Time for talent with Celia Gonzalez
Meet Celia Gonzalez 👋 She’s one of our superstar Product Managers and we’ve asked her to share more about her work at Tactile and what she finds the most rewarding about her role. Also, don’t miss out on her advice for aspiring Product Managers!
Tactile: Hi Celia, could you tell us a bit more about what you do at Tactile?
Celia: I work as a Product Manager on Lily’s Garden team, focusing mainly on the new features. I work closely with game design to define the goals for the feature, how we can achieve them and what is the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for testing the feature. I also work with developers and UI to ensure that the feature fulfils the set goals. Finally, I define how to test the feature and work with Data Science to analyze the data and to plan the next iterations.
Tactile: What was your journey to becoming a Product Manager?
Celia: I started as Data Scientist in the mobile games industry 8 years ago. As a Data Scientist, I learned a lot about games KPIs, monetization, user behaviour, A/B testing etc., and I discovered my passion for the product and for the industry. After that, the transition to Product Manager was quite natural for me.
Tactile: What do you like the most about the team you’re working with?
Celia: I love that everybody is really talented, and because we are a diverse team, I can learn a bit from everyone. I also like the work atmosphere, everybody helps each other and we work closely together to improve the game.
Tactile: What is the most rewarding part of your job?
Celia: The best part is when a feature that we’ve been working on goes to production and we can see the results of our work. It’s amazing to see that something you’ve been a part of is now played by millions of users!
Tactile: For people who would like to start their career, what do you think are the most important qualities that every Product Manager should have?
Celia: I think a good Product Manager should have an analytical mind and a great understanding of the industry. I would recommend you to learn some SQL and analytics, play a lot of games and try to understand why users come back to a game, why they make a purchase, etc.
Tactile: When you’re not at work, you are …
Celia: Maybe grabbing a drink with my friends or running in one of the great Copenhagen parks, or maybe roller blading if the weather is good enough!
Time for talent with Anders Breum
Anders is s a Tactile veteran, a multitalented artist & designer, and an integral part of our story for the past 14 years. We asked him to share more about his role at Tactile, how it has changed over the years and what’s a piece of advice he’d give to aspiring designers looking to break into the industry 🙌
Tactile: Hi Anders, could you tell us a bit more about what you do at Tactile?
Anders: I work at Tactile as a UI designer. I work with maintaining the general UI and gameboard in our game Lily’s Garden. I also develop and produce new features and board pieces for the game.
Tactile: You have been at Tactile for almost 14 years! How has your role changed over time and what has kept you here for so long? 🙂
Anders: Oh boy! Has it been that long?! The company was quite small when I started – so I worked as a multipurpose artist. Doing a bit of everything concerning visuals. As the company grew I was able to specialise in the UI area. It has been really special for me to be a part of Tactile growing from the basement backroom of an art gallery to a 5 story building full of people! It is something that makes me very proud to be part of.
Tactile: What is the most rewarding part of your job?
Anders: As a designer, I am privileged to be part of many of the different processes in the development of the game. So seeing a feature move from idea to completely functional game is really rewarding. Also it sounds corny but teamwork makes the dream work! When everybody comes together from all the different disciplines to make something great and engaging. Nothing quite like it. You see your own contribution in the bigger picture.
Tactile: What do you think are the most important qualities that every UI designer should have?
Anders: Be able to take criticism. Don’t take it personal but use it to better yourself. Be curious about advances in your field of work. For me having a background in animation has been a huge plus. With animation you can make everything come alive and help facilitate the emotions you want the player to feel.
Tactile: When you’re not at work, you are …
Anders: I plunge head first into the role of being a dad to 3 great kids. That comes with multitude of benefits like drawing ALOT, playing video games and so on. Also I have personal projects I work on.
Time for Talent with Somalee Gupta
Today we’re inviting into the spotlight one of our awesome & inspiring female engineers – Somalee Gupta! Somalee is working as a Frontend Engineer within our Core team. She joined our Tactile community in March this year, but she’s already making a big impact!
Tactile: Hi Somalee, could you tell us a bit more about what you do at Tactile?
Somalee: Besides all the fun, I work as a software developer for multiple dashboards that we have to manage our games better. We proudly call ourselves the CORE Team as a lot that we decide to put in our games comes after a thorough analysis and testing through these dashboards. Our mission is to make it easy (and fast) for our game producers and designers to understand how users react to different levels and features that are being put in the games.
Tactile: What was your journey to becoming a Software Engineer?
Somalee: It actually quite interesting as I did not study to be one in my bachelors. I had a bit of coding with C++ back in school where I figured I am good at this stuff but I originally studied to be an instrumentation engineer and worked at a Petroleum refinery for about 4 years only to realise its not my cup of tea. So I indulged into some coding, figured how fun JavaScript was and decided to do it professionally. And so to say, I love every bit of it.
Tactile: What do you like the most about the team you’re working with?
Somalee: I would say its how diverse we have managed to be. Its really quite an open culture of trust and reliability we have established. I take pride in saying how well the team reflects the core values of the company which made me join Tactile in the first place.
Tactile: What is the most rewarding part of your job?
Somalee: I would say every now and then we come across technical issues which are challenging to resolve. But we don’t give up and on the way learn so many wonderful things. Its intriguing that I have been doing this for quite some time and still manage to learn new things everyday.
Tactile: For people who would like to start their career, what do you think are the most important qualities that every Programmer should have?
Somalee: I think problem solving and analytical skill are the most important ones. Also, communication, as any programmer has to talk to a lot of people to gather the requirements and work towards a solution.
Tactile: When you’re not at work, you are …
Somalee: I prefer to stay outdoors, workout, maybe go for a run. Copenhagen is full of beautiful parks and lakes which I am currently exploring. I also paint. With all the rains that we are getting these days, a cup of hot coffee and brushes in my hand makes a perfect day.