The Price is Right: Why Jyoti Swarnkar Joined Observe
By Knox Lively,August 1, 2022
I love that Observe helps the customer solve their problem, rather than handcuffing them to a pricing model.
As we continue to make improvements and add functionality to Observe – like Observe Apps, and our new and improved Dashboards – understanding the true costs of operating a SaaS product is more important than ever. Especially since we want to pass along these efficiencies to our customers. That’s why we couldn’t be happier to have Jyoti Swarnkar on board to help us make sense of it all.
In addition to being our crystal ball when it comes to understanding costs and creating pricing models, Jyoti might win the prize for most hobbies, and the biggest smile at Observe.
Enough about why we love Jyoti, let’s see why Jyoti came to Observe for the next step in her career!
First, tell us a bit about yourself.
My name is Jyoti Swarnkar. I’m a Senior Product Manager here at Observe for pricing, though I’m a chemical engineer by education!
Outside of work, I am very social and have an extremely busy social life. I’m constantly running between catching up with friends, hiking, traveling, or cooking – which I really love.
I also volunteer at a meditation center where I teach little kids to meditate, and I do flower arrangements every couple of months for them as well.
Can you explain what you do at Observe?
My day-to-day is split right now into three big chunks. One chunk is getting our new vendor for billing implemented. This is exciting because it connects all the different functions we have in the company like engineering, product, sales, and financing.
The second chunk is working on connecting the usage data with contract data and maintaining it every week till we move to our new billing system.
We want to make sure our cost is a true reflection of our pricing.
The last part is looking at various cost aspects and answering questions like “How do we connect our cost basis to pricing as an early startup?” because we’re still making tons of improvements to our product – which we actually pass along to our customer. We do this because we want to make sure our cost is a true reflection of our pricing.
What led to you join Observe?
I was on maternity leave and I had some time so I just decided to see what was out there.
In my previous position for four years, I had experienced the full breadth of doing only analytics and pricing for new products and our team grew from five to fourteen. My role had become very restrained and I was looking for some breadth.
One of our recruiters reached out to me, but I didn’t think “this is my job.” I decided to do the interview anyway as a “practice” interview. The more people I spoke to, the more I enjoyed getting to know them – they all were so humble. And then came the product, I loved it! I mean some of the dashboard features blew me away!
Did anything special stand out to you about the people or culture during the interview process?
I think what stood out to me was the kindness that people showed when they were interviewing me. Even though their job was to assess what kind of skills I had, they were kind and polite – and didn’t bash me or make me feel uncomfortable when I didn’t know the answer to one of their questions.
The atmosphere was just more open, where the interviewer gets to know you outside of your skills. I think that is unique. Plus, kindness has always been my guiding star.
What do you enjoy most about working at Observe?
For me, it’s the people and then the challenge that we have to solve for our customers. I’ve never worked at a startup, so being so close to customers is exciting – it’s what I enjoy most about working here. After getting feedback from the customer, the team works as quickly as we can to solve their problem, which is usually less than a week.
What excites you most about our product?
I think what excites me most has to do with pricing and the architecture of our product, namely that customers can ingest as much data as they want, from as many sources as they want, see how it’s all connected, and not have to worry [much] about costs.
Pricing depends on how much our customers use our product, not how much data they ingest, or how many users they have – whether it’s 10 or 1,000.
In short, I love that Observe helps the customer solve their problem, rather than handcuffing them to a pricing model.
Do you have any words of advice for prospective employees?
I would say that if you are looking for a place to solve fun problems, work hard, and work with a great group of people then Observe is a place you should explore. Come meet the people and see what it means to have a career here because it’s truly awesome to work in a startup environment with more experienced and mature employees. It’s not your typical startup.
Last question, and it’s kind of silly. If Observe was an animal, what would it be?
If Observe were an animal it would be a tiger. I say that because tigers are very focused on what they want to achieve – the plan of attack is clear and once it’s set in motion there’s no stopping it.
Join Us!
We hope you enjoyed reading about what makes Observe so special to Jyoti, but the story of Observe doesn’t stop with her.
We’re looking for the best and brightest, those passionate about learning and solving the world’s most difficult problems in new and unique ways with a group of passionate, kind, and like-minded individuals. If this sounds like you or someone you know, then we’ll make it worthwhile with best-in-industry benefits including unlimited vacation and more.
Check out our careers page to see where you fit in!