Beyond the Backlog

Switching industries isn’t easy — but it’s one of the best things I’ve done for my growth as a product manager.

Over the past few years, I’ve worked across FinTech, HR Tech, and Gaming — three wildly different domains with very different users, business models, and product rhythms. Each time I switched, I had to unlearn something, relearn fast, and adapt my toolkit to match a new kind of challenge.

Here’s what that journey taught me — and why I think every PM should embrace cross-industry learning at some point in their career.

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🏦 FinTech: Design for Trust

At KFinTech, our users were handling money — and every product decision had to reflect stability, security, and simplicity. We couldn’t afford flashy experiments if they added friction or confusion. A smoother KYC flow or a clearer portfolio screen wasn’t just UX — it was a trust-building exercise.

💡 Key PM Muscle: Prioritizing clarity over complexity, and aligning tightly with compliance & backend systems.

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🏢 HR Tech: Design for Scale

At INRY, I entered the enterprise world. Products weren’t judged by their UI alone — they had to scale across organizations, work within existing workflows, and be easily configurable by admins and partners.

Here, success looked like fewer support tickets, faster onboarding times, and happy implementation teams.

💡 Key PM Muscle: Thinking in systems, and designing “products within platforms” (hello, ServiceNow).

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🎮 Gaming: Design for Emotion

At Ivy Comptech, I was suddenly in a space where engagement was everything. We weren’t just solving problems — we were creating experiences. Loyalty programs, retention loops, and behavioral nudges became part of daily vocabulary. Data moved fast, users moved faster, and A/B tests were a way of life.

💡 Key PM Muscle: Building habits, optimizing micro-interactions, and treating emotion as a core design input.

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🔄 The Real Learning? PM Principles Are Universal. The Context Is Not.

Here’s what I realized: while the tools of product management might stay the same — roadmaps, user stories, prioritization frameworks — the application of those tools changes dramatically based on the industry, the user, and the product lifecycle.

• You can’t reuse a gaming-style incentive model in a FinTech app.

• Enterprise users don’t care about delightful animations — they want control.

• And retention in B2C isn’t just about functionality — it’s about feeling.

📌 Takeaway: Good PMs solve problems. Great PMs know which problems matter most in a given context.

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🌱 Why I’d Recommend Industry Hopping

Every time I switched domains, I felt like a beginner again. That discomfort? It’s where most of the growth came from.

• I became better at asking questions instead of jumping to solutions

• I learned how to adapt quickly to new team structures and customer mindsets

• And I picked up new mental models that now make me a stronger, more flexible PM

If you’ve been in one space for a while, I’d encourage you: try something different. Not to escape, but to evolve.

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Closing This Chapter (For Now)

I’m still learning, still iterating — but I’m grateful for the variety, the people, and the problems I’ve had the chance to work on so far.

To everyone building in complex, messy, high-stakes environments — I see you. Let’s keep learning from each other.

Stepping into the gaming industry felt like opening a whole new level in the PM game. After FinTech and HR Tech, where success meant clarity and compliance, gaming introduced me to a world where success meant emotion, habit, and engagement.

At Ivy Comptech (Entain Plc), I worked on gaming and betting platforms used by millions across the globe. From feature enhancements to loyalty programs, everything we built had to compete with short attention spans and sky-high user expectations.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far about keeping users coming back — not because they have to, but because they want to.

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🎯 1. Retention Starts Before the First Click

You can’t “retain” someone who never forms a habit in the first place. We spent a lot of time analyzing new user journeys — from registration to KYC, first deposit to first game.

We mapped drop-offs and built nudges — better onboarding, contextual prompts, and streamlined KYC flows. Small tweaks in early moments made big differences in long-term stickiness.

✅ Lesson: The real retention work happens in the first 5 minutes. Nail the onboarding, and you buy yourself a shot at loyalty.

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🌀 2. Loyalty Is a Loop, Not a One-Time Reward

One of the major projects I led was the discovery, design, and launch of a loyalty program. Our goal? Drive retention and net gaming revenue — and we did. Post-launch, we saw a 12% increase in net revenue and a 23% boost in active player retention.

But this didn’t happen because of flashy prizes. It was about:

• Smart segmentation

• Progress-based rewards

• A sense of control and progression

• Personalization over gimmicks

We built feedback loops — win, progress, reward, repeat — that made players feel like the product noticed and valued them.

✅ Lesson: A good loyalty program rewards behavior. A great one reinforces identity.

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🔄 3. Experiments Over Assumptions

We A/B tested almost everything — from CTA wording to the order of promotions, placement of withdrawal buttons, and even color schemes for offer cards.

One of our learnings? A small tweak in how we worded promotions led to a higher opt-in rate — just by tapping into urgency instead of value.

✅ Lesson: In gaming, instincts are great — but data wins. Always be testing, especially when the stakes (and user expectations) are high.

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🌍 4. Global Audience = Infinite Edge Cases

Building for a global user base taught me how culturally nuanced retention can be. What works in the UK market might flop in Germany. Bonus formats, regulatory limitations, even preferred game types — everything varies.

