The details on Aura
Aura mission is to provide intelligent digital safety for the whole family. And so in order to support that mission, we have a really wide feature offering that serves the needs of every family members. So everyone from you individually spouses, if you're a parent, your kids, even your parents or grandparents, and that really is encompassed with features like identity protection, dark web monitoring, VPN, transaction, monitoring, all that stuff. But also parental controls for kids, right? That's not something usually people think of for digital security, but we take that pretty seriously.
Eliza's background and why she joined Aura
So I actually have no background in digital security. And it's primarily like, direct to consumer brands, heavy emphasis on both data and design. But once again, we don't really require anybody to have that deep digital security background within products for the experience, because we're dealing with people that once again, don't know a ton about this space. So it's, I think there's immense value in being able to come here, and really look at it from that perspective of, are we talking in deep, technical terms? Or is this human readable? Does it make sense. So that was really exciting when I first started to take that lens, but also genuinely, I love mid sized companies. I love developing new products that kind of require you to find product market fit. And that's really what drew me to Aura. So digging into customer problems, understanding how to deliver that in a way that's valuable to the customer, but also the business, of course. And there's a lot that comes along with that not only building things, but the company processes and culture changes. So I find that really exciting. And Aura is in a position where we're geared for tons of growth. And I think that's the most exciting time to be at a company and be part of that.
A day in the life of a product manager at Aura
At Aura, I'm the director of product for the family team. My day is pretty indicative of any product managers day, we don't necessarily have that strict manager, people only structure versus individual contributors, everybody is pretty much involved. And that's also very important to be close to the business and the customer. I kind of attribute the product mindset here to like high low thinking. So you'll get really in the weeds, you know, talk to customers really looking at the technology, but also coming back up to that 100 foot view, to plan the strategy and and the look forward of the roadmap. First thing I do every day is start with my roadmap and the data. So really looking at the KPIs, updating my own reports, measuring performance, and just thinking pretty deeply about what that data tells me, and how it fuels the future of the roadmap. And then a lot of like your normal working with your full stack team. Agile ceremonies, standup grooming, a lot of coordinating, like I said, we offer our product through a lot of different channels. So there's a lot to coordinate between web app back end, keeping your documentation tight is is pretty essential. And as well like transparent communication. Also working cross functionally, with marketing partners, customer support the end to end customer experience, you really think about daily. And then I also end my day with the roadmap, right? Like, what did we learn? Are things launching on time? What is the the outlook? And kind of just making sure you have that story of what are we focused on? How are we progressing towards this? What did we learn? And how do we use that to fuel the future. It's a lot of things, a lot of hats, but it really helps you deliver the best experience and be as close as possible to that customer value you're trying to deliver.
The culture at Aura
The culture at Aura, I actually have been only here for seven months. And the biggest thing that struck me when I started was how nice everybody was like genuinely. It's extremely collaborative. everyone really wants to do the best work, have the highest bar of service really cares about the customer. We place a lot of emphasis on work life balance. I least I can speak to my team. We really want people to take time off. And the team really comes together to make sure that we cover for somebody when they do that. And it's just I know I'm on the family team, but it really feels like a family. And that's something that's super refreshing and a really fast paced atmosphere. You're aware, there is a high delivery cadence, but also we don't live of like the you have to do or die like we understand we are all human. And we also need to take breaks and enjoy what we're working on. And honestly, that's the best part about working here.
Potential future career paths
Yeah, I'd say, in general, from a product perspective, when you're working up, like you have your starting positions, where you're more tactical, you're probably working on a small focus area as a PM, and you start to grow to think about not just delivering on your product, but how it kind of shapes the rest of the company and starts to build into what's next. And not that quarterly view, but that yearly view. And that's how you start to grow into more of those director roles. And then, usually, if you that's where you start to feel out, do I want to stay on this more technical data? individual contributor path? Or do I want to manage people, and that's where you can start to grow into more like VP, SVP, all that fun stuff. But there's nothing stopping anybody from being super effective. And being a non manager, versus being a people manager. I think that any pm can be super successful and have a great career no matter what. So I wouldn't say that that is a necessity of people management. But I think it's the most fun part. And I love developing people and seeing them grow, it's rewarding.
How to land a product manager job at Aura
I'd say if you want to join Aura, you first really have to ask yourself, Is this a problem space that excites you that resonates with you, it's really hard to be a product manager for a company or a product that you don't necessarily have a passion for. If you do, that's amazing. We definitely, like people who have direct to consumer experience, like to dig into the customer needs feedback and be able to translate that into experiences that resonate with people. So if that excites you, we would love to talk to you. It's definitely a complicated space. But it solves a deeply personal problem for people and we like to be able to reflect that in the product experience and be able to kind of make digital security approachable and valuable. But if anybody has questions about that they can totally reach out
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
