Angela P. - Technical Product Manager

Meet Angela! You can catch her on Women in Tech panels, volunteering at various events, or working with teams across the globe to solve some of our most technical problems that bring about change and growth within Groupon! 

Tell us a little about your role and your team. I am a Technical Product Manager for the Third Party Custom Integration team. We work on integrating Groupon's platform with partners’ APIs in order to bring new and retain existing bookable inventory on our site. I work with Engineering on a daily basis and I partner closely with Design, Analytics, Operations and Sales teams.

You’ve been at Groupon for nearly 4 years. What has kept you here?
The sense of belonging and the variety of opportunities for professional and personal development made the last 4 years quite unique in my career.
I am delighted to be working with smart and talented people who inspire me every day. These people are able to challenge each other as well as offer support, care and compassion for each other. The sense of community at Groupon is very strong and empowering. The Women in Tech group and the volunteering opportunities are just examples of willingness of coming together for worthy causes.

What project currently excites you the most?
I am currently working on an API migration project which will allow Groupon to retain bookable and valuable inventory for our customers. It is my first “large” migration, speaking in engineering T-shirt sizing terms, and I am super excited about bringing the first milestone to completion early next year.

How have you grown in your career since joining Groupon?
I joined Groupon in January 2019 as an SEO Manager on the global SEO team. The global role gave me exposure to several teams, from Engineering to Product, Customer and Merchant Experience teams, and I had the opportunity of learning new parts of the business as well as how to quickly navigate changes during the Pandemic. In this process I discovered what excites me and where I can contribute the most. I moved from Marketing to Product Management in 2021, a career I am enjoying greatly!

What do you love about your job?
I like the wide range of responsibilities a Technical Product Manager has. Being the bridge between the Business, the User and the Technology is inspiring to me. It requires not only technical and problem solving skills but also being able to build relationships across the business and bring multiple teams together. In addition to that, the entire process of diving into data, understanding users behaviors and building products that they can find helpful and useful is gratifying.

What inspired you to make the transition to the tech side?
I have always been very keen in understanding why things work in a certain way and how they work. My colleagues and even friends know I am not good at selling anything I don’t fully understand, so getting into the tech side was to me just a natural step for better doing what I was doing. I often found myself very curious about tech chats, and when I was on the marketing team, meeting with Engineering to help find solutions for my projects was up-lifting. Hence I moved to Tech to do that on a daily basis.

What is one non-work activity or hobby that you're into? How did you get into it?
Painting and drawing have been my hobbies since I was a child. I am not sure how I got into them, they just came along while I was trying to picture my grandfather! Generally my subjects are humans or landscapes. I love making portraits. Dancing is another one of my hobbies. I have been dancing tango for about 3 years and salsa for just a few months. I got into the first one browsing Groupon for inspiration on a rainy weekend.

What was your first job?
I started my career as a Technical Support Agent for Doubleclick Search, a Google paid campaign management tool. That was outsourced in Cork and it was there that my Irish adventure started.

What’s the first career you dreamed of having as a kid?
I have always had a passion for space. I still follow astronomy events from time to time, but when I was a kid the Moon, the planets and the stars got all my interest and attention. I obviously haven't believed that enough, but I wanted to be an astronaut.

Favorite pre-Covid activity you can’t wait to get back to?
Every year I used to travel to the South looking for a summer break between January and March, choosing a random destination. Only criteria was being more south than Southern Italy ( where I come from). After Covid I have gone back to travel but still at the minimum. I look forward to going back to that with the plus of the spirit of exploration that enlightened me pre-covid.

What are three career lessons you’ve learned thus far?

1. Being an active listener helps people to face unfamiliar situations and find the best way to cope with them as well as offer true support to others.
2. Being open to changes, with all the unknowns, helps embracing them, develop and change with them if necessary. In the process we may find strengths we didn’t know we had.
3. Accepting failures as part of the learning process and not having to be perfect encourages us to try more, experience more, and eventually succeed more.