Priyobrato on working at Freshdesk — Platforms and Integrations
Say hello to Priyobrato Chatterjee.
Priyo is a Product Manager in the Platforms and Integrations team at Freshdesk. His team is responsible for integrating Freshdesk with some of the most widely used tools today, like Salesforce, Shopify and MailChimp, among others. Here’s what he has to say about a day in his life at Freshdesk and what his job is all about.
How did you get your job at Freshdesk?
Freshdesk is the smallest company I’ve ever worked for. Before I decided to enroll in business school, I’d worked with large corporations for eight years. The experience left me determined to work for a startup, rather than a large corporate, next because the kind of creative freedom I wanted to enjoy is possible only in a startup. So when Freshdesk came to recruit students from my school, I applied without a moment’s hesitation. One thing led to another and by the time I finished my third interview, I knew that Freshdesk was the right place for me.
How do you find your team and your work environment?
The thing that I love most about Freshdesk is that everyone’s really friendly and approachable. When I accepted the job offer, I’ll admit that I was equal parts excited and apprehensive because while it was a new exciting job, it was a new exciting job in a city that I’d never lived in. I was scared right till the moment I was introduced to my team. They made the whole settling down process so much more easier. So, it’s not just the work environment that’s excellent. My colleagues are too.
How do you get things going for your team?
We follow a pretty standard approach to product development. I initiate a project with a round of requirement gathering through discussions with all stakeholders. Once we have a project spec ready, we decide on a deployment plan such that we can go to market with a bare minimum product and keep adding additional features as we go along. We use Github Milestones to create roadmaps and to define the subset of features that we target for each quarter.
What are some everyday tools that you use in your role?
Github for source control and issue tracking, Sublime Text as a code editor, and Google Apps for collaboration. Other than that, we also try out the various tools we’ve developed integrations for.
What is the most awesome thing that you’ve done so far?
I think that the most awesome thing I’ve done here, so far, is anchoring Freshdesk’s integration into Amazon’s Test Drive initiative. It’s helped open up a completely new revenue channel for the company but that’s not what made it special for me. What makes this milestone special is the fact that I was able to accomplish it before my two month work anniversary.
What, in your opinion, is the most challenging part of your job?
I’d say the most challenging part of my job is striking a balance between execution and accommodating our customers’ evolving needs. When we set out to design an integration, we not only have to take into account what our customers want and what’s feasible but also the fact that wants change on a daily basis. The challenge is to keep up with the pace.
What is the most rewarding part of working at Freshdesk?
The best part about working at Freshdesk is that you are given the complete freedom to express yourself and see your ideas come to fruition. Within three months of joining the company, I’ve had the opportunity to work with major cloud infrastructure vendors to implement integrations that have a direct impact on our product and revenue.
What do you think makes a good product manager?
I think a good product manager is passionate; passionate not just about the work, but the product that he or she owns. A good manager should be ambitious and have a vision. Customer focus should always be on his mind, because at the end of the day, customer happiness is the most important metric for us.
Tell us why someone should join the Platforms and Integrations team at Freshdesk.
The Platforms and Integrations team builds cool new things every day here at Freshdesk. Everyone here has a chance to bring their ideas to life. And the learning process never stops. Whether you’re a fresher, or a senior manager, we all learn something new every day. If you want to be part of a team which works on world class product integrations, then you’d be the perfect fit in our team!
Freshdesk is looking to hire product developers, both freshers and seniors, for the Platforms and Integrations team at our Chennai office. If you can relate to Priyo’s story and see yourself doing something similar, please get in touch with us at getalife@freshdesk.com. For what it’s worth, you could be exactly what we are looking for.
