Meet the Alumni: Pat Hwang talks about his journey from studying at Sydney University to working at Google
Pat Hwang is a Design Computing alumni who graduated from the University of Sydney, and is currently working as a UX Designer at the Google Sydney office. Previously he worked at Atlassian and Deloitte Digital.
Pat is passionate about design education and mentoring, having tutored for Bachelors and Masters units, and has coached over 20 aspiring designers land internships and graduate roles at top companies. We, Rebecca Zhang and Shrawani Bhattarai, sat down with him to talk about his life as a designer and his journey from being an undergraduate student to working at Google.
Author’s note: This blog is targeting Australian undergraduate students, and thus certain information or recruitment processes may not be applicable for other countries.
Early Beginnings
RZ: So let’s begin with how you started your journey into Design — What did you study at the University of Sydney? Why did you choose to study design computing? Was that something you decided to do straight out of high school?
PH: I studied Bachelor of Design Computing at the University of Sydney and did a minor in IT. Interestingly enough, it was not something I decided to learn when I finished high school. I originally attended UNSW and studied Bachelor of Engineering. Growing up, I was interested in technology and anything creative. Drawing was one of my favourite hobbies. However, going into HSC year and thinking about what I wanted to do for my career, I felt some pressure to pursue something more stable or more traditional, which is mainly why I decided to study Engineering. Unfortunately, as soon as I started the first semester, I was not fond of it at all!. I expected it to allow me to make some cool stuff and build things, but sadly I discovered that a fair majority of the subjects were just pure maths and calculations, so that was a massive shock to my expectations.
After about three semesters of just studying something that I did not enjoy and didn’t see a future going forward, I started reflecting on what I liked when I was growing up. I was exposed to UX for the first time through a front-end development workshop. Digging into it, I realised this was almost exactly what I wanted to do. Creating products like mobile apps and websites, but not having to do any technical coding. So I just dug deeper into UX and tried to see if I could transfer to any UX Degrees. At the time, there was not anything available at UNSW, but I stumbled upon Design Computing at USYD. I saw how some of the alumni were working at places like Google and Deloitte and I realised this was something I wanted to do.
It was a significant risk because I didn’t know what the career prospects would be and how stable or employable creative degrees might be. But after transferring, doing all the different subjects and discovering more about UX and interaction design, I fell in love with it and didn’t look back. That is basically how I ended up where I am today.
RZ: That’s really interesting — what a beginning to your design career and journey! So when you decided to transfer to Design Computing, were there any favourite units you had within the degree? Or perhaps did any of these units fuel your passion for interaction design?
PH: Yeah, so my favourite units were probably Visual Communication and Interaction Design Studio. Through that, I discovered that this was something I really wanted to do — and for my Interaction Design Studio project, I created an app that would autonomously park your car and allow users to notify their car to come to pick them up, and schedule in times on when to do so. So anything to do with designing something that is crazy and out there is something that I enjoy. Funnily enough, it eventually ended up somewhat relating to what I am working on now at Google, which is related to cars, but I will get onto that later on.
RZ: Amazing, that’s really interesting to hear! So moving on, if you could, can you walk us through your life at USYD?
PH: Yeah, so my first year was when I was getting used to the life at USYD because it was a massive transition from UNSW — it was a completely different social circle and vibe. In my first year, I started to explore the design space in Sydney. I was going into a couple of various meetups with a few other first years at the time, and that was when we were coming up with the idea of starting a design computing society, which ended up being SUEDE that we know of today.
The second year was when I was beginning to enjoy the units a lot more, exploring in-depth briefs for User Experience and Interaction Design Studio. This was also the year when I was trying to explore as many industry opportunities as possible. So from the start of the year, I was making sure to apply for as many internships and student programs as I could. I was also invited to a creative boot camp hosted in Singapore called Spikes Asia during this year. It was an award show / festival for creative advertising and media, which was different from what I was studying. However, it was still a fantastic opportunity because I was the only Australian there with 15 other students from countries all over the APAC region.
I was also accepted into the vacation program for Deloitte Digital and interned at the end of my 2nd year as part of the Experience Design team, where I got to work with multiple ASX200 clients.
In my third year, I wasn’t too stressed out because I was only really doing just the studio subjected, and I already had a graduate offer at Deloitte in my back pocket. I was taking things pretty easy but also keeping my eye out for any other opportunities even though I was grateful for my offer at Deloitte.
