Internship @ PhonePe | Creating for 250 million Indians
A brief account of a 12-week long Product Design Internship at PhonePe, a Flipkart/Walmart subsidiary, the largest payments platform in India.
Note: The purpose of the article is to elucidate my experience of working at PhonePe, and doesn’t contain information about the work I took on during my stint. Updates on that later.
Background
8 months into the pandemic and continuous online classes later, I finally got a break in the month of December, a period I’d decided to slow down for and not work at all. It took me three days of being locked up in my house in a rather remote part of India to start applying to places, PhonePe being the first. A couple of interviews, portfolio reviews and HR rounds later — I was a PhonePe-r!
The People
From the word “go”, it was very evident that PhonePe is a people-first organization. Meetings in the most stressful, deadline-pressed situations started with real conversations about how the other persons’ day was going, what they were up to ❤️. From my team-mates to PMs to technical support execs, everyone was incredibly warm and welcoming, there was always a sense of familiarity and tonnes of help when I initially felt lost. The horizontal-ness of the entire “heirarchy” here is what makes PhonePe a genuinely fun, happy place to work for. 🌟
Each new joinee is assigned a “buddy”, who is essentially a mentor, someone who helps you maneuver through the various situations that one might find confusing at first. Shout-out to Jeshmi, my mentor, who is the exact opposite of what you might assume a senior design lead to be (in the best ways possible 😬).
Leaps, experiments and ownership
Harmind, PhonePe’s creative director is the most fun, approachable leader I’ve come across. Catch-ups with him would start with a fun story, and end with him telling me to push the walls of the box even further. His mantra of constantly evolving with data-informed design experiments gave me the freedom to be able to stretch my wings as wide as I could. The amount of confidence shown on his, and the entire team’s end for me to try and solve a serious problem pertaining to the platform, and the level of ownership I was given over what eventually became a project that could potentially change how we perceive PhonePe, maybe even the current UPI app segment in general, gave me the kind of encouragement any designer would hope for.
The project’s aim expanded from one to another, each time more ambitious (thus requiring more investment from everyone), and yet every single idea was welcome, discussed, and worked upon.
Though I can’t disclose the details of this exciting project that grew to become the crux of my tenure, it is safe to say something big is coming. 😎
Other fun stuff
It really was incredible to learn how open, free and warm one of the largest organizations in India is. From the incredible tech stack and the swag-bag I received in the first week of my joining, to the “creative meetings” that were actually intense Among Us sessions, to little things like having received a physical employee ID card even though it was established I’d work remotely during the entire tenure.
Wrapping up
Sure, I missed out on the Bangalore weather, team lunches and offsite work weeks I’d read about and imagined before the pandemic, but having had gotten the opportunity to design for 250 million people, and the warmth, freedom and support I got here was more than I could’ve asked for.
While a steep learning curve existed without a doubt, I had a great team by my side to help smoothen out my ascent as much as possible. A special thanks to Tarun and my co-intern Vidula for all the help I received.
I feel extremely proud to have interned at PhonePe. In what are universally dark, uncertain times, I’ve been incredibly lucky to have received such an opportunity. If you wish to know more about the BTS of PhonePe design, you can check out PhonePe Design’s Instagram handle. For more about my work, shoot me an email.
#KarteJaBadhteJa
