Jun 2025 - Sep 2025
Summer @ Cisco
Context
Internship
June 2025 - Sep 2025
Role
Product Management Intern
Team
Webex Apps & AI
During my internship at Cisco, I focused on two main initiatives: leading the product discovery and prototyping for a new AI-first product and designing workflow improvements to accelerate rapid discovery and prototyping.
With my background in design and research, my manager trusted me to take ownership of product vision, strategy, and design while collaborating closely with software engineers in the business unit and co-interns who deepened my understanding of machine learning and full-stack development. It was the first time I got to apply my skills at a global enterprise scale, and I walked away with an invaluable, hands-on look at the entire product development pipeline.
Huge shoutouts to my manager, Ashish, my mentors, Aseem and Tina, as well as my co-interns Kavyan, Atul, and Viraj for making my summer at Cisco an unforgettable experience!
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Weeks 1-2: First Time Experience Usability Testing
Week 3: New Product Discovery & User Stories
Week 4-7: Design, Develop, Deployed AI Dashboard MVP Prototype
Week 8: Legacy Product Refresh Strategy Proposal
Weeks 9-10: WebexOne Demo
Weeks 11-12: Workflow Demo Videos & AMA
The Highlights
Forever missing the gorgeous SF campus✨
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First Time Experience Usability Testing
Weeks 1-2
To identify friction areas in a first-time user’s experience, I conducted 10 small-scale guerrilla usability tests, focusing on the participant’s experience across different devices.
I used quantitative and qualitative data analysis strategies to identify the high frequency and high priority friction points. Not only was this a great way for me to get familiar with the product I would be working on, but I was able to connect with senior PMs who reached out to discuss my findings and potential solutions.
4
New Product Discovery & User Stories
Week 3
North Star UX Concept
I started by interviewing knowledge workers to understand their biggest productivity challenges, then mapped out a product roadmap using the MoSCoW (Must-Have, Should-Have, Could-Have, Won’t-Have) method to prioritize features. After feedback from our UX leadership team, I refined the plan and designed our North Star UX concept—a clear vision of where the experience should ultimately go.
In tandem to refining our UX design, I used Figma Make to generate a fully interactable front-end that could be seamlessly integrated into the backend the engineers had already begun working on. Being able to rapidly generate new front-end designs every day was integral in helping us move rapidly, especially to do quick and dirty internal usability sessions.
5
Deployed AI Dashboard MVP Prototype
Weeks 4-7
To bring Collaboration Canvas to life, our team built a working MVP in just 4 weeks using an AI-driven toolchain. By directly importing our Figma Make designs into Cursor/Windsurf/Copilot, I was able to rapidly iterate with Cisco design components while my team wired up real data from Outlook and Webex APIs. Using an internal LLM proxy, we automated email parsing, priority classification, and action recommendations, all inside a modular architecture that could scale to new data sources with minimal friction.
6
Workflow Demo Videos & AMA
Weeks 11-12
As a part of my handoff, I created a series of demo videos that showcased the strategies and tools I used during the internship. I also hosted an Ask Me Anything, where I discussed these workflow suggestions and opened up the dialogue within the team of over 150 product managers and compared notes from our own experiences.
