UX Design Intern
ROLE
Product Design Manager
Product Design Mentors
Cboe Clear Membership
Cboe Clear Leadership
Software Engineers
TEAM
June - August 2026
10 Weeks
TIMELINE
ORGS
Cboe Global Markets > Software Engineering > Web Team > UX Design Team
BACKGROUND
Cboe operates global markets and clearing infrastructure across equities, options, futures, FX, and other asset classes. Cboe Clear U.S. (CCUS) is its CFTC-registered derivatives clearing organization, purpose-built to provide institutional-grade clearing infrastructure for emerging markets and currently serving as the central counterparty for certain derivatives traded on Cboe Futures Exchange. CCUS currently supports 8 approved clearing members and manages critical post-trade functions including risk, collateral, and settlement.
Problem Space
CCUS’s onboarding and recurring due-diligence workflows relied on document- and spreadsheet-based processes, creating fragmented client experiences and manual internal work across data entry, tracking, and file management.
Solution
I conducted ethnographic research, heuristic analyses, and user interviews to map workflows and identify operational gaps. I translated findings into workflow models, feature matrices, data-tracking frameworks, and wireframes that informed product strategy for a more scalable onboarding experience.
IMPACT
20
stakeholder interviews
13
platforms audited
8
cross-functional teams engaged
8
research + strategy artifacts
While the specifics of my internship are under a NDA, here are my key contributions:
Mapped the end-to-end Cboe Clear onboarding ecosystem, analyzing 12 interconnected platforms and workflows to surface redundant work, fragmented information, and cross-functional handoff gaps that shaped opportunities for a more centralized experience.
Synthesized 15+ stakeholder interviews and workflow analyses into a structured product strategy, translating operational pain points into prioritized requirements, feature opportunities, and role-specific portal architecture for a future onboarding platform.
Developed a data-tracking framework for onboarding performance, defining measures for phase-level duration, processing versus waiting time, client inactivity, and delay ownership to create a foundation for identifying and quantifying workflow bottlenecks.
Presented research and product direction to CCUS, UX, and Software Engineering leadership, using workflow models, requirements, feature matrices, and wireframes to align stakeholders and establish a foundation for continued product development.
Beyond her strong work product, Molly was collaborative, thoughtful, and incredibly easy to work with. She conducted interviews across Membership, Risk, and Clearing Leadership, reviewed extensive documentation, workflows, Confluence pages, client-facing materials, regulatory resources, and the systems that support the onboarding process. Throughout the project, she was diligent in validating requirements, seeking clarification when needed, and ensuring she had a complete understanding of both the user experience and underlying business processes. Her attention to detail, curiosity, and professionalism made her a valuable partner throughout the project, and we truly appreciated her contributions to this important initiative.
— Eloise Kucia, Cboe Clear U.S. Membership
Molly used her expertise to proactively suggest alternative implementation approaches to the project and raised the recommendations with clarity and conviction. That is the initiative we seek at all levels within Cboe and it was great to see that shine through in Molly's internship.
— Lauren Arbid, VP Cboe Clear U.S.
REFLECTIONS & TAKEAWAYS
Complexity Requires Different Perspectives
Membership, Risk, Compliance, Engineering, and Leadership each interacted with onboarding differently. Comparing these perspectives helped me see that “the workflow” was not one experience—it was a network of connected experiences with different goals, constraints, and responsibilities.
Measure Before You Optimize
Research surfaced plenty of delays and manual work, but the existing process did not consistently capture where time was being spent or who was responsible for delays. That led me to propose a tracking framework that could establish a baseline before redesign decisions are evaluated.
The Workflow Is the Product
In a process spanning email, documents, file storage, reviews, and handoffs, the experience cannot be improved by redesigning a single screen. Understanding how information moves between people and systems became just as important as designing the interface itself.
Working on this project at Cboe was my first experience designing for financial infrastructure, and it taught me how much of the experience exists beyond the interface itself. I became especially interested in the people, handoffs, and systems that shape how complex workflows actually work. Working directly with CCUS stakeholders and leadership also showed me how research can grow into product strategy and influence what gets designed next. I left the project with a deeper appreciation for systems thinking and a stronger interest in making complex products feel more connected, understandable, and human.