We had to build flexible frameworks that allowed market-specific customization without fragmenting the product.

✅ Lesson: When you scale, don’t just think “multi-device.” Think multi-culture.

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❤️ 5. Delight Is a Retention Strategy

Retention isn’t always about strategy decks and dashboards. Sometimes, it’s about giving users a moment of delight. An unexpected win animation. A cleverly timed nudge. A well-written error message.

It reminded me of something I’d read before but only truly understood in gaming: people don’t remember the steps they took — they remember how they felt.

✅ Lesson: Emotional UX isn’t fluff. It’s a growth lever.

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Final Thoughts

Building in the gaming industry taught me how to think fast, test faster, and always keep the player’s mindset at the center. It’s where psychology, analytics, and experience design all come together — and as a PM, it’s an incredible space to learn what truly keeps people coming back.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in product management, it’s this: each industry teaches you something different — and unlearning is just as important as learning.

Over the past few years, I’ve had the chance to build products across FinTech, HR Tech, and now — Gaming. The shift from one domain to another hasn’t just expanded my toolkit, it’s forced me to rethink what it means to be user-centric, data-driven, and outcome-focused.

Let me rewind a bit.

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📍 Starting with FinTech: Product = Trust

At KFinTech, I was working on investment platforms, mutual fund apps, and backend-heavy financial products. The stakes were high — we were dealing with people’s money.

Lesson: Every tap, every screen, every word carried the weight of user trust. Even small bugs could create panic. Good UX wasn’t just a nice-to-have — it was a business requirement.

I learned how to simplify complex workflows, manage stakeholder expectations across compliance and legal, and most importantly — how to redesign trust.

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📍 Then HR Tech: Product = Workflow

Switching to INRY was like flipping the lens. Now, the product wasn’t consumer-facing. It was used by HR teams, recruiters, and implementation partners. I was building Applicant Tracking Systems and HR Service Delivery apps within the ServiceNow ecosystem.

Lesson: In HR Tech, you’re designing for scale and flexibility, not just beauty. Configurability, integrations, and admin experience took center stage. The users weren’t casual users — they were power users with deeply embedded workflows.

That’s when I really internalized the difference between “usable” and “useful.”

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🎮 And Now: Enter Gaming

This year, I made a big leap — into the world of gaming and betting platforms. It’s fast, data-rich, emotionally charged, and wildly user-driven. It’s also full of unknowns for someone coming from FinTech and HR. And that’s exactly why I leaned into it.

I didn’t want to become the kind of PM who only knows one kind of product. I wanted to challenge my assumptions, reset my learning curve, and understand what makes users come back because they want to — not because they need to.

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Why This Move Matters

Each industry has taught me a different “PM muscle”:

• FinTech sharpened my ability to design for clarity and safety

• HR Tech taught me to think in systems and enterprise logic

• Gaming is already pushing me to level up on engagement, retention, and rapid iteration

And what ties them all together? Curiosity. A willingness to say, “I don’t know — but I’ll figure it out.”

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What’s Next?

I’m diving deep into retention strategies, loyalty programs, and behavioral design in gaming. It’s a whole new playbook (pun intended), and I’m excited to share what I’m learning along the way.

After my stint in FinTech, I moved into something quite different: enterprise HR tech. At INRY, I led product management for two ServiceNow apps — an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and a HR Service Delivery (HRSD) solution, both built for the ServiceNow store.

On paper, it felt like a lateral shift. In reality? Completely different ballgame. Enterprise HR tools come with their own flavor of complexity — workflows instead of journeys, admins instead of users, and “configurability” as a non-negotiable.

Looking back, here are a few things I learned building enterprise-grade HR products that had to work across industries, org sizes, and geographies.

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1. Your User Is Often an Admin, Not an Employee

Coming from B2C, I was tuned to think of “users” as end-users. But in enterprise HR tools, the real power users are admins, HR managers, and implementation consultants. They’re not just using the product — they’re setting it up for hundreds or thousands of others.

✅ Lesson: Design for configurability without making it overwhelming. Your “setup” experience is as important as your UI.

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2. Integration Isn’t a Feature — It’s the Selling Point

Most of our time wasn’t spent building shiny new features. It was making sure our ATS could plug seamlessly into background checks, interview schedulers, and core HR platforms. If something didn’t integrate, it didn’t matter how great it looked.

✅ Lesson: In B2B SaaS, the product is part of a workflow ecosystem. Map the full workflow, not just your slice of it.

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3. Compliance Isn’t Optional, But It Is a Moving Target

Especially for HR products, where every customer could be subject to different labor laws or internal audit standards. We had to think ahead — build for compliance today, but stay ready to adapt.

✅ Lesson: Work closely with legal and compliance folks. Not as blockers — but as product co-owners.

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4. Prioritization Is About Partners, Not Just Users

We weren’t just building for customers. We had implementation partners who deployed these products. Their feedback was gold — they knew where customers struggled, where documentation lacked, and what needed to be templatized.

