Fall 2021 DNC Technology Internship
Now accepting applications for fall 2021.
For fall 2021, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is seeking a UX and product design intern with a demonstrated interest in Democratic political work to join the DNC’s Technology team.
The internship program will run from September 13 to December 3, and will be conducted remotely due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The deadline for applications is August 27. The DNC Internship Program offers a $3,000 stipend. A computer for your work is provided during the time of the internship. Housing is not provided. During the upcoming term, interns are expected to work 20 hours per week.
In a DNC Tech internship, you’ll be paired with a mentor to guide you in your internship experience. You’ll interact with many different people on the team and have opportunities to meet with people across the Tech team and some other DNC departments, depending on your interests. You will also get to work with product managers and engineers to learn how software features get designed, built, and shipped. You’ll be part of the fall 2021 DNC intern class, and will occasionally participate in activities and DNC support with interns from other DNC teams (virtually).
As an intern, you might:
- Work on one to several internal data and web products that directly support the DNC’s roadmap
- Synthesize findings from user surveys and share insights with the team
- Collect user feedback via interviews and questionnaires
- Translate user research findings into possible low-fidelity solutions
- Document user flows (how users go through processes when they use software)
- Use Figma to create wireframes
- Prototype proposed solutions with the internal team and end users to validate ideas
- Develop work to include in your design portfolio
- This internship will provide hands-on design work experience (and some politics experience), and expose you to cross-functional teamwork.
This might be a good internship fit for you if:
- You have a strong interest in making technology usable and accessible for people and learning about UX and product design
- You like to think about how to make processes clearer and easier for people
- You have strong communication skills and enjoy talking to people with many different perspectives and work experiences
- You are organized, ready to handle multiple tasks at once, and ready to work remotely with a distributed team
- You are comfortable organizing complex information, and you are ready and excited to learn more
- You are a student or recent graduate (bootcamps included) with experience in design and/or UX, and you are interested in civic tech
- You are motivated to get Democrats elected up and down the ballot
It’s great if you have some experience with, or interest in, some of these:
- Figma
- Google Suite: Sheets, Slides, Forms, etc
- Building personas and user flows using flow/diagramming tools like LucidChart
- Interviewing and/or gathering feedback, and taking notes on conversations
- Political volunteering or organizing
- VAN/Votebuilder
- Questionnaire design and/or survey research
- Software engineering or programming of any kind (for context)
- We do not expect, want, or need you to have all of those experiences!
In your application:
- Indicate why you are interested in the intersection of technology and Democratic politics, and specifically doing UX work. We want to figure out if we can support you well and if this internship suits your goals.
- Please tell us about your experiences and/or interests, but don’t worry about having specific experience with the tools we use -- as long as you’re willing to learn new things and ask questions!
- Share your portfolio website or any examples of diagrams or work you’ve made, or anything else that you would like to share that is relevant to UX work, if you have such things that you can easily share online (please include a link in your application if applicable)
About the Tech team
The Tech team is a small team that provides the technology and infrastructure used by candidates and organizers in all 50 states and all 3,413 counties across the United States to analyze data, organize campaigns, raise money, and of course, support and elect Democrats across the country. We’re building infrastructure for the future of our country.
We prioritize building accessible technology and work to provide clear, high-quality experiences for users of our tools across the Democratic political ecosystem and the country.
We are a remote team (even when there isn’t a pandemic). Our team spans more than 15 states and four time zones and our team members have a big variety of personal/work backgrounds.
The Product team is part of the Tech team, but you’ll meet folks across the Technology team and across the DNC, while you work within the Product and Design team!
You can learn more about us at our Medium https://medium.com/democratictech and home page https://democrats.org/dnc-tech/.
Thank you for your interest in the fall 2021 internship program at the DNC!