Meet Erik Moore: Technical Product Manager at Plotly

Life at Plotly: People & Culture Blog #19

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to work at Plotly?

In this blog series, we will provide insight into the daily experiences of working at Plotly. We have interviewed team members from various departments, including Engineering, Customer Success and Solutions, Sales, and Professional Services, to give a comprehensive view of Plotly.

What would you say to someone who was considering Plotly as a place to work?

There are great people here and the space that we work in is competitive. We are trying to solve a hard problem with a lot of players so anyone joining needs to be ready to think outside the box. I can only speak to my experience on the product team, but I often need to go beyond what is the job description and really dive into different elements of the business and product.

What is your favorite part about working for Plotly?

I would say it’s the product team that I work on. I like the people that I work with. They’re smart, talented. We have a good team.

Why did you choose to work at Plotly? What made us stand out?

Plotly’s prominence in open-source was quite surprising and eye-opening. I have done data visualization as a developer and frequently came across Plotly as a solution to features I had worked on. I was given an opportunity to switch into a new role and apply my development experience to the product side of the industry. I’m able to use my expertise in the problem space to help design and build a product that solves a valuable business problem.

What three words describe your Plotly experience?

Diverse. Technical. Complex.

In a few sentences, what do you do at Plotly?

I am responsible for providing the roadmap for features related to data and auth integrations. I also act as a technical liaison / SME for the product team for data and auth as well as for some of the more low-level, backend, or architecture elements of the product.

What is the most significant thing you have learned while working here?

Building customer-hosted enterprise software is hard and working directly with large enterprise customers has unique challenges and complexities. It’s a very different process than developing SaaS products.

What are your proudest accomplishments so far during your time at Plotly?

The “data sources” feature that is coming out in the DE 5.5 release. It’s been a group effort to get it out the door but should provide a lot of value for customers and help the business grow.

Additionally, there are some complex authorization features that I’ve been working on for a while that will be coming into the product in a future release.

Do you have a mentor or role model? Who are they, and what are they like?

I would say my dad. He’s an expert at what he does and really understands the details of his field. Despite his experience and title, he’s always humble and never considers himself “above” doing a job. He’s always there to support anyone that needs him.

Have you read, watched, or listened to anything recently that has really impacted you?

I really enjoyed reading the Incerto series by N. N. Taleb. It’s a collection of essays on randomness, asymmetries, and other concepts in probabilities and statistics.

Do you have a secret talent, or (superpower) you want people to know about?

I have perfect pitch. It has helped me teach myself how to play a few instruments.

What is your favorite activity outside of work?

Spending time with my family.

What is your favorite place to travel?

I enjoyed going to Tuscany in Italy. The food there is great.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

I like Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. Given the opportunity, I probably wouldn’t change where I live.

What’s one thing you can’t live without?

Family is what I care about the most, especially my wife and son.

What do you enjoy most about the team you work with?

I like working with Nicole, our Director of Product Management. She is a good manager, fun to work for, and she makes the job engaging.

How do you envision the future of Plotly and your role in it?

I hope that we are able to be the premium solution in the data science and visualization space. Focusing on high-quality, complex solutions that solve challenging problems for the companies in the industry that need it. Hopefully we can become the go-to platform for companies that have the hardest problems in data science.

Looking to join the Plotly team? View our open positions!