We are excited to present our Product Owner, Attilio Porchia, based in Warsaw as this month’s employee spotlight. He joined the team ten months ago and he has been a part of various important and successful projects for Aquiva Labs. In this article, you will learn more about Attilio’s path to becoming a Product Owner, his work at Aquiva Labs, and his advice for anyone that would like to follow his successful professional career.
Becoming a Product Owner
Attilio’s path to becoming a Product Owner evolved through different positions and various experiences. At the beginning of his professional career, he worked in Technical Support, which helped him improve his communication and problem-solving skills. Learning and troubleshooting the issues affecting customers motivated him to later join the Quality Assurance team. During this time, he had the opportunity to deepen his knowledge of testing methodologies and learn to look at a product from a customer’s perspective. To close the loop, Attilio then became a Product Owner to support and manage the processes that bring to life the customer’s vision and needs into a final product.
The role of the Product Owner is very important for Attilio as it gives him the opportunity to collaborate and work with other departments, such as Sales and grow a customer-centric mindset.
The daily work life of Attilio
Attilio starts his work morning by checking his email, Slack, and calendar for any upcoming meetings. On a typical day, he attends the SCRUM ceremonies where he discusses his current projects and tasks with his colleagues and the refinement meetings with the development team. He takes care of product backlog management to ensure that the backlog is refined and prioritized. Later on during the day, he attends meetings with customers and other project stakeholders. Whenever Attilio has time in his busy schedule, he makes sure to join the daily Coffee Break meeting, where he reconnects with the Aquiva Labs team over a cup of coffee and any topic outside work life.
Attilio’s role as a Product Owner requires making important and crucial decisions on what product and features the development team has to build, which sometimes requires saying “no” to customers. This is a rather challenging part of his role but also very important for the end result of the project. “It is an opportunity to guide the customer to see the big picture and in the end, receive a high-quality product”, Attilio adds. Seeing customers happy with the solution delivered and helping them achieve their business goals and objectives is what Attilio finds to be the most rewarding part of his role.
Whenever Attilio is not working on a project for Aquiva Labs and has free time, he enjoys cooking and trying out new recipes for his friends and family. He is also a passionate traveler and appreciates the opportunity to discover new places and cultures, and see the world from a different perspective.
Being part of Aquiva Labs
Attilio shared that he enjoys working at Aquiva Labs because it is a perfect place to develop new skills and grow in your career. Additionally, the company supports the employees’ learning paths by providing opportunities to enroll in Salesforce certification programs, soft skills workshops, and participation in various internal discussions about industry trends and best practices to share knowledge within the team.
“Everyone at Aquiva Labs is very supportive and there is a strong team-oriented mindset to work together and achieve our goals. It is very inspiring to work side by side with so many talented professionals”, Attilio shared.
Joining Aquiva Labs and becoming a successful Product Owner
If you aspire to become a successful Product Owner, Attilio advises that you should begin by reading appropriate books and completing Scrum and salesforce certifications to have a head start in this role. “Finding a mentor that can share experiences and provide feedback will add great value”, Attilio stated.
Additionally, if you would like to start your career in any Salesforce position or at Aquiva Labs, Attilio shared that a previous experience with the Salesforce ecosystem is a major benefit. However, if this is not your case, you can join the Trailhead platform, where you will get access to various courses and will help you prepare and keep moving forward with Salesforce.
“Keep in mind that the quest for knowledge never ends, so set periodic goals and keep learning!”
If Attilio’s experience working at Aquiva Labs sounds like an interesting career path for you and you would like to become part of our team, make sure to check out our open positions and apply today. We provide career development support and guidance, access to official Salesforce courses, certifications, and a great team to work with and grow together!