Pitt senior Heather Dillman (SCI '22) recently completed her experience as a Technology and Innovation intern for banking giant PNC Bank! Follow along as Heather reflects on her internship, what PNC has taught her about innovation, and what advice she has for those interested in pursuing innovation and entrepreneurship!
How did you get involved with innovation and entrepreneurship while at Pitt?
The fall of my junior year in 2020, I had the pleasure of taking Babs Carryer's “Innovation & Entrepreneurship in IT” class after wanting to expand my ever-growing interest in business, specifically about the intersection of business and technology. While taking her class, I learned so much about the importance of innovation & entrepreneurship to society, the benefits to my future career, and the process of taking an original idea you have for a product, bringing it to market, and ultimately being able to turn it into a reality.
In addition, that same semester I attended the Big Idea Center's Big Idea Blast after hearing how expansive of an opportunity it would be to discover and propose a solution to an unsolved problem in the marketplace. In that event I introduced my business idea “Groomerr”, an app which aims to build connections with groomers and provide exceptional service for pet owners. My idea stemmed from day-to-day conversations with friends and family, how much the needs of their pets means to them, and wanting there to be an easier way to find a local groomer that could take care of special services for their pets. The premise is to create a simple, mobile service to use in order to be connected with local pet groomers, providing more exposure to small businesses and ultimately building trust and confidence in the services they offer. During Big Idea Blast, I learned the importance of identifying potential sources of funding for a project, how to pitch this my idea to different audiences, and received incredible feedback on my final presentation to further improve my idea!
Why did you to choose to pursue a technology & innovation internship with PNC?
Ever since I got involved with the Computer Science Club (CSC) as well as Women in Computer Science (WiCS) at Pitt and Pitt's organizations as a whole constantly encouraging us to seek out opportunities to get industry experience while attending college, I really worked hard on applying myself to get that exposure I’ve been wanting. My goal has been to gain real-world experience while also incorporating my applied knowledge from SCI as well as the coursework in my Information Science and Digital Narrative & Interactive Design program.
This was my first-ever internship this past summer with PNC, and they have always been a company I’ve found to be so engaging for the people and providing such a welcome, diverse, and inclusive community culture that is unique of its own. I first became interested in PNC during my freshman year as I participated in hackathon ventures where I was introduced to the idea of innovation, how technology is such a major part of society today, and how we can collaborate with others to “achieve great things.” PNC’s Technology & Innovation internship in particular really stood out to me because I knew it wasn’t going to be your typical internship experience. Not only would I be able to expand upon my growing business interests, but I could potentially work with a major fintech company and utilize my current knowledge of techniques and tools I’ve learned in my classes to deliver efficient, effective solutions for the fifth largest bank in the industry! It gave me so much hope to have finally found something that would greatly benefit my interests in obtaining industry experience and learning how to provide the best service for customers and clients, as well as meeting the technological needs of the company.
What sorts of projects did you work on as a PNC Technology & Innovation intern?
I was a part of the ACP/ATP Sudo team in Asset Management where our goal was to provide insight and control over the digital experience of our customers in order to achieve and enhance client satisfaction. I helped manage and update the AMG Portal Tools site where it allows PNC employees to administer Wealth Online, their customer-facing site. My main project on that site, which was broken down into multiple, smaller parts, ended up being the creation of an entirely new administration page for the newly-rebranded Private Banking portal app. I worked on developing the page using various applications in both the front-end and back-end (essentially full-stack development) to build and design my project. I routed the page correctly through Angular, a platform and framework used for building single-page client applications with HTML, and TypeScript. I displayed the appropriate information using arrays in Java on Eclipse, as well as editing the page to make it look cleaner and more user-friendly in CSS while using Visual Studio Code. My goal was to create this static admin page to simply display the roles, permissions, and feature flags that product-support admins take advantage of and use to further build our customer-facing site and support wealth advisors/admins. I also made sure it would be visible in mobile view along with desktop so that there would be a larger variety of devices that could be used when navigating this page appropriately.
What was the most rewarding thing about your experience working at PNC?
The most rewarding thing about my experience working at PNC was the overall community culture that I cannot stress enough. Not only were those on my team with years of experience so willing to take time out of their daily work to help me out if I ever had any questions about my projects, but the other interns and associates I have engaged with throughout my time with PNC have been so kind and supportive when talking about our goals, achievements, and project work as well. Everyone is so caring and passionate about the work they do and the connections they make in their day-to-day roles that it brought me so much joy to learn about and experience all of these positive experiences throughout my time at PNC.
