Product at Sofi
whats PM like at Sofi? I see some recent Amazonians join in leadership roles (eg Assaf, ex VP is now Head of Product). Is the culture like Amazon or say, IBM? Do teams move fast or slow? Is there autonomy and independence or hierarchy and beaucracy? thanks! Amazon L7, TC $280k
Yelp BDkP87 Sep 7, 2019
Is the company doing well in general? Not sure if their valuation is justified and if they will ipo anytime soon?
SoFi ncPL75 Sep 23, 2019
Goose eggs on all
Product at SoFi is still kind of up in the air. Assaf is all over the place and unfortunately has lost a lot of respect from the company and a lot of people don't take him seriously. There is some other great product leadership getting hired that I'm really excited about, but there are also a lot of bad PMs in some of the product orgs. It is really hit or miss, but if you are a good PM, are organized, have process, know how to do and want to do user research, and make data driven decisions, you will do well and will earn a lot of respect. It seems like you can earn trust and autonomy. A lot of PMs will still just write stories with titles only, and no description or designs, and change them halfway through the Sprint. Also, since we are distributed, product and engineering aren't very unified. As far as I know Assaf hasn't brought us anything interesting from Amazon, and he apparently was fired from Amazon as well, but maybe you would have more insight into that than me.
Thanks for the detailed and informative response! That’s helpful. At Amazon, yes he was fired. I think it was similar concerns: brash, guidance not founded in data, and ultimately bad decisions that manifested in very bad outcomes.
Yeah Assaf misrepresented that he was fired, and somehow in our background check HR missed that he had his Uber offer rescinded because he lied about being fired. There was also a big blind thread about it. Honestly I have seen Assaf grow a lot and learn to keep his mouth shut a little more, but he still loves to hear himself speak and is all over the place with his direction and leadership. I honestly wish we could replace him, but I think the exec team is still trying to see if they can get him to work out.