Day in the Life: Q&A with Technical Product Manager Katie O'Brien

How would you describe your role on the Product Team?  

I guide the vision, development, and execution of our Podium product. My role is to guide each feature request and idea through its life cycle and make sure it aligns with our larger goals at EA. I collaborate with Business Line Leads and EA leadership to create a vision for the product and what it should enable education leaders to accomplish, based on market needs and user feedback. From there, I work closely with our technical teams to translate that vision into tangible, feasible deliverables that serve our users effectively. After new features roll out with our Implementation & Services team, I connect with users to gather feedback, assess how well we are meeting their needs, and use those insights to inform the next phases of development.  

This constant cycle means much of my work centers on evaluating opportunities, prioritizing effectively, and making sure that everyone is on the same page. I see my primary role as gathering internal and external insights to set the right priorities, communicating those decisions clearly, and protecting the attention and energy of our technical teams so they can focus on what matters most, while ensuring their input is included at the right times. 

This can feel abstract, even for me. To illustrate this work with a small example, in user interviews, I heard from users that some dashboard filters were difficult to navigate. I took that to the team and we experimented with a few different solutions. I evaluated the options in terms of lift to implement, complexity, and usefulness. I also gathered thoughts from a few internal and external stakeholders. We chose a technical solution that would reduce short-term pain and improve our documentation. We also decided to advocate for changes to our underlying business intelligence platform in the long term. After the rollout, we received positive feedback and good ideas for further improvement. Reaching that solution took extensive collaboration, iteration, and technical problem-solving. 

What interested you in working at EA?  

I started at EA as an intern while I was in college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I was an Economics major with an interest in technical work, but I was always motivated to do something with a positive mission. I really wasn’t sure what that role was or if it existed, and I was really excited to find it at EA! 

I have stayed all these years because EA continues to grow and evolve while providing me (and my colleagues) with the opportunity and support to grow and evolve alongside the organization. I started at EA as an entry-level Research Analyst and since then, I’ve received so many opportunities to learn and expand upon my professional and technical skills. During my time at EA, I’ve had the opportunity to grow in my analytical skills, become a people manager, guide the development of Business Intelligence (BI) work, and pivot to product management. 

We know that every day is different, but what would a typical day at EA look like for you?  

One thing that I love about my job is that the range of activities I contribute to is so wide, and the amount of time I spend on different types of tasks shifts dramatically week-to-week or day-to-day. 

I would say that each day contains a few different types of tasks:

What skills do you possess that you find helpful in your role?  

I find the most important skill to be the ability to creatively solve problems. Feature requests are often proposed as potential solutions rather than the current issue or problem that needs to be solved. A big part of truly solving problems is understanding the motivation behind the ask. This requires asking a lot of questions, listening to understand, and not getting too attached to any one solution. I love to find the patterns and connect the dots across different initiatives and teams to find new solutions. 

What is the most rewarding aspect to your role?  

I love the “aha” moments when you are deep in a technical issue or are really stuck on how to fulfill a user’s request and things just click. However, “just click” is pretty misleading, as these moments usually happen deep into a brainstorming session with a wide range of people and skillsets. After proposing and declining many ideas, the feeling of finally finding a solution that will work for everyone is addicting. It’s also the camaraderie and collaboration that comes from and feeds these moments. I love working with a team that doesn’t shy away from tough problems and relishes digging into the details. 

What is your favorite project that you’ve worked on at EA?  

Oh goodness – this is hard. There are so many I could choose from here. Keep Up Catch Up was one of the first small projects I led, where we provided teachers with information on the amount a student would need to grow on an exam in order to keep up or catch up with their grade level. I found the project to be really rewarding as we were able to hear from teachers about how valuable the information was for them, and it sparked my interest in user feedback and research. Podium has really challenged me and the team to think about how to make dashboards that appear simple but are incredibly flexible and complicated behind the scenes.  

I'll cheat and choose an internal initiative. I spent many years leading the Analyst Internship Program, building programming, and supporting both the interns and their mentors. I loved helping the interns achieve their goals during their internship and supporting mentors in their coaching of each intern cohort. When I transitioned off the team, it was incredibly exciting to pass that work on to others who had previously been mentors in the program. 

If you had to choose a different team to work on at EA, which team would you pick and why?  

The easiest answer here would be the Analyst team as I spent many great years on the team, and I am very passionate about creating good data visualization through constraints and enabling users to understand insights through data.  

But to push myself here I would say the Impact team! Concise and persuasive communication is such a skill and one I would love to improve at. I enjoy watching and reading the content that our Impact team puts out, and I am always impressed by the depth they can communicate across so many fields.  

What changes do you anticipate in your field in the next year?  

Advancing technology may let us test ideas and enable users to create new insights more quickly. It could allow us to more quickly integrate new types of data or analysis.  

But at the same time, I think it will make the basic principles of our work all the more important. Questions like, “What do we want to use this data for? What are the benefits and what are the risks? What level of error is acceptable?” will be at the forefront of more people’s minds. 
 
Striking the balance between enabling self-guided insights and building in the right guidance and guardrails will be the biggest challenge.  

What is something you enjoy in your free time?   

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?  

When I was in second or third grade, I had dreams of being a lawyer in New York City while also being a part-time dolphin trainer. I really can’t tell you why, but that was a big phase of mine. Maybe I have always liked to balance very different tasks? 
 
I always loved to learn new things and also developed a strong sense of wanting to contribute positively to the community, but I never had a really strong sense of what career that would lead me to. 

What is something that you would tell your younger self about your career? 

To go towards my curiosity and not worry as much about whether it is the “right” career move. When you are genuinely motivated and interested in what you are doing, it will get you further in life than making moves that appear to be more prominent or prestigious. Or at least I like to think so, so far!