why emirates
Thinking
curated work
the future
ayesha patel
pun intended
Application for Manager, Digital Product Design
Designing excellence for a
world class airline
This is my quest to build experiences for millions of journeys
Emirates isn’t just a fancy destination
Who wouldn’t like a job at “Emirates”, right? Well, for me its more than that...
Excellence and persistence
Perfection is impossible, but in the pursuit of it, I can attain excellence. Living by those words, I have achieved performance excellence accolades at every workplace. Similarly, I need a workplace that brings out the best of me too. And Emirates being an industry leader fits right in.
I have applied twice in the last three years and been unsuccessful.
Aviation angle
The industry has always fascinated me. I have even considered getting a Private Pilot License for fun. It seems like the perfect package: from engineering to hospitality, it harbors everything! So many systems interacting with one another and my favorite challenge would be physical factors affecting digital experiences.
Hospitality and the age of AI
Emirates has always impressed me with the hospitality layer that other premium airlines still can’t compete with. I believe it is because you treat experiences without compromise. Keeping it at priority without the “that’s-all-we-can-do” and innovating in times of crisis. Something tells me that people who come up with those ideas really love their jobs. Oh, and I would love to see how AI plays a role here.
A preview of my Emirates dream
Every little girl wants to fly, I want to fly better and this is how I can...
Understanding
Being a large globally functioning enterprise, Emirates Product Design team must be sitting at the center of a lot of other teams like backend, security, frontend, E2E solutions and more (and not in a comfortable way) There’s got to be a ton of restrictions, dependencies and problem solving on a systems level. A lot of trade offs to be made by analyzing each outcome. Restructuring of priorities with PMs and running everything harmoniously will be a challenge I’d love to sign up for (and more)
Challenges
According to my understanding, there could be 3 high level challenges to work on as a Manager of Product Design:
Consistency and continuity in various digital experiences. Like bringing ICE, check-in kiosks, mobile app, etc in one smooth flow
Planning for physical interruptions in digital experiences
Designing for all. You do not serve 1, 2 or even 20 personas. These experiences will be for people from around the world with their cultural contexts and more.
Scalable systems
While AI can step in and do a lot of tasks that we designers used to (more UI related) I want to consciously position myself as a strategic systems thinker. Because that is what I’ve always been better at. I’m detail oriented not only with the visuals, but also with assessing experiences for friction. Having a foresight for error handling and managing edge & corner cases is just one of my specialties.
Click below to see my vision at a glance.
Process
Every organization and design team has their own process. Sometimes, it is tried, tested and works. However, with changing times there could be room for development. I live in the sweet spot of not re-inventing the wheel but also innovating with times.
As a Manager at Emirates, I shall observe and asses the existing processes and systems to mark the pain points and fix them as efficiently as possible.
Leadership
As an AIESEC Alum, I not only have the global exposure, it is ingrained in me to think like a leader from the very beginning of my career. Since then, I have mentored 50+ designers and lead teams to achieve and over-achieve targets in corporate settings.
Which I plan on continuing at Emirates for sky is not the limit, but a playground.
My curated work
Just a couple (of many) projects I worked on end to end.
Revamping the e& Business Dashboard
The e& Business portal can be described as a SaaS platform for its business customers to buy, manage and engage with e& products and services for their companies and employees.
Simplifying order summary on checkout
Creating a consistent format and experience for every purchase on the e& business portal. Edge cases consist of all categories of products and its services, discounts and offers, types of charges etc.
Let's shape the future together
Hope my application gets noticed in the pile of thousands of others
AI disclaimer: None of the content above is AI generated because no GenAI tool can as accurately capture my thoughts as I can. Although it did help with preliminary industry research for this application -content marked as “used AI for this”
Ayesha Patel
ayesha@patelness.in
Dubai, UAE