A week in the life of a Senior Product Manager

Welcome to another edition of A week in the life, where we delve into the professional lives of our extraordinary team members. Today, we introduce Naiara Pupo, a Senior Product Manager based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Naiara's journey in product development has led her to TheyDo, where she passionately contributes to creating exceptional customer experiences. Here's her story:

Why did you join TheyDo?

Working in product development means that you need to think about how your customers use your product end-to-end. So I’ve been creating customer journeys in Miro or Google Slides since the beginning of my career. I wanted to map out all of the interactions and understand how to create the best experience for using my products.

About two years ago, while working as a Lead Product Manager at Typeform, a collaboration with an experienced Service Designer introduced me to TheyDo. He suggested we use their framework, and although we couldn't back then, I immediately saw the value in it. I read about the company, reached out to Jochem (TheyDo's CEO and Co-Founder), and the rest is history.

What do you do in a typical week as a Senior Product Manager?

I start the week preparing for our weekly tactical meeting, checking metrics on adoption, retention, and growth. We set goals for the week, whether it’s shipping a new feature, completing customer discovery, or defining functional requirements.

Throughout the week, I have numerous customer calls, turning insights into actionable outputs. We conceptualize customer needs into product models, following an opinionated approach on how TheyDo will solve their problems.

Strategy is a big part of my role. I align our strategic planning with business goals and market context, focusing on what customers need and how we will address their pains. 

The rest is business as usual—testing new features, aligning with stakeholders, updating roadmaps, communicating, and training.

Can you share a recent project you worked on and the impact it had?

Last quarter, we launched our beta integration with BigQuery. This allows customers to integrate quantitative data like KPIs (NPS, CSAT, CES) to be visualized within a journey. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, especially regarding the ease of integration and the value it brings. A Data Analyst, one of our lighthouse customers, those that co-create with us, said, “TheyDo will be our new dashboard.”

With TheyDo being remote-first, how do you collaborate with other Product Managers and the rest of the Product Team?

We are lucky to have an excellent, mature, and experienced PM team with open communication. We exchange knowledge, insights, and best practices. We constantly Slack each other, either in the project channel, the PM channel, or 1:1.

We also have our regular tactical meetings, where we discuss the impact we are making through metrics and progress in product development. This is our chance to align with our leaders and define the next steps—very productive meetings.

The PMs hold a weekly session on Friday mornings to align our strategies and find best practices for collaboration, stakeholder management, and product development. These are our favorite meetings. We don’t only bring our product ideas to the table, we also feel the support of each other. Sometimes that meeting feels like our ‘therapy' session because we are able to get our concerns off our chests, or if we’re feeling blocked at the moment, we can enrich our solutions with everyone’s help.

What do you enjoy most about being a Senior Product Manager?

The short version: I enjoy that I’m able to create real impact for the businesses we serve—our customers and the one I work for, TheyDo.

The long version: For me, product management is like building a puzzle, and I love puzzles. There are many parts to it that I enjoy. There's nothing like putting all those pieces together and feeling the satisfaction of the final result.

I love the discovery phase of understanding customer needs and defining the problem space. Talking to customers and co-creating with them is fantastic. We wear the hat of curiosity and need to be humble enough to listen carefully and learn from them.

Even more, I love ideating solutions that fit best. This is where we come together as a team and switch on our brains to start a great journey: implementing the product. I love collaborating with our internal teams for this.

I'm a strong executor and like to get things done, so this is probably the part I enjoy the most. Seeing those ideas launched and then monitoring their impact is super rewarding. Every phase (piece) has its special feeling. However, sharing what we are accomplishing, what customers are feeling, and aligning everyone in the organization around it is, in the end, the magical part.

What impact does remote/flexible work have on your life?

I am grateful for working this way. Although my family is far away, having the opportunity to travel the world to be with them during special moments while also being productive at work is super important to me. I feel I have a better chance of achieving work-life balance.

It's important, though, to learn how to disconnect and manage your own time well. When it’s time to disconnect, you need to do it consciously. Otherwise, your home becomes your office, and mentally, you may not establish the difference. Sometimes I have to force myself to get out of the house because I can spend too long without leaving it. It's key to have social activities and interact with others to truly enjoy that balance.

What do you enjoy most about working at TheyDo?

It’s the people, 100%. I enjoy every single interaction. I love the intellectual conversations we keep having to bring real value to our customers. I feel I learn from everyone, and it's also super fun.

And, of course, creating the product. I have the luxury of working in a place where we are defining the path of how Journey Management should be done and building a tool for it.

What advice would you give to someone considering or interviewing for a product role at TheyDo?

Use the product and fall in love with the value proposition. I’m sure it won't take long.

Second tip: Reach out to TheyDoers for a chat. We’ll be happy to share more about our culture with you. You’ll be amazed at the professionalism and structure we have for an early-stage company.