My strengths are proactivity and positive thinking, an open and searching mind

New position - Product Manager

Company - SAP Labs Bulgaria

Introduce yourself in a few sentences and highlight some key points from your career development so far?

My name is Slaveya and for a little over six years I have been working in the software industry with a focus on business, finding pain points in our clients' processes and solving them through various software. I started as a quality control professional for implemented software, went through project management and product ownership, and now I am here as a product manager :).

What motivates you to take on this new role and what are your main goals in the position?

Product management has been my goal almost since I entered the software field. Now is the moment for this step and a convenient opportunity for it to happen in a natural way. What motivates me, hmm ... I have always valued operational work, conversations, and details, but product management is much broader, has more responsibilities, but also gives you the chance to see the big picture. Strategy and proper planning, the opportunity to meet, find solutions, and deliver value to the client, in a deeper sense, is extremely important and I am incredibly lucky from now on to be able to do this.

What professional or personal qualities do you think will help you succeed in your new position?

I am not deluding myself that transitioning to this new role will be easy, I have a lot to learn! I believe that one of my strongest qualities is proactivity and positive thinking, as well as an open and searching mind. Of course, there is no doubt that people with much richer experience are there to lend me a hand like Maria Krusteva, Ralitsa Borisova, Kalin Ivanov, and many others who will need to translate this article, but still deserve mention Martin Marchinkovski, Hitesh Patel have always been behind me!

What challenges do you expect to face and how do you approach change management?

Haha, challenges lurk around every corner both in professional and personal life. I expect there to be many new responsibilities that I can't even imagine. A lot more learning and difficulties, and how I cope I would say is as usual - I expect the unexpected and learn to enjoy the small victories while working on the bigger ones.

What is your approach to teamwork and building a strong internal culture?

I believe that the culture in the company is fundamental, but each team builds upon it and becomes a key foundation for a good product or service to its end user. I am quite a direct person, I think it takes people time “to get used to me,” but openness, without crossing boundaries, is important to me and I know that the people I work with quickly understand why it is so - a good team can say whatever needs to be said, whenever it needs to be said, to improve their work with each other and lives (works) in a better environment.

What would you like people to say about you in the company after a few months?

I mainly hope to be of help, both locally and globally, for my company and colleagues, also for clients and their businesses. I hope they say nothing, because that means everything is going smoothly.