Vamsi, I've genuinely enjoyed working alongside you. The positive energy you bring to everything is contagious, and I believe we all need that kind of positivity in our lives. When you joined the team, you were one of the few who proactively scheduled one-on-one time with me. Our discussions about the SDLC processes were enlightening, and through them, I realized how similarly we approach challenges.
Your problem-solving skills are commendable. You're always coming up with ways to enhance our processes, whether it's managing Design QA for new features or refining our bug prioritization. Your passion for the products you're involved with is evident every time you speak about them. You consistently offer valuable feedback and ideas on how we can improve.
From designers to developers, these testimonials span the spectrum of disciplines within the industry.
Engineering Leader
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Principal Experience Designer
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Through out my experience of working with you, it’s clear that you always have an eye towards what could be, an openness for diverse perspectives, and a bias for action. You were always leaning into these strengths as you built a ‘team mentality’ and focus within your team.
A few things come to mind: Fostering innovation. Create an environment that encourages people to challenge assumptions, experiment, learn from results and fail forward. Vamsi, you were a great thought partner to imagine future state vision experiences. You brought your existing knowledge of the product, awareness of relevant competitive experiences, and eagerness to ask what if. You create an environment in our working sessions for the working team to offer our unique points of view while balancing your understanding of existing constraints and needs from our product partners. I’ve had the chance to see you create similar environments for explorations/creativity in the newly brought cross-functional teams. This ability of yours to create the space for making connections and pushing boundaries will be key in the success of any team. Vamsi, you are also always finding ways to add structure and focus to keep the team moving forward through cycles of diverging and converging.
Embrace a “Go mindset.” Make decisions quickly and drive initiatives forward with urgency, even when there may be some uncertainty. Your team really required a Go mindset to build these net new experiences and prove out business value in new ways and you have shown a bias towards action and near-term wins in both tactical work and setting vision, strategy. You are always asking how to translate things in ways that Product can understand and buy into by continuing to embrace challenges and bringing a strong design POV.
A few things come to mind: Fostering innovation. Create an environment that encourages people to challenge assumptions, experiment, learn from results and fail forward. Vamsi, you were a great thought partner to imagine future state vision experiences. You brought your existing knowledge of the product, awareness of relevant competitive experiences, and eagerness to ask what if. You create an environment in our working sessions for the working team to offer our unique points of view while balancing your understanding of existing constraints and needs from our product partners. I’ve had the chance to see you create similar environments for explorations/creativity in the newly brought cross-functional teams. This ability of yours to create the space for making connections and pushing boundaries will be key in the success of any team. Vamsi, you are also always finding ways to add structure and focus to keep the team moving forward through cycles of diverging and converging.
Embrace a “Go mindset.” Make decisions quickly and drive initiatives forward with urgency, even when there may be some uncertainty. Your team really required a Go mindset to build these net new experiences and prove out business value in new ways and you have shown a bias towards action and near-term wins in both tactical work and setting vision, strategy. You are always asking how to translate things in ways that Product can understand and buy into by continuing to embrace challenges and bringing a strong design POV.
Senior Product Owner
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Vamsi, you have been one of my favorite team leaders in the Consumer Group, and I really appreciate how you empower your team by giving them ownership of the projects, thus creating excellent products such as Home-Buying-Plan. You not only care for your team but also have been the lone wolf in all the Product Backlog review meetings, representing both Product and Business. You have the magical ability to communicate client feedback on the product to multiple Engineering and Product groups quickly to get things resolved.
You have been instrumental in creating amazing synergy between Product Owners, Designers, and Developers. I remember when I joined the project; you organized Design Hours so that your team could dedicate time to answer questions from the POs and Developers. Later, once the project started scaling into multiple teams and the scope expanded, you took the initiative and worked with POs to create smaller communication channels to provide constant support to the Engineering team.
