Q&A with Shalini, Sr. Technical Product Manager at Amazon UPMT Gifting Team, in Berlin

Can you tell us more about your Amazon career journey? I have been with Amazon for 7 years and have launched products to solve problems for customers in India, EU and now Worldwide. I started my professional career as a developer and built software for the first 7 years of my life (wow number 7 does have something magical about it) while growing as a tech leader. In 2012, I started my own consumer internet venture in Bangalore and this is the time when I transitioned from being a techie to a product/business leader. Post acquisition of my startup, I wanted to grow as a product owner and build products at scale, which is when I got an offer from Amazon India in October 2016.

In India, I joined the retail category team and improved the experience for customers purchasing Furniture. I enjoyed working on some of the very complex problems across the purchase journey, especially around fulfillment and post purchase experience. In 2019, I relocated to Amazon Berlin and joined a team that caters to the experience of large selling partners of Amazon. This role gave me the opportunity to learn about the seller side of problems and dive deep into the B2B products of Amazon. Since 2021, I have been part of the Gifting Customer Experience team and focused on improving the experience of customers buying gifts on Amazon Worldwide.

How have you grown and developed as a professional since starting your career at Amazon? I have polished my Product management, writing and decision-making skills to think about customer impact first and at scale. Being responsible for the experience of millions of customers every day, made me realize the power of taking calculated risks and making two-way door decisions. For the past 1.5 years, I have also been Interview Bar Raiser at Amazon. Contributing to hiring and raising the bar of the talent we hire helps me give back with a positive impact.

Can you tell us more about your current role and team? I am a Technical Product Manager with the Gifting Customer Experience team, based out of Berlin, Germany. The Gifting Customer Experience team delivers the end-to-end gifting experience in Amazon stores?from gift discovery features on Homepage, Search and Gift Finder to gift purchasing, delivery and exchange options, gift messaging and gift wrap. Our vision is to transform Amazon into the world's favorite gifting store by delivering a personalized, simple and delightful gift shopper and recipient experience.

In the Gifting team, I lead the charter for an innovative product to send real gifts by text or email, without the need of a postal address. How cool is that! This feature is currently available only in the US.

We are a unique team because we are responsible for two customer personas in every experience we cater to, the gift sender and the gift recipient. We are also one of the few teams at Amazon that own both software experience and a product customers can touch and feel, our gift wraps. Gifting is an exciting space with tremendous opportunity to improve customer experience and bring innovation to reduce friction in online gifting.

You've been an Amazonian for over 7 years. What is your proudest moment at the company so far? I feel lucky to have a few of these moments during my career at Amazon. Most recently during Peak, Holiday 2023, when my product was featured on Amazon.com homepage to help customers buy last minute gifts with ease. It was an ecstatic feeling to see the real end customer impact of what my team and I had delivered! ?

How was your experience of relocating from Amazon India to working for Amazon Germany? In 2019, I relocated to Berlin because my husband was joining a new company and I wanted to keep the family together. Amazon’s culture supports movement for employees across geographies and teams for career growth or for personal reasons. My manager in India helped me to find a new role in the EU and my new team helped and supported me in this transition. Amazon’s relocation support gave me peace of mind while moving my base and settling in the new place with my 5-year-old son.

What do you most appreciate about Amazon's culture and work environment? Amazon is unique because even at this scale and working across multiple teams and orgs, we keep our customer at the center of everything. I feel great about having this opportunity to learn something new every day and work with a very smart bunch of colleagues, some of whom are now my friends for life. Amazon’s unique writing culture took some time to grow upon on me (coming from a startup and being used to Pitch decks). However now I realize the power of a well-articulated document that helps gain alignment across partners seamlessly. PR-FAQs are my favorite part of writing at Amazon.

What is your favorite leadership principle? My favorite is Deliver Results because to Deliver Results at an organization of Amazon’s scale you need to excel at all other leadership principles too. You need to start with Customer Obsession, have Bias for Action, work with stakeholders to Earn Trust, Learn and Be Curious, Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit and be Are Right, A Lot.

How do you like to spend your time outside of work? I love dancing and am a trained Kathak (Indian classical dance form) dancer. I also love travelling and creating vlogs. As an ex-entrepreneur I love staying connected with the startup ecosystem as an advisor and mentor.

What’s your favorite Amazon product or service? The Amazon app with my Prime member benefits is my go-to place for all my needs be it shopping for myself, sending gifts for my friends and family or watching my favorite content on Prime Video.

If you are interested in joining Shalini Nautiyal within the US Prime & Marketing Technology team in the US or EMEA- check out all of our open roles here!

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