UX intern and only UX person at a fintech company—how do I figure out what I should be doing?
Hi everyone,
I’m a UX research intern at a fintech/wealth management company (20-30people), and I’m also the only UX professional on the team. Most of the people I work with are engineers, and financial professionals, and there isn’t a UX manager or senior designer/researcher to guide me.
To make things more challenging, I don’t come from a finance background. I’m learning a lot about financial advisors, investment accounts, custodians, compliance, and AI-powered workflows as I go. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether something is a UX problem, a business constraint, or simply how the financial industry works.
I’m honestly feeling a bit overwhelmed because I don’t always know what I should be working on. People are supportive and answer questions when I ask, but no one is really assigning UX work or helping me prioritize.
I worry that I’m missing opportunities to add value simply because I don’t know what I don’t know.
I want to make a strong impression and be useful, but I’m afraid of spending time on things that aren’t important.
Right now I find myself wondering:
1. How do you identify high-impact UX work when no one is telling you what to do?
2. What would you focus on if you were the first and only UX person?
3. How do you learn enough about a complex domain like finance to make meaningful UX recommendations?
4. How do you build trust with engineering, product, and subject matter experts when you’re still an intern?
5. Because we’re a small company, I can’t always do “traditional” UX research. Financial advisors are busy and difficult to schedule for interviews, and we don’t have the budget for user testing platforms or research tools. What are some effective, low-cost ways to gather meaningful user insights in this situation? In fact there’s no template or documentation for anything that has been done before I joined…
6. What are some projects that consistently provide value, even if no one explicitly asks for them?
How do you avoid feeling like you’re just waiting for work to appear?
7. For those of you who’ve been the only UX person — or worked in a domain like finance, healthcare, or enterprise software where the learning curve is steep—what do you wish you had done sooner?
I’d really appreciate any advice, frameworks, or examples of how you found meaningful work on your own. I want to be proactive and contribute as much as I can, but I’m still learning both UX in practice and the financial domain at the same time. Quick note: I did my masters in UX and I am very knowledgeable about UX/R principles and methodologies. Most of the tasks I have been given rely on benchmarking to begin with but everything that’s benchmark worthy are blocked by a paywall or secure login. But my manager is not really giving me anything to work with. She’s not UX Professional but she’s very knowledgeable
Thanks in advance!