product design
design system
dev handoff
coming soon 🚢
Timeline
March 2024 - Present
Role
Product Designer
Collaboration
10 Software Engineers
Overview
The Viet Tech Mentorship Program (VTMP), spanning the US and Canada, is a free initiative powered by dedicated mentors from leading tech companies. Our greatest asset is an incredible network of mentors and mentees who are fully committed to sharing and paying it forward. Over the past three years, VTMP has helped 200+ students secure 500+ interviews and land 100+ tech job offers. As the program scales, we are now developing our first internal tool to streamline the mentoring and job search process, reducing manual administrative burdens.
how might we
How might we design a tracking tool to alleviate the manual burden of both mentees and mentors?
Solution
I designed jobtrackr — VTMP's first internal tool to allow closer monitoring of each mentee's job search process.
problem statement
Mentors and mentees face significant challenges in monitoring the job search process due to a fragmented management system 🧩.
👨🏫👩🏫 Mentors rely on inefficient daily direct messages and numerous Excel spreadsheets to oversee mentees' job searches.
👨💻👩💻 Mentees face difficulties locating time-sensitive job links buried in community chats and retrieving scattered interview insights from various conversations.
solution
I designed jobtrackr — VTMP's first internal tool to allow closer monitoring of each mentee's job search process, foster knowledge sharing, and reduce administrative burden.
empathize
User Interviews
As this VTMP internal tool is built by its very users, I approach all team meetings and brainstorming sessions as in-depth user interviews with both mentors and mentees.
interview insight #1
Centralization
📈 Supporting data:
Both mentors and mentees voice the need for a unified platform to track applications, communications, and resources to reduce reliance on scattered tools.
interview insight #2
Information architecture
📈 Supporting data:
Mentees require better ways to categorize and prioritize job opportunities, while mentors need efficient ways to manage multiple mentees’ progress.
interview insight #3
Resource accessibility
📈 Supporting data:
A shared interview knowledge base and curated job links would greatly enhance the mentoring relationship and streamline the job search process.
define
User Personas
In the second phase of our design process, we concentrated on identifying our users' needs by developing detailed personas. This essential step helped us craft a precise problem statement and establish a hypothesis that would guide our design solutions effectively.
Persona 1: Khoa, Program Advisor
Software Engineer II @ Vanta, prev @ Snap, Adobe, Cisco Meraki, DoorDash
Background
Khoa holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has a proven track record in interviewing for software engineering positions. Currently, he acts as the Program Advisor for the entire Viet Tech Mentorship Program and also mentors several mentees personally.
Goals
Khoa is incredibly passionate about helping newcomers in the tech industry through insightful career guidance and community support. As the Program Advisor, Khoa wants to effectively monitor mentees' and mentors' progress via a unified tracking tool in order to provide effective leadership.
Frustrations
Since the current program is entirely powered by manual effort via Messenger, Discord, and Excel, Khoa struggles to manage multiple chat threads and Excel spreadsheets, often losing important information in community discussions. He feels overwhelmed by the volume of inquiries from mentees, which consumes time that could be spent on strategic guidance.
Needs
Khoa needs a centralized platform to track job applications, along with tools for real-time updates on mentees' progress and curated resources that enable mentees to find insights independently.
Persona 2: Sarah, Mentor
Software Engineer Intern @ Amazon, prev @ Article
Background
Sarah is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at Simon Fraser University and has landed impressive internships at Article and Amazon. She is currently mentoring several mentee personally in their job search process for software engineering positions.
Goals
Sarah wants to provide effective guidance to mentees during their job search as well as track her mentees' progress effectively to provide timely feedback.
Frustrations
Sarah manually checks in on her mentees' progress every day through direct messages. This process can be time-consuming and often leads to missed updates or important information getting lost in the conversation.
Needs
She wishes there were a more efficient way to track their progress and provide timely feedback, allowing her to focus more on mentorship rather than administrative tasks.
Persona 3: Ethan, Mentee
Student @ UBC
Background
Ethan is currenly pursuing his second Bachelor's degree in Computer Science at The University of British Columbia.
Goals
He engages in the program for timely job leads, interview insights, and career advice. He also seeks to offer support to the whole community through sharing job links and application updates.
Frustrations
Ethan finds job links and insights scattered across various chats, making it difficult to stay focused. This overwhelming amount of information leaves him feeling lost in the job search process.
Needs
Ethan needs an easy-to-use tool to categorize and prioritize job opportunities, a centralized location for interview tips and resources, and supportive mentorship to guide him throughout his journey.
Formulating the Hypothesis
By offering a user-friendly job tracking tool that simplifies mentee management and application tracking, VTMP has the potential to significantly reduce the time and manual effort required for mentors.
This hypothesis builds on the identified need for a centralized solution to application and mentee management, anticipating that improved visibility and control over the job search process will lead directly to reduced administrative burden and enhanced mentorship velocity and quality. We predict that this will not only streamline communication between mentors and mentees but also foster a more structured approach to the job search, allowing mentees to receive timely feedback and support. Ultimately, this enhancement will empower mentees to make informed decisions, leverage community support, and improve their chances of securing job opportunities.
ideate
I finalized the HMW statement and synthesized research findings that resulted in redesign action items.
How Might We Statement
how might we statement
How might we design a tracking tool to alleviate the manual burden of both mentees and mentors?
PROTOTYPe
With user research insights, I started ideating the final redesign.
Bot directory
Exploring how to best guide users through each bot’s specialized areas.
Information architecture
Exploring the best way to organize information with a flat app hierarchy. Some ideas have promise.
design
OUTCOMES
What difference did I make?
Users spend
3 seconds
↓ 300%
Users spend
↓ 200%
Satisfaction rate
80%
↑ 20%
of interviewed users are satisfied with the AI bot they choose
Although this is an unsolicited design, I have spoken to several data scientists and engineers to align with the technical requirements of the project. I also embrace building in public by launching this redesign to a community of supportive tech friends.
REFLECTION
What did I learn?
Make a conscious effort to understand the technical domain of a product.
I dove head first into the world of generative AI consumer products by reading and going on 1:1s with AI/ML engineers to ensure that the redesign brings out Poe’s best features.
Define the scope of design carefully.
Prioritizing features that are important to the business helps me narrow the focus to 2 key themes instead of attempting to fix everything. With this comes the understanding that a design is always a work in progress while we should still do our best to improve in every iteration.