Not only that, but the various tech talks and financial presentations I attended really expanded my knowledge and interest in the banking industry, as well as the important initiatives PNC stands for, including diversity and inclusion which is a major part of the company. One thing that especially stood out to me was something that Greg, the product manager on my team, said to me before my depart on July 30th: “There is always so much to learn. It’s important you keep being who you are and expressing your interest in learning not just about PNC, but what your future career has to offer for you and how you can make a big impact wherever you end up.” This really made a profound impact on me and what I value: true teamwork and growing support.
Additionally, it was a rewarding and nice surprise when I was selected to be one of the PNC intern spotlights of the year which would be showcased on News Online (their company intranet) because it really showed how much of an impact I was making, as well as the strides I would continue to make wherever I end up as long as I continue demonstrating my drive and “thirst for learning” and helping others.
One last thing that I feel was really rewarding about PNC: they have a "Grow Up Great" program for their employees and interns. It is an online charity that connects individual donors with classrooms in need, collaborating with “DonorsChoose” to team up together and help teachers obtain the quality resources and experiences they need for their students in public pre-K, public charter, and Head Start classrooms across the country. I was given a $50 electronic gift code to help support classrooms across the country in need, which I chose to put towards a preK-2nd grade program in Alabama. The teacher, Ms. Shelia, was trying to raise money for more productive and engaging group times on a carpet which would give flexible seating for the students’ own essential space. With the help of my donation, Ms. Sheila's carpet became fully funded! It was so nice to see how much of a difference we can make in other people’s lives and how much it meant for this teacher to have the appropriate funding to reach her goal so promptly for her students.
What were some challenges you faced during your experience and how did you overcome them?
I have to admit, it was rather difficult to continue to actively support the Agile team that I was a part of during the entirety of my internship, especially with it being virtual. Sometimes I felt a burden when I felt lost navigating the back-end of our server, or if I was just ultimately stuck on how to start a user story I was assigned to. Plus it was hard to keep up with attending the essential meetings of daily standups, sprint planning, and backlog refinements, just to name a few.
But learning how to balance and manage all of this as well as put time aside for trainings and attending crucial presentations was a major part of what I learned during my time with PNC as well as not being afraid of asking questions as that is what my team is there for – to help each other out. In addition, “it’s important not to spread yourself too thin” as my mentor, Madelyn, mentioned to me. There will always be another day to continue with the project where you left off, and not everything is meant to be done in just one day.
What has PNC taught you about innovation?
PNC has taught me the crucial importance of creating, developing, and implementing a new product that would not only positively benefit the company, but (most importantly) its customers and clients as well. It is critical to serve customers and clients in way that they should be treated, aiming for the utmost satisfaction, as well as improving efficiency and effectiveness in how products are delivered. Attention to detail is crucial and although deciding on every button, word, color choice, menu option, etc. may seem small to some, it's actually an essential, major part of making the overall user experience the best it can be. PNC also believes in continual improvement so they are constantly updating their products and fixing issues as efficiently as possible.
It's also important to keep in mind the security standards of PNC's products, as they want to make sure that what they're creating for their customers won’t be compromised by anyone else outside of the company. PNC truly wants to make their customers' experience as comfortable and accessible as possible so that they will trust and continue to build confidence in the company to provide the appropriate services for them.
What advice do you have for students interested in innovation and entrepreneurship?
Don't be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone! Go out, expand your current knowledge, and put yourself out there! Building connections is crucial and I feel that this is a major part of where I got to be where I am today. PNC as well as Pitt have really drilled into my mind the value of building these strong connections. Even if it's just 10 minutes out of their day, people are excited to come and talk to you about their experiences in a certain field or industry.
For me personally, I was afraid at first to enter the finance industry as I didn’t know where to even begin to learn more about it. However, PNC actually made it such a smooth transition for me, and it turned out that many of the other interns had no previous knowledge either too, which was comforting.
As my mother always says: “It's important to learn and build yourself up if you have a growth mindset”. Don’t be afraid to show your eagerness to learn and start something new! Showing that you actually want to learn, be confident in the work you do, and develop as an individual will help you improve not only your professional skills, but soft skills as well when working with other people on a team, collaborating, and sharing ideas amongst each other to develop products or start a business. So, I encourage you to take the leap – you won’t regret it!