Meet the SessionStack Crew: Mariya Ivanova, Product Manager

As we grow as a company new and interesting people are joining us on our journey of developing a product analytics platform. With this “SessionStack Crew” series we’d like to present them as they are the key reason SessionStack is alive, expanding, upgrading, and serving product teams across the globe with awesome insights.

In this post, we are happy to talk with: Mariya Ivanova, Product Manager at SessionStack.

Who are you in your personal life?

A coffee-lover who likes to bring things to an end. Any friend of coffee is my friend, too.

Can you share a picture of you doing your favorite hobby?

A piece of homemade cake perfectly matches a cup of coffee

…and after the cake… some long-distance swimming :).

How did you choose PM as a profession?

It was the other way around, my profession chose me. My life has led me to problem-solve for other people and PM work is pretty much this in addition to creative thinking and internal drive for self-improvement.

How did you find out about SessionStack and what excites you about the company?

It was time for me to change the job. While searching for new challenges, the recruiter of the company contacted me. After the first call with her and Interview with Alexander Zlatkov (CEO), I was already inquisitive about the product of SessionStack. I got excited by the product. It is not something we do just for the sake of the customers but it is an analytical tool that solves our pains and helps our goals.

What is your favorite company project you’ve been working on?

I cannot say it is just one project, it is more the current product development focus. We want to bring our product to the next stage and this is more than exciting and challenging. I am in anticipation of charts in segments to be launched. This feature will give a new perspective of quantitative insights for user sessions and will visualize the usage trends in a product.

To sum up, I will use a phrase from one of my recent favorite series (“The Mandalorian”): “This is the way!”

What do you think about product analytics from the optics of your position?

In contrast to my previous experience, I think that product analytics tools are not only about data overview but more about actionable tips on data helping you to achieve better performance and ROI. I believe that in the future companies won’t need so many big BI teams and dev effort, doing complex reports for the need of other departments or implementing complex analytical tools. They will use a single tool, which is easy to implement and use, with a graphical interface and hints of what can be improved in order to achieve higher revenue. And all of this should be configured with the effort of one or two employees.

What do you think of the SessionStack team, and the company’s culture?

The short answer: Awesome! The long answer: What I really find nice about the SessionStack culture is the effective communication between team members and collaboration set at ease. It is fair to say that in my second week at the company, I have felt myself as I have worked with the team for years. I also really like the flexibility of the hybrid working model.

What advice would you give to people joining a scaling product company?

Do the right things. Then perfect them.

Tell us an interesting fact about you?

Once upon a time, a girl was locked for a night accidentally in the Museum of Natural History in Varna ….and it was not that funny story like the movie “Night at the Museum”. It could have been the twisted version of “Red Riding Hood”, but instead of the Big Bad Wolf — the fast and furious piranhas and instead of the red hood — the yellow baseball hat. Anyway, after a couple of hours of standing on the top of the door of the museum (you know, I was so scared that there would have been a flood in the museum and piranhas would have eaten me, that I climbed on the 3–4 metra door), my saviors — my mom, my aunt, a bunch of policemen, couple of firemen and one of the museum curators plus not counting the dozens of bystanders released me out of the deep blue of the museum. No need to mention, that after the incident I have never ever again visited this museum although I could not see the whole exhibition at that time.

Bonus question. Would you share with us a fun meme?

Follow up with the other posts from the series SessionStack Crew.

Interested in joining our team? See the open positions here.