Hello! 👋 I’m Mary.
it all starts off with an idea.
No matter how big or small, I’m ready to tackle these ideas head on with you!
🏡 I’m a Pittsburgh-based Product Manager originally from Philly who has a passion for solving pain points and working with equally enthusiastic teams to achieve our wins— together. I am empathetic to the entire product development lifecycle, whether you’re a customer, an engineer, or part of the sales team. We all have our roles to play, and I’ve juggled with a few roles (professionally and personally) to know what it takes to build awesome things:
researcher
customer support
scrum master
customer
plot hole finder
mediator
snack gatherer (we all deserve a little treat)
📝 In my spare time, I plan for fun (no seriously)! When I stumbled upon Product Management, it was a dream come true. Who would have thought that I could do what I already like to do as my career?
🐶 I’m also a dog-mom of two!
My Approach
Collaborative
The power of collaboration can build extraordinary products. In order to work as a team, the first step is to understand what motivates everyone, what their goals are, and how each cross-functional group comes together. This is especially important to me as a product manager since I am often reliant on many teams to execute a project. The sooner I can involve stakeholders in the process, the sooner we can we can catch any potential misalignments.
Iterative
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Similarly, great products that have customers coming back for more also take patience, planning, and continuous effort. It’s important for me to check in with stakeholders often to make sure we’re taking projects in small bite-sized pieces, so that
we get customer feedback early (and often),
we can identify and address risks as they come up, and
we can be flexible and adaptable
My Process
(how my brain is typically wired)
1
The Idea
A stakeholder provides me with an idea. Sometimes there’s clear requirements, and other times, not so much. I work closely with the stakeholder to understand the problem and the intended outcome. The initial drafts of any required documentation is formed here (PRDs, user stories, etc).
2
Research + Brainstorm
On my end, I’m doing market research. What are our competitors doing? Are there any gaps that we are trying to solve in tandem with this idea?
In tandem, we may consider past user research or user studies that may help bridge our idea to fruition. This is where insights and discussions with engineers and designers are extremely appreciated! Rapid prototyping, wireframing, and poking holes will happen at this phase until we hit our “Aha!” moment.
3
Build
Hooray, we’re building the thing! It’s all hands on deck— designers are designing, developers are developing, testers are testing, and I’m updating all the relevant stakeholders and bringing up any concerns as they come up so they can be addressed for launch.
Very occasionally, I’ll put on my developer hat or my tester hat to ensure that I’m understanding the nuances and the experience so I can tell the full story to our customers.
4
Launch!
The build has been fully reviewed and vetted internally! Release notes are updated, stakeholders are notified, and the build is deployed.
Metrics are measured to ensure the success of the launch.
Rinse and repeat!
What my peers have said about me
“I took inspiration from how neat and organised your notes and documents are and hope to be more structured like you some day.”
May Q., Engineering Manager
“Mary is universally recognized by her peers and the customers she represents as an extremely effective product manager. Her steadfast stewardship of the vision and roadmap of our tools has been essential to their success in meeting the critical needs of AV R&D and testing.”
Eric Y., Director (and Manager)
“Mary is a dream PM collaborator across all stages of the product lifecycle, from ideation to design to implementation and beyond. Mary knows how to expertly transform an ambiguous problem into a list of actionable requirements that both designers and developers can tackle. Working alongside Mary, you will untangle complexity together, come up with an organized plan forward, and stay unblocked. Hire Mary if you want to get things done the right way.”
Lisa C., Principal Product Designer
“She has consistently gone above and beyond the expectations of her role, demonstrating strong collaboration between the dev team, stakeholders, and the Software Quality Assurance team. One of her strengths is her organization, whether it’s being quick to find a ticket I can’t seem to find or creating neat and tidy release notes, just to name a few examples. Her leadership and initiative is always on display, driving the progress of the company, and also filling gaps when they arise. Lastly, her planning skills are undeniable. She always has a clear roadmap and goals, even when the path forward is murky at best.”
Jake F., Software Testing Team Lead
“We can rely on Mary and trust that she will keep everything running as smooth as humanly possible. That is priceless.”
Asdiel E., Engineering Team Lead