Why I Joined Pegipegi: Transforming Culture on a Company-scale Towards Data-driven
Petra, is Pegipegi planning to relocate the office?
I sent that text message around the middle of last year to Petra, my former colleague who at that time, and until today still works at Pegipegi as Head of Engineering. I didn’t ask about any job opportunities as an Analytics Manager; likewise, I didn’t ask him for job referrals as well. I just asked him that question, and our conversation continued.
Today, here I am, contributing at Pegipegi; the same workplace as where my friend Petra dedicates his professional life. All I can say — bluntly stating, there’s no perfect company. But I can tell you a few major reasons why Pegipegi is the right one for me.
Dilemma of a working mother
As a working mother to a newborn baby, I find office location as an urgent concern. At that time, I hadn’t long worked at a tech company in South Jakarta — while I live in Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta. For sure, it was quite a far distance. I had difficulties finding myself enough time to spend with my newborn baby. Thus, I wanted to make sure that Pegipegi had no plan to relocate its office out of West Jakarta in the near future.
It would not be a problem for me to set aside my role as a lead, or move forward from the Analytics career path, I thought; provided my new job is located near where I live. I could switch my travel time to or from my previous office into some extra quality time with my family, especially my son.
You might think I’m crazy or stupid with my thoughts, to leave my career in Analytics that I’ve spent seven years building, and leaving a well-established, decacorn tech company only to have 1–2 extra hours per day to take care and play with my son in return. But as crazy as it may sound, that’s what happened. That’s what I feel as a new mother. I’m not expecting you to understand it now, not today. But maybe you will understand it later, or when life puts you in the same scenario to choose.
Working and beyond: Developing people and transforming culture
Lucky me, Pegipegi was looking for someone to lead the Analytics team. But am I the one that Pegipegi looks for?
When I met Kevin Sandjaja, CEO of Pegipegi for an interview, he told me about the history of Pegipegi, its vision today, and point by point the high level of Pegipegi data problems. Kevin also explained every current problems in the Analytics team, including the ones that came from the point of view of externals. I knew it well, he wanted me to understand that working at Pegipegi is not easy — it is hard, and problems may arise at any time. But honestly, none of those problems surprised me. “Been there, done that”, I thought. I have dealt with similar problems before.
At the end of our discussion, he asked me, “Are you sure about joining our team?” and yeah, a hundred percent., I was very sure to join Pegipegi after hearing what he had told me. The challenges that he mentioned did not back me down. Matter fact, it strengthened my motivation to take part in this team even more.
To me, the discussion with Kevin was a confirmation. I concluded that taking part at Pegipegi will not only be about building data tech stack and delivering insights, but also about developing people and transforming the organization culture as well. I could also conclude that the Analytics team at Pegipegi was still in the early stage of the analytics journey. I see this as a challenge waiting to be overcomed.
I’ve always liked the challenge of building a team from scratch (early stage) and transforming organization culture towards the data-driven. I like to educate and pay attention to the growth of people in mindset, skill set, and also in faith. I looked forward that there are so many rooms for me to make impacts.
Leading Analytics team on a company scale
I started my career in Analytics, or Business Intelligence, or Data (you name it) since 8 years ago; the year 2012 to be exact, and started to lead the Analytics team since 4 years ago, back in 2016.
On my first time leading the Analytics team, 2 products were included under my responsibility. Then, 3 years later, a job offer in the same role brought my team the authority to handle one whole platform. A few years afterward — this year in exact, Pegipegi entrusted me to lead the Analytics team on a company scale.
Not a few people ask me, “Why did you decide to move to Pegipegi, while your career in the previous company was great already?”. Through a simple answer, I’m quoting Bob Sadino in one of his sayings:
In English translation: “No matter how high your job title is, you are still an employee. No matter how small your business is, you are the boss.” — Bob Sadino (1939–2015)
As the little story I told before, I find the travel miles from home to Pegipegi is far more realistic, compared to where I used to work. Second, I want to dive in a little bit about how Bob Sadino’s quote above relates to my decision:
- Admitting that my previous company was bigger in scale, I pursue my role leading the Analytics team only for specific product groups. Although it was great, personally, I’ve always knew there are still heaps of room for growth.
- On the other side, no matter how small you look at Pegipegi, I know it very well that this place is the right space to gain a whole new experience of leading an Analytics team; as here, it is based on a company scale. Soon, I look forward to diving into the experiences that I have never went through before. That includes making a decision for the Analytics organization structure in a company scope, thinking and deciding about the analytics tech stack to build, taking responsibility to manage analytics operational costs, and by all means, building a road-map to take Pegipegi into higher analytics maturity.
I feel this is exposing me to a new and way bigger challenge that I have never dealt with. The online travel sector has always caught my attention, and for me, travel represents a true lifestyle.
I’m joining Pegipegi as Insight & Analytics Manager for the last 2 months, and currently leading six incredible team members (4 data analysts and 2 data engineers), to transform organization culture towards data-driven and tackle challenges in the online travel sector through data.
Do you have a similar spirit that always likes to grow and see transforming culture as a challenge? Please connect with me! I think I will exchange ideas with you a lot. Or please visit our career page if you think you will find your place here.
