Meet our Senior UX Designer, Pete — Introducing the Koala Digital Team
Pete Konakov, our Senior UX Designer is our special interview guest this week. Pete has about 20 years of experience in UX/UI and joined Koala in September 2018. Within 3 months of joining, Pete has already designed our new bundle pages, worked on the creative for 3 sale campaigns, been on a trip to Japan (conducting user interviews) and back! He’s also a devout Lakers fan, plays guitar and sings in the band, ‘We Are Not Robots’.
What exciting project are you working on at the moment?
There’s a few! We seem to be launching a new bundle every week (not really every week, but kinda) so that has been pretty exciting to work on. It seems to touch every other project I have moving forward as it involves the solution being somewhat future proofed as we continue to grow the brand and the product range. That project is also feeding into the Design System that we’ve just started as well. Super excited to get that one out.
We’ve also recently returned from a week of usability sessions in Japan — so we’re still digging through those results and looking to rollout some solutions to really give Koala a good push over there.
What do you like about working for Koala?
Apart from being sent to Japan in my first month?!
The overall vibe of the people here, the lack of office politics and the blank UX canvas I’ve been given. It’s amazing being able to come to work and see your ideas materialise almost instantly. For that to happen, you need to have a really supportive and open minded team — which I definitely have.
Describe what a typical day looks like for you in the digital team.
Every day starts with a team stand up followed by a coffee. Without that, the day would be a blur. I’ll generally dive straight into whatever I left off the previous day whether it’s project work or business as usual (BAU) tasks. I like to have 30–60 minutes a day to read up on trends, new sites and anything else that can help me with my job. No two days are ever the same though, which I love.
How is Koala different to the previous places you’ve worked and what motivated you to join Koala?
Coming from a large corporate environment in my previous role, office politics and empire building were part of the norm. As a creative, this can be challenging because it’s not how I’m wired and it’s not how I want to work. It affects your relationships with people and makes you dread your alarm going off in the morning. No amount of money in the world can make that ok, at least for me. This doesn’t exist at Koala. Imagine coming to work in a place that makes you feel as integral to the success of the company as the founders are. That gives you the freedom to push your own boundaries in whatever your role is. It makes you WANT to do that. Not many places can do that. They say they can — they’ll preach work/life balance and anything else to get you over the line, but will they follow through on those promises? In my experience, probably not. Not without a caveat.
My last two roles lasted 7 years (Qantas) and 4 years (NBN Co) respectively. I reached a point where as a designer I was in desperate need of something new. I felt I had contributed all I was going to contribute to those brands. I was also pushing hard in transitioning from being a UI designer to a UX designer which wasn’t really an option in my previous role. My direction had pivoted and then along came Koala!
The reputation Koala had when I spoke to people was a huge factor as well. I felt I could really contribute to that and of course, Thor. Who doesn’t love Thor?
What do you do to get to know your team better?
I’ve forced them to play basketball with me. We’ve put together a team called the “Koala DropBears” and we kick off our Lunchtime Legends tournament in Alexandria this week. Pretty psyched about that!
If that goes well, I’ll start sussing out their musical talents so we can start a band. Primo bonding!
Koala is an Australian startup based in Sydney with a passion for changing the furniture buying experience online because life’s too short to worry about dumb stuff like wasting a whole day waiting for the delivery guy or whether 20 minutes in a showroom was enough to make an educated decision…
Try Koala today at koala.com.
