Unveiling Innovation: A Product Manager’s Journey with our Dublin UI Platform Team
Hello, I’m David, a Principal Product Manager in Workday’s User Interface [UI] Platform team, and I’ve had the privilege of witnessing the Dublin office’s remarkable growth over the past 13 years. Throughout my journey, I’ve navigated through various roles, transitioning seamlessly from Software Engineering to People Leadership and currently, into Product Management. Each day brings new challenges, from navigating the company’s exponential growth to collaborating with different cross-functional teams, exploring new product segments, and adopting cutting-edge technologies. Every day is different, and highly dependent on the needs and priorities of our stakeholders- it’s what makes the work that much more exciting.
A Week in the Life of a Workday UI Platform Product Manager
As part of the UI Platform team, my role involves engaging with numerous stakeholders and driving some of the most exciting innovations for the company. Everything I work on has a focus on enhancing experiences for our 65+ million end-users and optimising productivity for our internal development community. Each week is an exciting mix of collaboration with development teams, design partners, and occasional meetings with customers to understand and address their evolving needs.
Essential Skills for Product Managers: Navigating the Complexity
Returning to fundamentals and examining the essential skills required for a job is imperative for success and sustained performance. The makeup of a successful Product Manager demands a combination of crucial skills:
- Effective communication - This is paramount, and comes into play when translating diverse stakeholder needs into actionable plans for the team.
- Prioritisation - This is key to ensuring impactful work takes precedence, especially when navigating the infinite possibilities in software development
- Critical thinking - A skill needed to synthesise stakeholder input with our own insights, paving the way for innovative solutions that make an impact
These skills collectively enable agility, dynamism, and experimentation in delivering groundbreaking solutions. All of which are needed in a product management role, but especially so as a Workday Product Manager.
Workday’s Enduring Appeal: A Culture of Fun and Growth
What has kept me rooted at Workday for over 12 years? The answer lies in our people and culture. I appreciate that may sound cliché, but employees come first (employees are our #1 core value) and Workday is a pretty special place to be part of. Being part of the Dublin office’s phenomenal growth has been immensely rewarding. We place a significant emphasis on our core values, and I’ve seen them manifest in many ways from in-person experiences to leadership candor, to how we get work done. Over the years, I’ve taken on the responsibility of nurturing and fostering the organic development of our culture, which has added to my experience and made the journey fulfilling.
Dublin UI Platform Team: Pioneering Innovations for Workday
The UI Platform team in Dublin has been a catalyst for leading innovations at Workday. Through collaborating with UX Research, Design, and Product teams, we’ve introduced new ways of working and technology solutions that result in markedly different, and better, end-user experiences. These offerings really showcase our commitment to pushing boundaries and driving impactful changes.
Embracing Autonomy for Global Impact
Our team in Dublin has embraced autonomy in decision-making, fostering innovation while collaborating seamlessly across global time zones and other team locations such as Beaverton, Oregon, Boulder, Colorado and Pleasanton, California. Since 2011, we’ve built trusted relationships, expanded our scope, and demonstrated consistent delivery of outcomes as a Dublin team. Through collaboration and holistic ownership, we’ve developed an autonomous, multi-disciplined organisation that remains connected with the broader UI Platform team through travel, cross-functional working groups, and team offsites.
Future-Focused: AI, ML, and Shaping Workday Experiences
Looking ahead, the UI Platform team is at the forefront of embracing AI and ML trends to augment current Workday experiences and shape the future. Our team is actively experimenting with conversational AI, automation, and assistance to pioneer the next generation of Workday interactions and experiences. Additionally, our work in the product development ecosystem is focused on innovating how our Product teams build better experiences, integrating modern design best practices seamlessly.
Innovation and autonomy continue to be driving forces, shaping the trajectory of our team and contributing to the company’s ongoing success. The journey of the UI Platform team is one of constant evolution, collaboration, and a commitment to delivering transformative solutions for Workday and all its users. I’m proud of what the rest of my team and I have and continue to accomplish, all while maintaining a passion for innovation and creativity with a healthy balance of fun along the way.
If you’re inspired to look at a career in Product Management or Development and enjoy a growth environment, challenge, variety, and building solutions with scale, then Workday is the place for you. Come with ambition, a curious mind, and drive. In turn, Workday will support you to be successful and that’s why I’m still a Workmate 13 years later. Explore what a brighter work day could look like for you, visit our careers site to learn more.
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