I discovered a graduate opportunity as a product designer at Atlassian, which I applied for and was fortunate enough to be accepted into. So that was around March, and then through the rest of the year, I worked part-time as a designer at a small web marketing agency and at a startup studio called Triniti. We were based in Fishburners, a co-working space and it was interesting because we were able to work with founders of other startups and help build out proof of concepts apps using low code tools where we could create demos that could be pitched to investors.
So just being part of a startup and helping them grow from scratch was an interesting experience, very different to agencies or technology companies.
Coming to the end of the year, we had the graduate exhibition, which was good to have the opportunity to see all my friends’ projects and everything we worked hard towards for three years.
Applying for Internships & Graduate Roles
SB: That’s really commendable. So, just a follow-up question — applying for internships in the second year and having a graduate role, is that something every design computing student should aim for?
PH: So I definitely recommend it for every USYD Design student. It is ideal to have some work experience before you graduate from University because there are tons of UX-related internships and graduate roles out there. Also a lot of internships end up converting to full-time opportunities, which provides a lot of job security for students before they even graduate!
However I have realised that not many design computing students apply because they either are not aware of all the opportunities they can apply for, or they are just not motivated. They may be too intimidated to apply for job opportunities, perhaps because they feel their portfolio is not perfect or fully ready yet. Sadly, they let all these applications go and do not even attempt to apply for them despite plenty of roles not even requiring a portfolio.
Yeah, so I definitely recommend trying to apply internships during your degree.
RZ: So moving on, you have touched on some tips on your experience in finding internships or job opportunities. But for all of us Design Computing students out there looking for internships or job opportunities during or after University, what are your tips on staying on top of those internships or graduate roles?
PH: Yeah, I think the best way to answer this question is to address two preconceptions that most creative students have — not just for design computing students but also for students studying any creative degree. The first thing is a lot of creative students think they should start looking for work experience when they’re just about to graduate — assuming they can find a job opportunity within one or two months and just start working straight away. Sadly, that’s entirely not the case.
Most internships and graduate roles open a whole year before when students want to start working. So say you wanted to apply for an internship at the end of your second year, you would have to start looking and applying at the start of your second year. If you want to look for a graduate role at the end of the third year or the year after you graduate, then you would have to start applying at the beginning of the third year. Overall, I would recommend applying for as many things as you can and as early as possible.
Then the second misconception that I want to address is that many creative students think their portfolios have to be absolutely polished and perfect before they even think about applying. I can understand why many design students would not prefer their unfinished portfolios to be seen or even judged. However, I would advise everyone to still apply for those job opportunities even if your portfolio is not finished or polished — even if it is just a simple Notion or Behance page.
A lot of these internships and graduate roles, especially for the Aussie corporate, retail, and finance companies that have UX teams and digital grad programs, don’t even look at your portfolio. They instead value your interviews, interpersonal skills and leadership experience.
In the case of applications that do look at portfolios, if you just submit a web link that’s unfinished by the deadline, you can continue to iterate on your portfolio later through the interview process. You would at least have something minimal that you can get feedback on through various interviews and portfolio feedback events. You can continue iterating it, and by the time you’re actually presenting it in a final grad interview, your portfolio would far more polished and tailored than if you tried perfecting it in the first go. Overall, I recommend all students apply for things even if their portfolio is unfinished.
Working at Atlassian
SB: Could you talk a bit more about your role at Atlassian?
PH: Yeah, I worked at Atlassian for just under two years as a product designer. Specifically, I worked on software products for development teams, including JIRA and Bitbucket
SB: That’s amazing — and can you describe a little more about the hiring process?
PH: The hiring process was pretty different compared to many other corporate internships or vacation programs.
So to give context, consulting companies like Deloitte, EY, or any corporate or retail companies such as Telstra and Commonwealth Bank all have UX internships. But anyone from any degree can apply to these digital streams. It doesn’t matter if you’re in an engineering degree, design degree, IT degree, or business degree — everyone is interviewed within the same standards and in the same process. I remember at Deloitte, through the whole process, they never looked at my portfolio once, which I found interesting. Atlassian or any other roles that specifically state designer in the title, would require portfolios.
