Data, dogs and the outdoors! Get to know Steph — the Data Analyst in our Maps and Navigation squad.
Steph is from the west coast of Scotland, where she developed a love of the outdoors from a young age. She has a background in psychology and neuroscience and is particularly interested in how humans interact with tech.
In her free time, Steph enjoys reading, hiking, cycling (mostly offroad!), bikepacking, camping, and exploring Scotland with her beloved dog Archie.
She wanted to join Komoot so she can combine her love of coding, data, and the outdoors to work on a product that helps people have adventures.
We sat down with her to find out what she is up to these days!
Hi Steph!
Tell us a little bit more about yourself. Could you introduce yourself in a few sentences?
Hey, I’m Steph. I’m from Scotland, where I currently live with my beloved dog Archie. My work background is quite varied: I’ve taught coding at a not-for-profit bootcamp, worked in a pharmaceutical data science department as a programmer, had a stint as a freelancer, and also spent a chunk of my life analysing brain data while getting a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience. I applied to komoot because I love the outdoors, was already a fan of the app, and I thought that working on a product that helps people get outside would be fun and very motivating.
What do you do @ komoot?
I’m part of the Analytics team, and I’m the Maps and Navigation Squad analyst. I spend my days looking into our data to learn more about how people use the planning, navigation, recording features (basically, anything to do with a map!) on komoot. I work on loads of different things day-to-day, such as implementing event tracking, A/B testing, designing metrics, building dashboards, and making reports for the product teams. It’s quite a diverse role and each day can be really different, which keeps it interesting.
What is the most exciting thing you are working on right now?
Currently, the most exciting things I’m working on are so exciting that I can’t talk about them before they are released 😄
Which other teams or experts do you mostly interact with?
I mainly work with the maps squad and analytics team. So I have lots of meetings and do projects with product managers, client developers, backend engineers, QA engineers, designers, our data engineer, and other analysts.
What was the biggest impact you and/or your team had on komoot?
As a team, we’ve continued to work really hard to organise and make sense of the massive amounts of data komoot has. I think it has made a big impact on the squads, product managers, and wider staff to have analysts who get to specialise in one area of the data and who can give them information that they (squads and teams) can trust, and then use to make product decisions. My biggest personal impact is hopefully the relationships I’ve made. I’m one of those people who would rather fail as a team than succeed on my own, and I really try to bring a lot of positive energy and support to the people I work with. It can be hard to work remotely, so a bit of fun and camaraderie is really impactful.
What aspects of the komoot culture do you enjoy most? And why?
Flexibility is really important to me. In deep winter, it’s dark in Scotland before 9am and by 3.30pm, which can be pretty grim and it used to mean I’d start and finish work in the dark. With core hours and genuine flexibility, it means I can take the dog for a walk in the afternoon and work in the evening. I love that I can put a 2-hour “daylight break” in my calendar and it’s perfectly ok to do that.
Do you have any funny stories from a Zoom call?
Playing gartic phone with the team for games night was pretty memorable. If you haven’t tried it already, it’s definitely worth doing for the laugh!
Komoot’s mission is to make great adventures accessible to all. What does adventure mean to you?
I think an adventure is anything that brings you even a little bit outside your own personal comfort zone. For some people that will be a massive race across a continent, for others that will be a 1 mile bike ride to a park, and for some it will be taking on a new hobby they’ve always wanted to try. All adventures are equally valid and very meaningful to the people having them, no matter what they are. And I think that’s what makes adventures so special.
Steph, what’s your favourite Tour on komoot?
Out of the tours I’ve actually done (so can vouch for 😉), my favourite is The Caledonian Way.
You can check it out here.
What do you like to do in your free time?
I spend a lot of time outdoors hanging out with my dog and my friends. I love camping, paddle-boarding, biking, hiking, bike-packing, and recently started running… but all at a very slow pace. I like to take my time and see everything, have no interest in fast times or huge distances or anything like that. I just like to see the world at my own pace. I also love reading — I joined the library again at the beginning of the year to try and purposefully carve out more time to read again, and now I’m up to about a book a week now, which is such a nice change from all the screen time I get at work.
And last but not least, which of these do you prefer?
Beach or mountains?
Mountains (as long as they aren’t too extreme — I’m terrified of exposed heights) ⛰️
Summer or winter?
Summer (minus the Scottish midges 🪰)
Morning or evening?
I love the mornings, but unfortunately, they don’t come as naturally to me as the evenings do 🦉
Hiking or cycling?
Too hard to pick — I love them equally in different ways 🫶
Home office or coworking?
A bit of both is my sweet spot 🤝
Thank you, Steph! It was a pleasure as always.
Interested in knowing more about Steph’s adventures? Have a look at them at komoot here.
