Morningstar
Software Engineering Intern
My 2017 Summer internship was at Morningstar, an investment research company. I worked on the business-to-developer API Marketplace. Using the Vue.js framework, I worked on increasing the marketplace's self-service functionality by developing new components. For example, I wrote a search API that allows the user to search for a specific API in the navigation bar. I then integrated it by developing the search UI on the marketplace website, which you can see below. I learned a ton about the software development cycle and Agile methodology through working with the Product Managers, Engineerings, and Designers on my team.
Pickupp
Product Management Project
This project was a good opportunity for me to use some of the technical and design thinking skills I gained during internships and apply it to taking an product from conception to minimum viable product. With a team of two, we created a pickup basketball app that allows users to see who is on the court and plan out pick up games.
Research: We identified the problem through doing case studies and user interviews. We found an overwhelming agreement among players that they constantly found themselves showing up to an overcrowded court or an empty court when they were trying to fit a fast game into their busy day. This led us to our value proposition of saving the user time through using the app to find pickup games that fit with your schedule and skill level.
Design: I then built out an user-experience flow through wireframing and tested the design with the users we did initial research with. You can check out the mock-ups below. Once we had the design down, we developed an iOS app using Swift.
In addition to the technical work, we developed the business and marketing side of this project. We created a business plan and discounted cash flow for the purposed of pitching the idea to investors. We also created a go-to-market strategy in order to launch the product.
Trading Technologies
Design Intern
During my 2016 Summer internship, I worked at Trading Technologies, an electronic derivatives trading software firm, on the Design team. I did both technical design and graphic design. I developed widgets in JavaScript to build out a relatively new user interface library that the trading software, such as TT® PLATFORM (pictured below), could draw from.
Some other technical work included designing and developing an internal email template that significantly increased company interaction with project management statistics and building WordPress plugins for the main website. Lastly, I created graphics and videos with Adobe Creative Cloud that the Marketing team published both internally and externally.
Flex.io
Web Developer
I designed and developed a website for the Non-Profit, Green Again Madagascar, while interning at Flex.io.
I started designing the website by wireframing and creating visual concepts in Illustrator. Then using HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript, my fellow intern and I implemented this website. To check it out, visit www.greenagainmadagascar.org.
Salesforce
Product Design Project
Mentored by innovation consulting company, Salesforce Ignite, my team wanted to solve a human-centered problem. We broke the process down into research, analysis, ideation, design, prototyping, and testing. Because I worked with the complete process of designing a solution, I have a holistic understanding of design thinking. The project strengthened my ability to problem solve, creatively think, and innovate for users.
Research: We started with secondary research on safety technology, UChicago campus safety resources, student incidents, and crime data. From this information, we selected a sample of students and faculty to interview for primary research.
Analysis: Although we initially wanted to approach the problem through building a technology enabled solution prevented crime from happening, analysis of our research provided two points that changed our approach. First, there were already many measures that exist for preventing crime, yet students are either unaware or uninterested in them and therefore they are not very effective. Second, the lack of reporting campus crimes was a huge barrier to progress and that lack was due to a perception of the negative experience in reporting a crime.
Ideation: Through wire-framing, story-boarding, and a lot of post-it-notes, we worked through roughly 20 possible ideas and finalized the idea of a web platform and the theme of a smooth experience to combat the current perception.
Design: We designed a web platform that provided a 20 minute reporting experience, a simple and intuitive interface, and a fully transparent process, with the idea that information would create the basis for safety measures to be built upon.
Prototyping & Testing: Once we created a physical mock-up of the website, we brought it back to the initial students we interviewed and used their feedback to adjust aspects of the platform.