So for my Atlassian application I had to submit my resume and portfolio and then went through a phone interview with one of the recruiters. The company reviewed my portfolio, and soon after, I was invited to the on-site interview stage. This consisted of two interviews — behavioural interview and portfolio review. I had to present my portfolio at that stage and go through my projects for which the interviewer would ask detailed questions on specific aspects such as “Why did you choose to go forward with this certain design approach?” or “What was your rationale? What was your reasoning?” and other specific questions surrounding my design process as well as asking further general behavioural questions about teamwork and leadership.
Then, the second interview of the on-site stage was a design whiteboard challenge where for an hour, I was given a scenario and had to ideate a solution and sketch it out on the whiteboard. I would say that the most significant part of that was just making sure I was thinking out loud to demonstrate what my thought process was, and making sure I completely understood the scenario. It was essential to answer all the different questions, constraints, and assumptions they had — and thus efficiently come up with the solution for the interview. After that round, within two weeks, I heard back and was fortunately given the offer of the graduate design role.
SB: What was the hardest part of the hiring process for you?
PH: For Atlassian specifically, it’ll probably be the portfolio review because they would ask questions that I never even considered before; for example, some of my design choices were completely arbitrary. I had to think quickly and justify those choices by making up that “We did some user testing and discovered that our users responded best to this.”
SB: What sort of life lessons would you say you have learned working at Atlassian?
PH: Yeah, working at Atlassian as a product designer was very humbling and eye-opening because you’re constantly collaborating with product managers and software engineers who have entirely different skillsets and backgrounds from you. They also have a different perspective on what it means to be customer-centric than you as a designer.
Even though you have all the design experience and expertise, the opinions of engineers and product managers about how to build a product can just be as valid. So it was my job to sometimes address all of these conflicting perspectives, explore every avenue we can before deciding on a single design solution. From there, it was just making sure it’s as usable and visually appealing as possible. Throughout the whole process, my job as a designer included being a facilitator to help my partners within the projects express their voices and collaborate on a solution together.
Another big lesson I learned at Atlassian was that being a good designer isn’t about how original or creative your ideas are — it’s about how quick and flexible you are in delivering value to users and solving their problems. So there’s a wide range of business and technical constraints that you can never anticipate within University or a hypothetical design project. So yes, we could spend one month creating a rich and interactive experience with all these micro-interactions and animations, but within one week, if you can deliver something functional that is a bit unpolished or minimal, that is a more successful outcome. As someone with a creative background, that was the biggest shift in perspective that I had to undergo when I joined a software company like Atlassian.
SB: And just working with developers, have you ever been told that your designs weren’t feasible?
PH: Yeah, definitely. As a designer, you have to compromise a lot. So it’s just about being able to define what you can and can’t compromise while making sure that the solution is still as functional and usable as possible. Then for the things you can’t compromise, make sure you advocate for the user in that scenario, and try to build rapport with the development team or the product manager to be flexible.
Working at Google
RZ: That’s really great advice! So you were previously working at Atlassian, and now we can see that you work as an interaction designer at Google, which is fantastic news — is there any exciting work you’d like to share with us that you’ve been working on so far at Google?
PH: I’m part of the Google Maps Auto team dealing with Google Maps and navigation experiences within cars. So that consists of Google Maps that you see in Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, when you plug your phone into your car. But, the most significant focus that we have at the moment is embedding Maps into cars that have Google preinstalled, so you can use Assistant and Maps without needing a phone. We’re working with a few auto and car partners like Volvo, Honda, Renault, and GM.
It’s an interesting space because it’s a hybrid between an in-house product team and there’s a small consulting aspect to it, because you have to collaborate with stakeholders from all these car companies. Overall, it’s really different from your typical mobile app or website experience — it’s pretty refreshing.
RZ: Yeah, definitely! So how would you describe the process of getting your foot into Google?
PH: Yeah, so this was not actually my first time applying for Google. I tried and failed applying for Google many times. When I was applying for internships in my 2nd year, I made it to the interview stage for Google’s UX Design Internship but was rejected.
However, I believe all my experiences interning at various places, such as working at Atlassian while tutoring at University on the side — it has helped build up as much experience as possible to get my foot into Google.
So when I applied for this UX designer role for the Auto team, it was quite an exhaustive and lengthy process. The time it took from when I applied to when I received the final offer, it probably took around four months with significant gaps between each interview stage.
