifying my knowledge of skills in other areas. These wing discipline skills included frameworks (design thinking, agile, systems thinking), business acumen (strategy, market analysis and trends, competitive analysis), and industry knowledge (AI, sustainability, DevOps, accessibility).
Outside of my team, I made sure to pursue different opportunities to chat or work with other IBMers all around the world. These experiences culminated in meaningful connections that continue to strengthen my excitement and passion for what I do. Visit the “recognitions” or “freelance” tab to learn more about some of the other initiatives and collaborations I took part in during my internship. Or, check out the video below announcing watsonx Code Assistant for Z, a new generative AI-assisted product that will help enable faster translation of COBOL to Java on IBM Z. It features product offerings from IBM Application Discovery and Delivery Intelligence (ADDI) that I helped research and design!
IBM Internship
May 2022 - Aug 2023
IBM Internship → UX/UI Designer
Before wrapping up my undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo, I interned at IBM as a UX/UI designer for 16 months. I joined IBM Z, which is known for its mainframe that helped propel humans to the moon during the Apollo missions. Today, IBM Z is the mainframe on which the world runs. Trillions of transactions run through these mainframes, which provide security and resiliency to enterprises for critical services such as payment processing, airline reservations, and so on. My team, in particular, works on designing the mainframe software for IBM zSystems. As a designer working at an engineering-led organization, I started my internship by spending a generous amount of time understanding the context behind my role as a Z designer. This involved exploring the products I would be involved with, talking to different stakeholders, studying my user’s experience(s), and attending design thinking sessions. By learning about my business unit’s goals and visualizing the products’ strategic direction, I found myself better reoriented to deliver a positive and measurable impact, through design, for my end users and the org at large.
Throughout my internship, I worked in a cross-functional product team or what IBM calls the "3-in-a-box". This involves the offering manager, technical lead (plus devs), and design squad. Working in such a diverse team meant it was critical to justify and clearly articulate design decisions. As a result, not only did I have to frame my decisions around my user’s goals and pain points, but it was also important to vocalize how design improvements align with business strategies and goals.
As part of the #Think40 initiative, all employees at IBM are encouraged to spend 40 hours learning each year. I took this opportunity to develop T-shaped skills, a concept developed by the CEO of IDEO, Tim Brown. The vertical stroke of the “T” is a depth of skill that allows people to contribute to the creative process. The horizontal stroke of the “T” is the disposition for collaboration across specialties. T-shaped people have both depth and breadth in their skills. Beyond expanding the depth of my UX and UI design expertise, I worked on diversifying my knowledge of skills in other areas. These wing discipline skills included frameworks (design thinking, agile, systems thinking), business acumen (strategy, market analysis and trends, competitive analysis), and industry knowledge (AI, sustainability, DevOps, accessibility).
Outside of my team, I made sure to pursue different opportunities to chat or work with other IBMers all around the world. These experiences culminated in meaningful connections that continue to strengthen my excitement and passion for what I do. Visit the “recognitions” or “freelance” tab to learn more about some of the other initiatives and collaborations I took part in during my internship. Or, check out the video below announcing watsonx Code Assistant for Z, a new generative AI-assisted product that will help enable faster translation of COBOL to Java on IBM Z. It features product offerings from IBM Application Discovery and Delivery Intelligence (ADDI) that I helped research and design!
IBM Internship
May 2022 - Aug 2023
IBM Internship → UX/UI Designer
Before wrapping up my undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo, I interned at IBM as a UX/UI designer for 16 months. I joined IBM Z, which is known for its mainframe that helped propel humans to the moon during the Apollo missions. Today, IBM Z is the mainframe on which the world runs. Trillions of transactions run through these mainframes, which provide security and resiliency to enterprises for critical services such as payment processing, airline reservations, and so on. My team, in particular, works on designing the mainframe software for IBM zSystems. As a designer working at an engineering-led organization, I started my internship by spending a generous amount of time understanding the context behind my role as a Z designer. This involved exploring the products I would be involved with, talking to different stakeholders, studying my user’s experience(s), and attending design thinking sessions. By learning about my business unit’s goals and visualizing the products’ strategic direction, I found myself better reoriented to deliver a positive and measurable impact, through design, for my end users and the org at large.
Throughout my internship, I worked in a cross-functional product team or what IBM calls the "3-in-a-box". This involves the offering manager, technical lead (plus devs), and design squad. Working in such a diverse team meant it was critical to justify and clearly articulate design decisions. As a result, not only did I have to frame my decisions around my user’s goals and pain points, but it was also important to vocalize how design improvements align with business strategies and goals.
As part of the #Think40 initiative, all employees at IBM are encouraged to spend 40 hours learning each year. I took this opportunity to develop T-shaped skills, a concept developed by the CEO of IDEO, Tim Brown. The vertical stroke of the “T” is a depth of skill that allows people to contribute to the creative process. The horizontal stroke of the “T” is the disposition for collaboration across specialties. T-shaped people have both depth and breadth in their skills. Beyond expanding the depth of my UX and UI design expertise, I worked on diversifying my knowledge of skills in other areas. These wing discipline skills included frameworks (design thinking, agile, systems thinking), business acumen (strategy, market analysis and trends, competitive analysis), and industry knowledge (AI, sustainability, DevOps, accessibility).
Outside of my team, I made sure to pursue different opportunities to chat or work with other IBMers all around the world. These experiences culminated in meaningful connections that continue to strengthen my excitement and passion for what I do. Visit the “recognitions” or “freelance” tab to learn more about some of the other initiatives and collaborations I took part in during my internship. Or, check out the video below announcing watsonx Code Assistant for Z, a new generative AI-assisted product that will help enable faster translation of COBOL to Java on IBM Z. It features product offerings from IBM Application Discovery and Delivery Intelligence (ADDI) that I helped research and design!
IBM Internship
May 2022 - Aug 2023