Internship Overview:

The Home Depot’s Summer Internship program offers college students an opportunity to develop leadership skills and gain hands on experience in a corporate environment. During an 11 week period from May 13th to July 26th 2024, interns will be assigned to a functional team such as Supply Chain, Marketing, e-commerce, Technology, Finance, Operations, Merchandising, Outside Sales & Services, Human Resources, etc. Interns will learn more about our retail business and our corporate offices while having the opportunity to work on a pre-assigned project that impacts the function they are supporting. Additionally, interns participate in networking and development activities that set them up for success as they build their careers.

Description of the major/subject area:

The Product Management Intern works hand in hand, and is often paired with, the other members of a product team (PM, UX, Engineering) to find the fastest way to achieve value around business needs. The role focuses on assessing customer needs and performing qualitative and quantitative research to discover feature ideas and validate them for a designated product. The Product Management Intern should aim to deliver business value to drive sales, improve efficiency, and improve customer satisfaction through the creation of quality products. The Product Management Intern will work closely with more experienced Product Managers to gain proficiency in value creation, prioritization, defining MVP, user story construction, and overall product management. The focus of our Product internship is on learning day-to-day operations and obtaining an overall comprehension of business for The Home Depot.

Qualified applicants may be pursuing a Bachelor of Science/Business Administration with a concentration in Business, computer science, information systems, or other business/technology disciplines.

Tasks, responsibilities, and key accountabilities include:

Strategy & Planning:

• Listens to and knows the customers of the product; gains understanding of customer needs to help determine minimum viable product (MVP) as well as future needs

• Translates business goals and end user needs into product strategy; communicates direction and product priorities to the development team, other matrixed teams, and third-party partners

• Identifies goals, metrics, and analytics to determine product value; continually make recommendations and refinements to the product backlog based on learnings

• Manages and grooms the product backlog; makes future decisions based on the value that will be delivered

• Partners with Finance to understand financial needs and assists in the creation of business plans for new opportunities

• Monitors research as well as the competitive landscape to recommend the best solutions and ensure that products remain or become best in class

• Ensures that product directions balance both the user needs and business goals of driving sales, improving efficiency and enhancing customer satisfaction

• Formulates, tests and refines assumptions and hypotheses through user research and testing

• Creates, prioritizes, and accepts user stories; incorporates them into release planning

• Makes product decisions that drive value on a daily basis

• Identifies and considers pros, cons, issues, obstacles, dependencies, and value associated with features and enhancements

• Participates in standups, iteration planning sessions, product demos, and retrospectives

• Condenses complex technical concepts into non-technical language for stakeholders

• Fosters collaboration with team members (Engineering, UX, etc.) to drive value and identify and resolve impediments

• Acts as a coach and proponent of modern software development principles

• Advocates for the end user and stakeholder by becoming a domain expert, empathizing with and understanding user needs

• Works with the product team to continuously assess progress, disseminate lessons learned, and understand next steps

• Manages cross functional team and stakeholder expectations to execute on product strategy, provides education to requestors to determine prioritization based on tangible benefits and/or user experience

• Participates in and contributes to learning activities around modern software design and development core practices (communities of practice)

Preferred Qualifications:

• Currently pursuing a relevant degree

• 0-1 years of relevant work experience

• Exposure to modern software development product management practices and agile methodologies, specifically the extreme programming (XP) principles of paired programming, test driven development, and continuous deployment

• Experience working in a fast paced, fluid environment where priorities shift on a regular basis

• Experience communicating with and influencing functional and technical team members at all levels in the organization

• Interest in working as part of a collaborative, cross-functional, modern software design and development team

• Exposure to creating, prioritizing, and accepting user stories

• Experience conducting user research and testing to understand needs

• Exposure to identifying goals, metrics, and analytics to measure product value

Description of Roles: (Career paths that utilize this skillset full-time)

At The Home Depot, our associates always have room to move up and explore new opportunities. After the Internship, here are some examples of early career roles for interns with a background in Product Management:

• Associate Product Manager

• Product Manager