So first, I had a video chat with the recruiter, who went over my experience. A few weeks later I had a video call with one of the designers from my current team where I had to present my portfolio to them. Instead of going through a web portfolio, I decided to prepare a slide deck presentation, going over two projects I worked on.
In a couple of weeks, I was advanced to the virtual on-site stage, which consisted of five interviews in total. So the first one was another portfolio presentation to a panel of four people where they gave feedback and asked questions about my presentation. Then I went on to have one-on-one interviews with each of the panelists. Each of them would have different focuses, including a whiteboard design challenge and 3 interviews with different themes.
Overall, I made sure to be as prepared as possible for all these stages. After a few weeks, I heard back and was advanced to the next stage, which was called “Team Matching”. So at this stage, I was given a chance to talk to teams that were looking to hire UX designers and I basically could interview the teams myself to see which team suited me the most. There were two teams I interviewed with, but I was the most interested in Google Maps Auto, which I eventually chose. bringing us to the end of my whole process of applying for Google.
RZ: Yeah, that definitely sounds like an exhausting process, but thank you for sharing that with us. So last question regarding Google, how would you describe your journey starting from studying Design Computing at University and now working at Google?
PH: So, even though there were plenty of steps in my career journey until now, just looking back to when I was first considering transferring to Design Computing, it does feel a little bit surreal. As you know, I started in a completely different degree that I didn’t like and I was initially very unsure about the career opportunities with UX — even though that preconception is entirely false. Because there are so many opportunities within the UX space, especially with the industry booming in the last few years.
However, back then, I always had in the back of my head, I had the impossible dream of working for Google. So from being unsure about my future, transferring universities and just taking the steps of gaining experience from different industries to finally being here, I would say that it’s kind of surreal!
RZ: Definitely, it is such an outstanding achievement!
SB: Within your overall experience from working at Atlassian to Google now, is there a favourite project you have worked on as a designer?
PH: I will say one of the most memorable projects was when I was in the Bitbucket team, we worked on an integration with a security software company called SNYK, and they were based in Tel-Aviv in Israel. The opportunity to present to people from a different company, representing my team at Atlassian, hosting co-design workshops, collaborating with product managers and designers across two different companies, and having to manage different time zones. All these challenges — definitely memorable.
SB: Is it because of the challenges you had to face and overcome that this project became more memorable than the rest?
PH: Mostly because of the opportunity to work with people from another company. It is pretty interesting to see how differently people work.
SUEDE and Design Communities
RZ: So for everyone reading, Pat’s been a great help to SUEDE as he’s been acting as our advisor, and rightfully so as he’s one of the founding members of SUEDE at USYD. So Pat, what inspired you to help form a society like SUEDE?
PH: Before helping to start the society, my original vision was to fill in the gap between students and industry. During that time, the social life at the faculty was very segregated between each grade. And nobody knew about the available career opportunities that were open to us. Creating a student society could be something that could tie everyone into a single community together. I remember going around to get that 20 signatures required to start the society — and organising things like the launch party, bbq and the very first AGM.
I left the society early on due to the direction SUEDE was heading at first. The other members wanted to be more like a pro-bono agency doing free work for clients, which clashed with my vision of integrating students and industry. However it’s so encouraging that over the past year, SUEDE has really refocused to what I was originally envisioning in 2017. It is really awesome to see how successful SUEDE has been in that space. So huge kudos to you all.
RZ: What is the importance of being part of a design community? As a designer, what are your tips on networking and finding the right connections?
PH: Whether it is specifically SUEDE or other design communities, there’s a tonne out there like IxDA and Sydney Designers, a meetup that I volunteer for at the moment. I feel like as a student, it is essential to be involved in the design community in the industry. The design community in Sydney is really small and there have been so many instances where people who I have randomly added on LinkedIn, or people I just happen to meet at meetups or conferences, I run into them again during student society events as panelists — which was pretty bizarre. And plenty more experiences like that.
The Sydney UX Design Community is small, so just being involved in meetups and societies will definitely be to your advantage.
RZ: As a designer, what are your tips for networking and finding the right connection?
