In this blog, we hear from Senior Product Manager Sapphire Samiullah, about her day-to-day life at Student Beans. Sapphire looks after squad Loki, whose focus is to help students issue a code as quickly and easily as possible on web and apps.
8:00am
Wake up and get ready, I usually don’t have breakfast so it’s just tea and coffee for me in the morning!
On a VERY good day, I’ll be in the gym (a new routine I’m attempting to start!) before work, but I’d be lying if I said this was a habit…
9:00am
I generally start the working day by catching up on Slack messages and refreshing myself on the day’s priorities.
9:30am
Every day at 9:30 the Product Managers in Marketplace Tribe have a daily huddle with our Head of Product, Simon Ockford, to recap goals for the day and discuss any blockers or challenges. This helps us all stay synced up and allows us to solve any issues quickly and proactively.
It’s also a nice social touch point so we all have a chance to chat even when our work doesn’t cross over.
Pre-standup (11:20am)
Before standup, I check to make sure there are no blockers that the squad needs me to complete so that I can ensure they’re unblocked by the time we meet. I also often check on our live experiments pre-standup so that I can share results (good or bad!) with the squad and keep them informed.
Post-standup
I will typically review the backlog post-standup and make sure that any actions on me that come out of standup are actioned or prioritised. I might check in with my Tech Lead, Robin Heathcote, to discuss any more technical aspects of the upcoming work, or sync up with my Product Designer, Filipe Almeida, to talk about the latest user insights or Discovery projects we’re planning.
Lunch
I love to go for a lunchtime stroll (weather permitting!) and typically enjoy cooking a decent meal for lunch – I use Green Chef (thanks SB for the discount!) and this is often my main meal of the day – you’ll see why if you keep reading…
Afternoons
Afternoons vary a lot for me. Often I will be in meetings to discuss any upcoming squad work with relevant stakeholders – in particular, I sync up with external stakeholders like our Merchandising Lead, Adam Butler, or discuss experiment results or plans with our data analysts Max Obermuller and Amelie Bruhat. I also regularly sync up with our Agile Coach, Dan Barnes, to discuss squad processes and how we can continually improve to make sure we’re being as efficient as possible.
If I’m not in meetings then it’s a great opportunity for me to do some deep diving into the data with Looker or Contentsquare, complete any Notion write-ups of our latest squad work, or spend some personal development time on Reforge, a company which provides training programmes for Product and Growth.
Post-work
My main hobby is martial arts! I do Karate, Judo and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, so these take up a lot of my evenings. It’s also the reason I have a big lunch as I can’t normally eat much before training! I train at least 3x per week so that keeps me pretty busy.
On other days I’ll be out socialising with friends, or enjoying a quiet night in – perhaps playing a board game with my detective flatmate! Naturally, I avoid playing him at Cluedo…
Sleep!
In the week I always try to read or listen to an audio book for half an hour before sleeping as it helps to de-stress and detach from screens before getting some rest.
We have ambitious goals and a thrilling journey ahead, so we’re looking for driven, creative people to join our fast-growing team. Please visit our careers site to see current openings.