Team interview Tommy (Product Development)

Who are we and what happens here? There is already some information on our team page. But that only answers who works for us, not what our team does. That's why we want to give you some more detailed insights. To do so, we talked to a few of our colleagues. Today we introduce you to Tommy.

Hi Tommy, thanks for your time!

How long have you been involved and what exactly do you do at wunschlösung?
I've been involved since the end of 2020. My job advertisement once said "doer / caretaker / organisational superhero / good mood sprayer (m/f/d)". That sounds a bit vague, but I thought it was cool even back then. In the meantime, of course, it's all a bit more solidified. I work in the area of business development, specifically in product development, including the necessary online marketing.

How does your work fit into wunschlösung?

Together with Doreen and Christian (one of our founders) I work on the further development of wunschlösung from a business perspective. This has many aspects: For example, we research current micro and macro trends and think about how best to transfer that to our online platforms. We identify customer need patterns and deal with the question of what a product actually has to be able to do in order to actually help our customers. My day-to-day work is a mixture of research, thinking, being creative and working for and with users.

I come into contact with the "tech part" of the team mainly when it comes to implementation and technological aspects in general. That's where I need the most help, because I don't have an extensive IT background. But I am working on it!

What actually brought you to us?

The job advertisement on a job portal described above. I read the title and asked myself what exactly it was supposed to be. At the same time, I thought that somehow it all sounded exactly like what I would like to do. Even if, or maybe because, it wasn't that concrete, it was clear from the beginning that there was a lot of room for me as a person and my personal growth. That appealed to me and is still one of the reasons why I like wunschlösung so much.

Do you still remember your first days here? What was it like?

My first day was digital. It was kind of weird, because you can only see your colleagues as pixels instead of people. On the one hand, I liked that because it gave me some security to be in a familiar environment. On the other hand, everything felt a bit far away. Because of Corona, we had only really seen each other once before, at the get-to-know-you afternoon.

We went straight into the onboarding week. I say "we" because I started together with Doreen, who applied for the same job advertisement. Now we work together and have both found our niches. Christian explained to us straight away on the first day how things start, what comes next and where it will hopefully all develop. That gave me an extreme amount of support, I like when things are clearly organised. We had a get-to-know-you session with Simon and Thomas (our other two founders) and then explored the tools we now work with every day. Quite a lot at once. Miro, Jira, Jitsi, Confluence, Rocket.Chat, Google Drive. That's just a part of what I now use every day, but had to learn to understand at first. It helped a lot that we could prepare ourselves because Christian told us beforehand what to expect.

What does a typical day in your life look like?

I work part-time, so probably more relaxed than most people. My alarm goes off at nine, because I'm a notorious night owl and don't usually go to bed before two. Then I get up, take the dogs out, grab a snack for breakfast and sit down at the PC. Since I work from home, the "office" is always just a stone's throw away from the dining table. My working day starts at ten. That means I first get an overview of what's been going on since I last left work. At ten past ten, we go to the Business Development Stand-Up, where we all discuss what happened the day before, what's coming up on the new day and who needs support where or wants to review something with the others. Lunch is at 12:45 p.m., when we go to the huddle for a virtual lunch with the team. For this, I prepare a question every day, which we then discuss. This is followed by a second BusDev slot, depending on what we're working on - together or individually. I work four to five hours a day, most of it in the thematic blocks. In the afternoon there is free time, which for me usually means reading, writing or drawing. I also do a lot of that at wunschlösung, so I'm lucky to have more or less turned my hobby into a profession.

If you were the "boss", what would you do differently?

Difficult question. I'm actually very happy with the way things are. I would like to see more diversity in the team, but that's not because of the "bosses", but rather because of a relatively homogeneous applicant pool. And I would like to have the team together more often, but again, that's more a problem of the current world situation. Something I would do differently as a boss would be, I think, to go home earlier. Our directors are passionate about wunschlösung and you can see that. I have a lot of respect for the drive behind it, but I also believe that I wouldn't have the same energy at my disposal. Sometimes I wonder if the guys' days have 30 hours.

And finally, why wunschlösung and not another company?

I have a Master of Science in Psychology, so I'm not really a specialist in the field - but I have the chance to bring in a breath of fresh air. I taught myself a lot of what I know through self-study. That is not immediately comprehensible to every employer. Here I was never treated as someone with a second-class business degree. The things that make me me count. No certificates, credentials or photos. In my relatively short time here, I have been able to learn an incredible amount, also because we are not handled with kid gloves when it comes to project work. By that I don't mean that the tone in the team is rough, quite the opposite. Everyone helps each other very, very much. At wunschlösung, it's not only the business model that is designed for growth, but also the way we treat each other. When I log into the chat at the beginning of my day, it's like coming home for work. There are people who are more friends than colleagues, projects that are more passion than compulsion, and the knowledge that you can do awesome shit together. I don't know that from many other companies.

Thank you, Tommy!

Would you like to know more?
Find out here how the founding of wunschlösung came about, or visit our team page. You can also get to know other wunschlösers in our blog.