You thoroughly embody the “Responding with a Sense of Urgency” value. You are also constantly seeking ways to improve the process by understanding the pain points of your stakeholders (Developers, POs) and suggesting new ways to address the issues with experiments that have greatly improved the overall productivity of the group (Bug Tracking Process, Handoff Documentation, Celebrating Team's Work, etc.). You are always looking for feedback from POs and Developers to improve the relationship and have been receptive to feedback. Hands down, I can say the process has improved a lot, and good relationships have been built between Product, Tech, and Design. For instance, you made sure the Engineers and I had everything we needed from the Design team for the multiple features by scheduling some 1:1 sessions with me and kept the ball rolling.
In addition to all of this, I always look out for your witty and funny GIFs and texts shared in the big meetings to create a comfortable and fun environment.
You have been instrumental in creating amazing synergy between Product Owners, Designers, and Developers. I remember when I joined the project; you organized Design Hours so that your team could dedicate time to answer questions from the POs and Developers. Later, once the project started scaling into multiple teams and the scope expanded, you took the initiative and worked with POs to create smaller communication channels to provide constant support to the Engineering team.
You thoroughly embody the “Responding with a Sense of Urgency” value. You are also constantly seeking ways to improve the process by understanding the pain points of your stakeholders (Developers, POs) and suggesting new ways to address the issues with experiments that have greatly improved the overall productivity of the group (Bug Tracking Process, Handoff Documentation, Celebrating Team's Work, etc.). You are always looking for feedback from POs and Developers to improve the relationship and have been receptive to feedback. Hands down, I can say the process has improved a lot, and good relationships have been built between Product, Tech, and Design. For instance, you made sure the Engineers and I had everything we needed from the Design team for the multiple features by scheduling some 1:1 sessions with me and kept the ball rolling.
In addition to all of this, I always look out for your witty and funny GIFs and texts shared in the big meetings to create a comfortable and fun environment.
Senior Software Architect
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Vamsi, you have always shown utmost care about the products we develop and I always appreciate how you encourage your team members to be more involved in the development process. You have a keen eye of understanding design, product goals and marrying them with technology. You go above and beyond on helping out, unblocking tech teams and helping everyone move forward effectively. You foster the creation of sustainable solutions for the technology teams on what's feasible. You have created unique solutions with your team to solve client problems and have helped us to create the most optimized experiences to move forward. You also have an eye for detail to identify areas of improvement in product, process and people.
For me through out all the projects that we have worked on, you have also taken the role of a project manager as well in addition to being a team leader of design and and have stepped in to help out the teams with design questions or aligning on product enhancements. You always jump in to connect the dots and bring folks and teams across the company together quickly to identify the issue, taking the conns and unblocking major hurdles - which I think is your super power.
For me through out all the projects that we have worked on, you have also taken the role of a project manager as well in addition to being a team leader of design and and have stepped in to help out the teams with design questions or aligning on product enhancements. You always jump in to connect the dots and bring folks and teams across the company together quickly to identify the issue, taking the conns and unblocking major hurdles - which I think is your super power.
Design Researcher
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Vamsi, you are one of my favorite research stakeholders to work with because of your commitment to Connecting our functions to Create amazing user-centered design. In every research initiative for Home Buying Plan you took an active role as a co-creator in the process and continue to consult me and my related findings when leading the next iterations of designs for the product.
As you have modeled this behavior, your team has enthusiastically followed your example, and you have grown them as top-notch research collaborators. Sometimes as researchers we get left in the dark about what happens after we share our research, and Vamsi - you are a leader in showing Care for research partners by keeping us not just aware of next steps, but also involving in creating the designs and forecasting the next research stage. You are leading Rocket Design's Growth as a cross-functional research and design powerhouse that can continue to build on its existing body of knowledge by charting new territory and making huge business impact.
As you have modeled this behavior, your team has enthusiastically followed your example, and you have grown them as top-notch research collaborators. Sometimes as researchers we get left in the dark about what happens after we share our research, and Vamsi - you are a leader in showing Care for research partners by keeping us not just aware of next steps, but also involving in creating the designs and forecasting the next research stage. You are leading Rocket Design's Growth as a cross-functional research and design powerhouse that can continue to build on its existing body of knowledge by charting new territory and making huge business impact.