Q1 2022 Core Values Award Winner: Susanne Müller

Each quarter, Skilljar’s executive team recognizes one or more Skillets who have gone above and beyond in demonstrating one of our core values. We’re thrilled to spotlight one of Q1’s Core Value Award winners: Susanne Müller for demonstrating Ownership! Congratulations, Susanne!

We took a few minutes to sit down with Susanne for a quick Q&A to learn more about her time at Skilljar, what she loves about her role as a Sr. Product Manager, and a few fun facts! (See all of our Core Values Award winner blog posts here.)

Q: You’ve been with Skilljar for one year–congrats! What drew you to Skilljar initially?

First, Skilljar was voted one of the best companies to work for in Seattle! Second, Skilljar is a tech company with a female CEO, Sandi Lin (enough said).

Ok, there was more–the people who interviewed me were amazing and I love working with them.

Q: Your managers and teammates have commended you for demonstrating a pattern of ownership to ensure our customers get the best outcomes and experience from Skilljar. What’s been one of your most satisfying moments as a Sr. Product Manager?

As a Skilljar PM, I often talk to customers directly to understand their pain points and learn about their goals. This openness on our customers’ end is invaluable to PM effectiveness. Skilljar is fantastic at building great partnerships with our customers.

As for a satisfying moment, I recently showed a customer an early mock-up of a feature I was working on and she gasped with excitement when she saw it!

Q: You’re on the Product team. What does a Sr. Product Manager do at Skilljar? Is there anything you love to nerd out on?

As Sr. PM, I am in charge of figuring out how to make the Skilljar platform better for more customers. On a day-to-day basis we do a lot of talking, writing, and analyzing data. We talk to customers to learn their pain points, we talk to engineers and designers to find solutions to the problems we want to solve, and we talk to marketers and customer success managers to help them take what we build out into the field.

We build an inspiring roadmap and drive the execution of that roadmap. We are always advocating for improvements or new products the company should invest in to create a better product and a better customer experience.

Personally, I nerd out on data visualizations and how they help our users tell a good story.

Q: Almost two years ago, Skilljar went fully remote. What’s been your favorite WFH hack over the last year?

I love not spending time commuting. When my kids get home from school, I am there to say hi. I love being able to take my pup on a run at lunchtime and catch some much-needed sun when it peeks out during the darker months. (Washington state weather!)

Q: You had an early career in radio. How did you make the transformation to product management?

I am from Switzerland and the first in my family to go to University. My dad wanted me to take over his business but I decided to study Germanics and Communications. I started working for the local radio station while finishing up my master’s degree. In many ways the activities that I engage in on a daily basis as a PM are similar to those of a radio journalist–researching, writing, talking, understanding people, being a translator and sense maker.

I found my path into tech when my husband and I moved to Pittsburgh and I started working as a linguist on internationalization at Google Shopping.

Q: Final question – What would we most likely find you doing on the weekend for fun (pre-pandemic or currently)?

I love hosting dinner parties and cooking.

Thank you, Susanne! Congratulations on being named a Core Value Award recipient for Q1 2022!