Two Learnings and One Unlearning
Reflections of PM Intern, Angela Kong
What has surprised you about being a Redfin intern?
The responsibility! I’ve heard the spiel “you will work on meaningful engineering projects” far too many times at career fairs, but it is real at Redfin.
How would you describe your experience with Redfin’s culture?
Quirky. Diverse. Authentic. Redfin has been one of the rare places I have inhabited without frequent feelings of impostor syndrome, and I think a huge part of it comes from how freely people express (and listen to others express) opinions and let their wackiness shine. I’m incredibly grateful for the diversity in my team and the undercurrent of both humility and hustle that runs here.
Why did you choose to come to Redfin?
I wanted to work for a smaller company, explore product management, and work at a place where I’d grow the most through being given real responsibility.
I also knew this was the place for me when: 1. the onsite interview was just as much fun as road tripping around Portland during winter break and 2. while making a decision, my manager and I had a really candid call about what we value in our work — he genuinely cared about helping me find the right fit. When I came to Redfin, I realized his care & sincerity permeated the entire culture AND business — Redfin’s biz model is built such that our agent will never push the wrong house to a customer to close a deal.
I’m incredibly grateful for the diversity in my team and the undercurrent of both humility and hustle that runs here.
What’s been your favorite project assigned to you and what have you learned?
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My favorite project was getting to redesign the Owner Dashboard. The Owner Dashboard is currently the one-stop-shop for homeowners to check the value of their home and real-estate related happenings in their neighborhood.
My biggest take-away from this experience was how to drive product development on an open-ended design problem.
First, make it clear to yourself and your team why this project matters. Say we want to increase homeowner revists to the dashboard by 10%. Ask yourself, so what? On a high-level, increasing homeowner engagement (a 75M market) is essential for growing our base of customers who will want to sell homes with us in the future. Figuring out why you are solving this problem *now* increases buy-in and personal motivation in shipping a product.
Second, make sure your user goals are crystal clear before diving into design decisions. Upon my manager’s recommendation, I created a “What do homeowners want?” doc where I broke homeowners into three different personas & consolidated from data the top five pieces of information they desire. This doc served as a North Star for me when I found myself getting caught in the weeds with the visuals, ensuring user goals were never compromised for easier design layouts.
Finally, “productify” your idealism. My designer and I had a dream Owner Dashboard in our head, but if we wanted to ship all of our design improvements, it would take a year. Don’t discard your idealism — rather, create an endpoint and work back to outline specific versions leading up to that. Define strict roll out conditions at each of these gates to serve as thresholds in deciding whether to keep investing, keep the current version, or, if they aren’t meeting business goals, roll back.
What’s been your favorite event you’ve experienced at Redfin?
My favorite event, hands down, was the intern hike with our CEO, Glenn Kelman, to Poo Poo Point. The hike itself pales in comparison to the nature that Washington offers, so read on for why it was my favorite hike of the summer.
I still remember during a lookout point before the very top, a group of interns (me included) were panting with paper-dry mouths, having forgotten to bring an adequate amount of water. 10 minutes later, Glenn shows up with two Camelbacks filled to the brim.
“Who’s thirsty?” he says, his face blooming into a toothy grin. When I raise my hand, he presses the bottle into my hand without taking a single sip. When I tell him to drink first, he shakes his head. He waits for the water to be passed around and makes no indication reaching for it back, and in this moment I think how thirsty he must be and how the mantra “leaders eat last” could not have rung more true. I’m grateful to have a CEO who cares so deeply about people, finds a genuine interest in everyone, and helps them pursue that passion in whatever way he can.
P.S. I can fangirl for hours about Glenn/Redfin so if you want to hear more, feel free to reach out: angela.x.kong@gmail.com.
