My Wayfair Experience
⏰ Duration: 12 months (Jan - Dec 2023)
💁 My Role: Product Designer, User Researcher, Product Strategist
⚒️ Design Tools: Figma, Miro, Spreadsheets
During my 6-month Co-op and 3-month Internship AND 6-month contract as a Product Design Associate at Wayfair, I had the opportunity to work with the Warehousing and Fulfillment Network (WFN) team. My role involved diving into the nitty-gritty of everything that happens within the four walls of our Fulfillment Centers and designing tech products to help minimize the burden of physical shipping/ packing processes.
Snagged during our teamwide field trip to Boston-based physical retail stores and warehouses
Here is a video recording of my final co-op presentation!
Copied directly from my final performance review drafted by Meenal and Jason:
Meenal Mandil
Senior Manager
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Throughout her tenure, Robin successfully delivered positive outcomes on major initiatives, including Multi Carton Basic Access, Inventory Cross Dock on Demand, and UCC Receiving, while also providing valuable support for ongoing projects like IFH and detailing the Fulfillment Center Associate Persona. Her work on Multi carton basic access would reduce the incident rate for unconverted multi cartons and unlock $550M of GRS.
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Notably, she demonstrated meticulous planning by assessing the feasibility of Design system work with clear milestones and effort requirements. Furthermore, Robin conducted collaborative research with the PM autonomously, displaying a high level of professionalism and independence.
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Robin has showcased exceptional dedication in understanding the context of Multi carton topic, making her highly knowledgeable in the subject matter. Her communication skills have proven effective in conveying roadblocks and issues, ensuring clear awareness of her workload and timelines. She clarifies ambiguities by asking insightful questions and applies a strong understanding of the design process to all projects. Over the course of six months, Robin has established strong working relationships with all PMs and PDCI counterparts as well design colleagues.”
Jason Kyle
Associate Director
“Taking ownership of her work, Robin maintained a comprehensive to-do list that kept both herself and her manager well-informed. She displayed initiative in taking on responsibilities such as the Checkbox self-service tool. Robin consistently displayed proactive behavior, initiating discussions during 1x1 meetings, setting up additional meetings for design feedback, and testing new ideas. Robin actively seeks mentorship from experienced individuals within her team, demonstrating a strong willingness to learn and grow. Additionally, Robin demonstrated leadership by engaging other co-op members in meaningful activities.”
I have gone through the cycle of working with numerous PMs and business stakeholders ranging from IXD to Inbound to Returns. And multi cartons. Now I have a fuller understanding of how user testing and interviewing works in a physical warehouse environment. I have also cultivated an understanding of how to work fluidly with PMs of varying temperaments(how they tend to communicate, how preoccupied they are with other projects, etc) and have become more proactive in voicing my design decisions, scheduling business meetings with fully-fledged agendas and talking points, and putting my mind to wrapping up any and all projects I’ve taken up.
Me in a final requirements review with our engineers!
My biggest learning this cycle is that everything is possible. Nothing is too high of a hurdle. When I first started working for Wayfair’s warehousing space I was lost in a puddle of information, clueless about where to begin and felt extremely reliant on my manager to back me up, explain concepts, and provide moral support by attending my meetings/ observing my interactions with others.
Now, after having plowed through multiple projects with heavy learning curves and piles of related documentation, I have discovered that even seemingly impossible projects that look difficult to tackle from the surface can be completed. Difficult information can be fully digested upon scheduling multiple Q&A sessions with PMs, stakeholders, and associates. Now I know how to function as a standing “design member” of an organization and play my part in growing our product.
I am a proactive seeker of feedback. I always get the most out of my 1:1s with Iza (Senior Designer), which happens twice a week. We have done design jams, design critiques, and overall explaining the rationale behind our designs and sharing our work as often as we can. This experience has helped me boost my confidence in speaking about my work and made me realize every little design decision has to come from a place of logic.
Presenting during SCTX design critiques quite regularly & speaking at PM huddle have also allowed me to feel comfortable getting my work reviewed in front of bigger audiences and opening myself up to feel relaxed while talking to groups of over 10 people.
I have also learned how to work with design systems. After working with our Nexus design components library, Homebase Themer, 4-sight library, and our V1/V2 Web Components library, I have learned how to utilize design systems to ensure a consistent experience is delivered across all of our products.
Finally, I was able to truly tap into my leadership capabilities. As a co-op captain who represents 200 interns of the SP23 cycle, I have spearheaded the "coffee chats bingo" initiative which drove 250+ coffee chats amongst co-ops in the first week.
I have also created an "out of towners small groups" project which gathers non-Bostonian students together to form their own community and host small lunches/ pottery making/ cooking/ gaming outings each week. The small groups initiative has been immensely successful with 100 students signing up monthly to be placed into groups. I was in charge of ensuring all groups were diversely structured and attending all small group outings to ensure the conversation flowed well and that nobody felt left out.
I have also hosted a "boba and board games night" event for co-ops, which had 150 attendees and lead to the birth of numerous friendships amongst co-ops. I am currently serving as a very visible leader within the cohort, having participated in ~60 coffee chats to date. I was even voted “most likely to be future CEO” during our final co-op farewell event!
Underneath I have included presentation slides summarizing my co-op experience.
All in all, I would say this was a life-changing experience that allowed me to grow as a designer, teammate, friend, and leader. Thank you Wayfair for filling my 2023 with personal development and love 💖
