Category
Culture and People

Meet Hannah Park: Railz's Product Designer

December 14, 2021
hannah park railz product designer

Railz is always hiring amazing people to join our fast-scaling fintech team. Today, meet Hannah Park, at Railz’s Product Designer!

Hannah Park is the Product Designer at Railz. Hannah has a desire to enhance the digital experience one pixel and one flow at a time. With a background in graphic design, she has dabbled in working on various projects from magazines, brochures, branding, web design and more. She believes in seamless yet pivotal experiences when it comes to design and is excited to continue applying this mindset for Railz.

Railz: Tell us about your career so far, Hannah. How did you get to where you are today?

I’ve always been interested in arts and design since I was little and applied to various university programs that had to do with design. I ended up attending York University/Sheridan College Program in Design and graduated with a specialized honours and bachelors degree. I learned about the foundation of design thinking and experimented with an array of materials and methodologies–from print, web, branding, book binding, and photography. Upon graduating, I was able to gain internship experiences as a graphic designer as well as various freelancing opportunities and found myself landing a product design internship at Shopify. From there, I fell in love with the strategic process of user-centred design thinking and problem solving and wanted to continue pursuing product design as a career. 

How did you end up in the tech and startup world? What excites you most about financial technology (fintech)?

It’s actually my first experience being a part of the tech and startup world here and it’s been an incredible experience so far. Being a designer at Railz allows me to partake in various projects, and learn about the industry directly from such a diverse and talented team. It’s definitely been a big learning curve for me stepping my foot into the fintech world, but it’s been very rewarding seeing how Railz solutions can simplify complex financial processes for companies of all sizes.

What’s a day in the life of a designer like?

Though my day can look quite different based on what priorities are set for that week or day, we always start off with a morning team sync to update each other on what we have set for that day. I could be either working on mocking up prototypes, updating the design system, leading or documenting user testing interviews, or even designing some graphic work for our sales and marketing team.

What inspired you to pursue product design?

I was always interested in tactile design and craft projects, so I thought my career path would involve much more creative processes, until I had my first experience dipping my toes into the realm of product design. I did not have much idea as to what it was until my internship, where I realized how purposeful, strategic, and user-centered it was. 

What's your favourite part of being a designer?

It’s very rewarding knowing that even the small and almost subtle differences can make a significant impact on our customer’s experience. And it’s amazing knowing that any design solution we come up with will always be a work in progress in hopes of improving that experience to the best it can be. Being able to partake in being intentional with those design decisions is probably my favourite part about being a designer. 

Talk about accessibility in design: why is it important and how do you implement it at Railz?

Being accessible ensures that the products we design are accessible to everyone. It reduces any barriers that may limit people with disabilities from being able to access our products. At Railz, we try to implement accessible design by meeting Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). We aim to be intentional and inclusive with all of our products, whether it be choosing the right colour contrasts, or providing a clear content hierarchy to accommodate all of our potential users. 

What is your favourite thing about working at Railz?

I absolutely love the drive we have at Railz. We strive to have the goal of building the foundation for the largest financial network and it is evident in everyone’s work ethic and willingness to help each other. 

What aspect of the Railz product did you love working on most?

There have been a lot of projects I loved working on at Railz. One of the main ones was being able to work on the design system, where I was able to help simplify the design and development process by creating various components for the Railz Dashboard. Another one was designing the financial summary page, where we show an example of the possibilities of what our customers can do with our financial data API. Designing the widgets to visualize financial data was a challenging yet fun project. 

Do you have any advice for someone interested in joining fintech, a startup, or Railz?

Being new to the field, I know it can be quite intimidating at first when you feel like there is so much to learn. But that is a hurdle you can overcome when you realize you are surrounded by a passionate fintech team who are more than willing to provide endless resources and tips for you to get you running. If you’re looking for opportunities to work at Railz, check out our careers page.

Director of Marketing

Samantha Lloyd is the Director of Marketing at Railz. We're building the largest financial data network to support the future of finance. She has a decade of experience building organic growth, brand, and digital marketing for startups and technology companies. In her free time, you can find Sam SCUBA diving, snorkelling, paddle boarding, and jet skiing.