PH: I will say two things — first is just as a student, try to attend as many industry meetups as possible, even outside of the University. Meet new people, chat with the organisers, add them on LinkedIn. On LinkedIn itself, try to add people at companies you want to work at and recruiters, even if you are not necessarily applying right now. Many of them might reject your connection, but a majority of them will accept.
As you are involved in any industry activities that get shared on LinkedIn and you get tagged in certain things, the more you will be exposed to recruiters at these prospective companies that you want to work at. It is like putting your name out for yourself before it comes to actually applying for jobs.
Golden Tips for Design Computing Students
SB: How important is self-teaching? Does University prepare you for everything?
PH: After my experience of coaching students from different universities and tutoring for Design Computing and Masters of Interaction Design, I still think that the content that we learn at Design Computing is the best in Sydney at the moment. I have previously attended paid professional workshops and certifications and I still think Design Computing is almost just as great. Where USYD falls really short is the industry awareness part.
In terms of self-teaching, that is an important skill to have. I have self-taught through reading design books like Design of Everyday Things and Don’t make me think — these are the books that every designer must read.
SB: Thoughts on getting online certifications- is it worth it?
PH: I would say for USYD Design students, I do not recommend it. It’s a waste of time because — a lot of the stuff you learn in certifications, the foundations are already being taught in your degree.
However, for students who are not studying design (e.g. business or computer science students) but want to transition into UX can really benefit from online certifications. For them, the two that I recommend are Google and Salesforce UX Certifications.
Once you are working full-time as a designer, I would recommend attending conferences such as Nielsen Norman Group. These are helpful for people who are already working full time and need specialised knowledge.
However, a degree is more than good enough for design computing and interaction design students; it is better to spend the time elsewhere.
SB: There is a common stigma about designers being asked to work for free. What are your opinions on that?
PH: Definitely against, spend time on your portfolio or applying for opportunities instead. Unless it is part of a unit or is a volunteering opportunity for NGOs and charities, I would not shy away from that. But please don’t do it for businesses.
I also have mixed opinions about freelancing while you are studying. As a student, you don’t have professional experience working with things like Design Systems or managing stakeholders. I would focus more on trying to get internships, extracurricular opportunities or working on a portfolio.
RZ: For all design computing students trying to build their portfolios, what are your tips on maintaining an online portfolio on platforms like Dribbble or Behance?
PH: I will say starting by building your portfolio on Behance and Notion is good enough for students, especially if you don’t have a website portfolio and need to put something together real quick/ Eventually, I do recommend building your own website using Squarespace or Webflow.
You want to make sure your portfolio is really concise. Aim for 3 projects, and ensure they are of high quality and are comprehensive and include visual elements, rough works, and your process. Use a table of contents and bold headings to make your case studies more scannable.
Keep in mind that you will have 3 different personas looking at your portfolio, a recruiter (who will scan your portfolio within 2 minutes), a design reviewer (who will spend more time going through the details of your processes), and an interviewer (to whom you will be presenting your portfolio to).
So make sure to optimise your portfolio to all three scenarios.
RZ: Any tips, notes, comments, or words of wisdom for design computing students?
PH: There is just so much opportunity available — not just internships but also extracurricular programs, meetups, and student awards. There is so much stuff out there. For design computing and interaction design students, I would recommend trying out and applying for as many things as possible. You never know, that rushed application you did at 12am might actually end up getting you into a wonderful opportunity.
SB: Well, that’s all the questions we have today. We’d like to thank you Pat again for taking the time and answering all of our questions in such depth and detail!
Interviewers
Interviewer, Editor & SUEDE Vice President Internal | Shrawani Bhattarai
Shrawani Bhattarai is a computer science student and Vice President Internal for SUEDE, the Sydney University Experience Designers. She professionally works as a Web Developer, one of her works including the official SUEDE website.
Interviewer, Editor & SUEDE Multimedia Director | Rebecca Zhang
Rebecca Zhang is a third-year Design Computing student majoring in Business Analytics and is also the Multimedia Director for SUEDE, the Sydney University Experience Designers. Often found dabbling on Figma designing all sorts of things and binging a variety of TV shows, she is always keen on learning and appreciating the design behind objects and experiences.
SUEDE is a society driven by students passionate about designing everyday interactions, services, and experiences. SUEDE aims to bridge the gap between theory-based education and practical industry-based learning. We help students be better prepared for the workforce while also creating a community centered around design.
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