An Insightful Visit to Pinterest
HLOs: 
This article is written by: Tahadil Umaiya Anab (LinkedIn), 3rd year student in the Digital Business Management BComm program at Humber Polytechnic.
On October 9th 2025, our class of Digital Systems & User Centric Design (BUS 3003), led by our Professor and Program Coordinator Hanadi Alnawab went on a visit to the Pinterest Toronto office.
For me, as someone from a small country in South Asia, this visit felt like watching a long held curiosity come to life. I always wondered how companies like Pinterest, Canva, and Spotify work, and how their offices look. Especially when I used to think of Pinterest it always struck me that their space of work and way of work might be really creative and unique.
This visit was a real life experience of those curious thoughts coming true. Thanks to Billal Qureshi who gave us the opportunity for this visit and showed us around the whole Pinterest work space.
From my view, that place is more of a creative and unique place where people come to generate creative ideas to keep a company running. A three storey office with so much to explore, beautiful interior design with so much Pinteresty vibe made it obvious this place belongs to a company who are known for their creativity and designing. Every floor had their own kitchens, coffee stations for the employees and the main floor had a cozy cafe which absolutely felt like it was out of Pinterest. The whole place had many different areas for employees to work with full attention but with comfort. Their Zen zone, massage rooms, focus rooms, group meeting rooms actually gave us a wow moment. Not to mention the greenery zone and the hidden room inside a bookshelf. And the moment when we went crazy was when we saw their arcade room with a PS5 and a huge TV and lots of board games as well. I was amazed to learn that employees are encouraged to use these spaces for a break, playing games with their colleagues. The Pinterest Toronto office gives the opportunity to work from home as well but everyone is expected to be present at the office on Wednesdays and for us it was like who wouldn’t come to an office like this to work.
Apart from the creative and the mesmerizing experience of the Pinterest office the visit was much more insightful when we sat down to have a chat with Billal about his career, studies, his journey from Google to Pinterest, completing his Masters degree after two decades of finishing his bachelors, how we should start on career development and find the job that’s suitable for us. It felt like if we even talked with him for hours it would still not be enough, he was like a full manual of career development!
I wasn’t even working on my LinkedIn up until now when he said on that visit that it’s never too late to start, start with any skills we have or anything eye-catchy skills we want to showcase. I was more inspired about showing my extra curricular skills and experiences when he said it’s not always about academics and professional skills, sometimes people look for unique and creative skills and experiences as well, as he hired someone once who was a champion in badminton in high school and he highlighted that at the end of his LinkedIn which made Billal find him unique and now he’s part of his team. These really inspiring insights about him made us all energized to start off on our career goals early, work on our skills, our LinkedIn and start applying for suitable opportunities early.
As our professor Hanadi reminded us, “Just apply or ask. What’s the worst that can happen? You might hear a no, or no response at all, but at least you tried.” That simple line summed up the whole message of the visit, to take initiative and start now.
Overall the experience was phenomenal and all the insights, advice and inspiring words from Billal was more than enough to make us confident to prepare ourselves for this competitive job market.
This visit was a privilege for us to take on some really good advice. It did not just show us a workplace, it showed us what kind of mindset and goals we need to step into one day. The exposure and conversation with Billal pushed each one of us to begin building our portfolios, sharpening our skills, preparing our LinkedIn profiles with intention and high ambitions. As we move closer to internships and graduation, this experience from this visit came at the right time and reminded us that the future we dream of is not far but something we have to start working towards it today.
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