How long have you worked for Brightspot? What brought you here?
I’ve been at Brightspot for a little over three years. This was actually my first job out of college, so I would say the career fair brought me here. I had a first interview with John Ramirez (staff software engineer) and he just spoke so highly of Brightspot during the career fair. Honestly, I didn’t know what I wanted to do outside of college once I graduated but he just made Brightspot sound like such a great place to grow and learn. Once I went through the interview process and got offered the job, I took it and it’s been a great decision.
Can you tell me about your role at Brightspot and one of the projects you’ve worked on that really stands out to you?
I am a product manager for one of our largest enterprise customers, which currently involves a major effort to migrate dozens of regional and local market sites to one shared corporate CMS instance, where all the sites can benefit from shared infrastructure, a consistent global design system, but also the flexibility to publish (and share) across different markets, languages and local initiatives.
Funnily enough, it was a much smaller project for this same customer that really stands out to me. We were asked to redesign three small — but high profile! — sites for the CEO’s blog, an executive team corporate-comms portal plus one for the company chairman. We had to redesign them with all-new modules in only about a month or so per site, which is pretty quick for the number of modules. It was me working with one front-end developer and then one designer.
That project stands out to me just because of the speed in which we had to do it. A lot of the modules on that particular site had a lot of hard-coded aspects and it felt like every time we had a ticket to fix something, something else would come up. I remember it was just the three of us kind of sitting together at a table for a month just working on it. It all felt very collaborative and it brought me back to working on a tough project in school when you’re at the library late at night. That project really made me feel like a part of the team in a way that you don’t always get when you’re interacting over a video chat. So it was nice to really work so closely together and have such a collaborative project.
How have you grown professionally since starting at Brightspot?
I think my confidence has grown tremendously since starting this role. Coming straight out of college into a position where I was expected to communicate requirements to experienced developers was definitely intimidating at first. I didn’t have a technical background and early on, working with code felt like learning a new language. I remember being nervous before every meeting — especially with developers or customers — because I worried about not knowing enough. But over time, I learned to be comfortable acknowledging what I didn’t know and to see that as an opportunity for growth rather than a weakness.
For example, one of the first things I did was start a glossary of development terms I kept hearing so I could understand and use them confidently in conversation. That small step really helped me start bridging the gap. I also had some challenging moments with customers early on and while those experiences were tough, they pushed me to build resilience and self-trust. They made me realize that I was hired for a reason — and that I had the curiosity, work ethic and communication skills to learn the technical side.
Looking back, those experiences were invaluable. They taught me that confidence isn’t about knowing everything. It’s about being willing to ask questions, learn quickly and keep showing up with purpose. That mindset shift has been the biggest area of growth for me.
What do you enjoy most about your day-to-day role and responsibilities as a product manager?
I love working with the team and seeing the way that a feature can just grow and expand over the course of development. I’ve definitely had features where you first ideate them in one way and then after working with design and development it turns into this whole different beast. This can be tricky at times because there are a lot of unexpected things and unknowns but I really think that that’s what makes the job exciting.
At the end of the day, we work with a lot of really incredible, talented and smart people and seeing everyone kind of get their hands in the mix and add their own little flair is always fun to see. Plus it’s exciting to see what we build in the end.
Earlier this year, you traveled to Turin to volunteer with your co-workers at the Special Olympics Winter World Games. Can you tell me more about what the experience meant to you?
That experience is definitely one of the most special experiences of my life. I’ve never been to an event where so many people of so many different cultures around the world come together. I think aside from sports events like that, you don’t always see teams from every country around the world come together in that way.
It was so incredible to see so many people reach across cultures and across border lines to shake hands and play a game and come together for a common goal. It was really rooted in the fact that we’re all human. You can come from 5,000 miles away and still have something in common — you could have the same favorite dessert, for example! I think it meant so much just to see that sort of collaboration across so many different people. It really changed my outlook on just my day-to-day life. I always now look for commonalities with anybody anytime I meet a new person because at the end of the day, we are just human.
Besides the people, what is your favorite part about working at Brightspot?
That’s a good question. I like being able to reach across teams and see what other people are building. I think that’s something that the platform team has been doing a good job of lately. They showcase the new features that they’re building out and also ask about what we’re building. I really like that sort of collaboration and just being able to see the neat things that people come up with.
All of that was really highlighted in our recent Hackathon too, when everybody got agency just to build what they wanted to build without there being a predefined project. I think it was really great to see the cool tech that everybody came up with.
What are your favorite activities or hobbies to do outside of the office?
I’m a big reader. My favorite author is TJ Klune and I just started a book of his called The Bones Beneath My Skin. So I’ve been doing a lot of reading. I also live in New York so I do a lot of city exploring. I don’t know if that quite counts as a hobby but it feels like one.
I’ve also just started a watercolor painting class so hopefully that will be a hobby soon. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to have an artistic hobby. I do my own nails so I figured that painting might be a natural next step. Maybe next time we talk it will be a full-blown hobby — but I’m not so good at it yet!
What fall activity are you most excited about?
Actually, right now I’m drinking a pumpkin cream cold brew. I think enjoying all of the fall flavors is clearly something I’m excited about. We just moved into a new apartment with a bigger kitchen so I’m able to cook more. I got a fall cookbook from the library that I’m really excited to use. So I would say the food!
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
I don’t know if this is the right answer as I already went, but I visited Greece in May and it was just incredible. The food is so good. Greek food is my favorite food in the whole world.
I’m talking a lot about food in these last couple of questions but it was such an incredible trip. When we were there I was like, why would you ever travel anywhere else? There’s no need because this is the place to go. So I think Greece — but if not Greece, if it has to be somewhere I haven’t been before, Japan has been on my list for a while. I think if I went to Japan, I probably wouldn’t come back. It seems like a very neat place.
