Q: What do you do at Jumio?
A: I’m working as a Product Manager at Jumio, responsible for all Biometrics and Identity Verification offerings. Right now I’m also the acting Product Owner of the native mobile SDK product.
Q: What was Jumio’s selling point for you – What made you say “I wanna work there!”?
A: Back in 2012 when I first looked up Jumio I almost could not find any information. The only information I got was that this is a US based company with some references to Austria and a rough idea that this company deals with credit card scanning.
With almost no information in my hand I still applied for the job. And then it went super fast. On the next day I already had a first phone interview, two days later I met my former manager and one day after I got an offer and a contract to sign.
It was a perfect match from day one and I’m very happy that I applied for this job.
Q: Before Jumio, did you have similar experiences at previous companies or was this rather new to you when you started?
A: Before Jumio I worked in several smaller jobs in big enterprises. But in such companies you are just one small piece of the organization – at least in the first years. That was completely different at Jumio. I was one of the first employees in Austria and within a very short period of time I could make almost all decisions on my own, could bring in my ideas and was listened to from the very beginning.
Q: How does your work environment differ from other more “traditional” companies you’ve worked for in the past?
A: The main difference to my previous jobs are the people who work for Jumio. I don’t want to say that I could not work nicely together with the people in the former companies, but outside of my team mates it was very hard to get to know them in private, there was always a distance. This is completely different here.
Over the years I have met so many great people. And I’m not just working with them, I spend a lot of my free time outside of work with them because they are my friends.
Q: What didn’t you expect about the role?
A: Initially I worked as Software Quality Engineer in the first years at Jumio, but then got the opportunity from Philipp to join him in the Product Management team (Philipp Pointner is Jumio’s Chief Product Officer). This was a really great career opportunity and I am really grateful that he gave me this chance. What I did not expect was my fast move forward from a shared PM/QA position to full time PM for the mobile SDK to my current responsiblity of Biometrics.
Q: What would you say to potential employees wanting to work at Jumio? What qualities should they have?
A: It’s a really nice working environment with a lot of great people. If they want to learn new stuff extremely fast Jumio is the right company to go to.