An Interview With…Anusha Sonthalia
In the latest instalment of our interview series, I chatted with Anusha Sonthalia, who joined Origin in July 2021 as a Junior Product Manager.
Anusha and I discussed her international upbringing, her education, her love of tulips and coffee, and why London is beginning to feel like home.
We hope you find this series interesting. If you like the sound of the work we’re doing here at Origin and want to be a part of it, please drop us an email.
An interview with... Anusha Sonthalia
Work
Talk us through a little about your background. I understand you moved around quite a lot as a child.
I guess I’m a version of what some people call a “third culture kid”. Essentially, I grew up in a culture which is different from the one in which either of my parents were raised.
My family moved around a lot when I was growing up. I had lived in five different countries by the time I was 10. Things settled a little after that, I spent my early teens in India and my later ones in London, but it’s never lost on me how lucky I am to have been raised with an international outlook.
And how has that reflected in your work here at Origin?
It’s great working for a company with a global client base. Origin has customers from London to Hong Kong and a tonne of places in between, and we’re doing all we can to grow that reach even further.
With such international clients we also have to take a different approach to design. For example, there are technical aspects, like translating documents to different languages, and more subtle or fun ones, like changing our logo for Chinese New Year. An added bonus with our international coverage is that our team is also international and incredibly welcoming!
Tell us about your education and what attracted you to your choice of degree, a MEng in Design Engineering from London’s Imperial College?
There’s a definition for my field of study on our department website: “Design Engineering is the fusion of design thinking, and engineering knowledge and practice within a culture of innovation and enterprise.” It’s a beautiful sentence but I sometimes consider the definition a little too short to meaningfully explain all the things I learned over the four years!
My favourite part of the course was learning a little bit about a lot of things and having the ability to bring those concepts together to create something new. There is a saying that goes, “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” The saying doesn’t aim to reduce the value of specialisation but rather to emphasise the value of staying curious and broadening one’s horizons. I found the course incredibly interesting and it taught me to be curious, which is probably my favourite aspect of being a product manager. In short, I get paid to be curious, learn about new things, and discover how we can make our products better.
Tell us a little about the role and what it means to be a graduate at Origin, in your case, as a graduate Junior Product Manager.
First of all it’s a fantastic learning opportunity. You start off focusing more on cross platform issues, working with all the product teams to understand the problem space and the technology stack. I came from a more design oriented background so learning the technical aspects was a challenge for me but also a great way to become a more rounded product manager. The same would go for someone more technical - we have two super talented designers on our team who know a lot about the design process and best practices and can help you balance your skills. Eventually these skills allow you to join one of Origin’s product teams, which we call pods, and work as a full product manager in your own right.
So, what does the work of a Junior Product Manager actually entail? What does a typical day in your week look like?
So we actually work in two week sprints so perhaps it makes more sense to explain what a typical sprint looks like. We start with scopes of work and long to-do lists. Sometimes our tasks are more implementation specific, like discussing what the best approach to building something would be, sometimes it’s more exploratory, like discussing how we can explore a specific problem space.
During the sprint we work on these tasks and also manage the progress of the workload. We have daily stand-ups to see what people are focusing on and make sure everyone has the support they need. On Thursdays we release software, so time during the week also goes into making sure our releases are stable and that we’re deploying the features we promised. Towards the end of a sprint it’s more about reflecting on what we’ve achieved, planning the next block of work, and making sure we continue to improve our processes. Then it’s back to the start!
Play
Given how you grew up travelling all over the world, how do you find living and working in London? What are your feelings towards the city and is it a place you would like to call home for many years to come?
I love it here but “home” has always been a weird word for me. I don’t really see home as a place but rather where my family and friends are and I’m lucky to have so many people who mean a lot to me here in London. I’d be more than happy to stay here, but if I get an opportunity to travel elsewhere I also wouldn’t say no!
What’s your favourite place to grab coffee in London?
I guess that depends on what you’re looking for! My current favourite is probably the Cafe at Storey’s Gate. It’s a small place at the southeastern corner of St. James’s Park - which dare I say is one of the best parks in the city. Now that it’s spring and the tulips are in full bloom, my perfect Saturday would be grabbing a coffee and going for a long walk through the park enjoying the sun and flowers.
What do you like to do outside of work?
I love food and sports so mostly anything that involves running around or eating. That being said, you won’t catch me dead in the kitchen. I love eating food, but cooking it is not something I can seem to get on board with!
Which books have had the most influence on your growth and why?
Without a doubt, When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. It’s an autobiography of a neurosurgeon. I don’t want to spoil it but it’s beautifully written and conveys a unique perspective on life.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
My grandfather loved to tell me, especially when I was struggling with something, “Koi divas himmath nahi harvi”. It’s Gujarati for “Never Lose Courage”. It was something a prominent Indian businessman once told him was the secret to his success.
Your favourite podcast(s)?
Probably an unpopular opinion but I’m not crazy about podcasts! That being said, when I was at school I found a great one called 99% Invisible. It’s a podcast about design, the title is 99% Invisible because good design often goes unnoticed, it fits so seamlessly into our lives. It’s bad design that we pick apart because it annoys us. It’s a great podcast and I thought the title was quite clever.
What’s your favourite place – maybe a city, a restaurant, a bar, a beach – in the world and why?
I’ve travelled a lot and I know there are many beautiful places in the world but I would probably say my favourite one is my grandmother’s flat in Mumbai. It’s a small one bed flat in an apartment building on top of a hill. It’s quite close to the coast so we get a beautiful sea breeze and the height means we escape the noise of traffic (of course that doesn’t make it silent, it is India after all!). My grandmother has great taste so the place has been done up beautifully but it also has the best energy. It’s perhaps the only house I’ve visited consistently my whole life. There have been so many happy moments in that apartment, and perhaps best of all, so many delicious meals.