✅ Lesson: Keep a feedback loop open with partners — they know your product in the wild better than anyone.

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5. Enterprise Doesn’t Mean Boring

We still brought UX thinking into the process — simplifying onboarding, adding contextual help, designing clean dashboards. And guess what? Users noticed. Even in enterprise tools, good design delights.

✅ Lesson: Just because it’s enterprise doesn’t mean you stop caring about UX. In fact, that’s where it often matters most.

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Final Thoughts

INRY was where I learned to think systems-first. Building for scale, configurability, and partner ecosystems isn’t easy, but it’s incredibly rewarding when you start seeing it all come together.

If you’re working on platform-native enterprise apps, especially in HR tech, I’d love to swap notes. These kinds of products don’t always get the limelight — but they make the working world actually work.

Working at KFin Technologies in 2020 was intense — in the best way. We were dealing with legacy systems, large-scale financial products, tight timelines, and a user base that didn’t have much patience for glitches or friction. That’s what made it the perfect playground to grow as a product manager.

We didn’t just launch one product. Over my time there, we:

• Revamped the KFinKart mutual fund app

• Relaunched the corporate website and investor platforms

• Introduced chatbots

• Improved app ratings significantly

• Integrated white-label apps for multiple AMCs

It was a whirlwind. Looking back, here are the biggest lessons I walked away with — ones I think other PMs (especially those in FinTech or complex legacy ecosystems) will relate to.

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1. Legacy ≠ Limitation

When I first joined, I saw legacy systems as blockers. Slow, outdated, unscalable. But over time, I realized: legacy systems can be your foundation — if you respect their constraints and work with them, not against them.

✅ Lesson: Learn the tech stack well enough to negotiate trade-offs with engineering. You don’t have to code, but you do have to understand why something “seemingly simple” isn’t.

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2. User Reviews Are a Goldmine (Use Them Early)

We turned Play Store reviews into our starting point. Not just for bugs — but for discovering broken flows, unmet expectations, and even feature ideas. Every 1-star review had a story.

✅ Lesson: Don’t wait for UAT to find friction. Your users have already told you — you just need to look.

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3. Stakeholder Alignment Is a Full-Time Job

When you’re building financial products, every department has a say — compliance, customer service, marketing, legal, ops. Managing these relationships took as much effort as the product itself.

✅ Lesson: Book recurring alignment check-ins early. Set clear definitions of done. And bring people along for the ride — not just for sign-offs.

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4. Design Thinking Actually Works (If You Commit to It)

We ran proper design thinking workshops — user personas, empathy maps, and all. Initially, people were skeptical. But once teams saw their own assumptions challenged on whiteboards, they got it. Our user journeys became more grounded and our roadmaps sharper.

✅ Lesson: Treat design thinking like a process, not a buzzword. It helps everyone think more clearly — not just designers.

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5. Measure What You Ship

One of the best feelings was watching our app rating go from 2.8 to 4.3. But that wasn’t an accident — we were tracking support calls, transaction drop-offs, app crashes, and usage patterns like hawks.

✅ Lesson: Shipping is just the start. If you’re not measuring impact, you’re guessing.

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Final Thoughts

KFinTech taught me that building in FinTech isn’t about making flashy features — it’s about reducing friction, increasing clarity, and earning user trust, day after day. It’s less about “what can we add?” and more about “what can we simplify?”

If you’re working on complex legacy products and trying to modernize the experience, I feel you. It’s messy. It’s political. It’s also one of the most satisfying kinds of product work out there.

Just wrapped up a major release at KFin Technologies — the revamp of the KFinKart mobile app — and I’m honestly still riding the adrenaline.

For context: when I first joined the team, KFinKart was functional but far from lovable. The Play Store rating was at 2.8. Users were frustrated. Internally, we knew we had a solid backend, but the experience didn’t reflect that. Today, after months of listening, prototyping, and a lot of “is this even possible?”, we’ve gone live with a completely reimagined app — and the early feedback’s been 🔥.

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What We Changed (and Why)

We didn’t want to slap on a new UI and call it a day. This was about trust — users log in to track their investments. Every screen had to feel reliable, clear, and fast. So we focused on:

• A simplified dashboard with instant access to portfolios, SIPs, and transactions

• Streamlined KYC and onboarding — one of the biggest friction points for first-time users

• A lighter, faster app overall — loading times and crashes were major complaints

We also worked on the backend stability, because the app should just work — especially during peak market hours.

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What Made This Hard

• Working within the constraints of a legacy platform

• Aligning multiple internal stakeholders — compliance, marketing, support, engineering

• Mapping user feedback to feasible dev sprints (thank god for our design thinking workshops 🙌)

This wasn’t a greenfield product. It was a complete overhaul while keeping the plane flying — one sprint at a time.

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What I’m Proud Of

• Our Play Store rating is already climbing (fingers crossed 🤞)

• We’ve had fewer support calls within the first 48 hours of release

• Seeing users who previously left 1-star reviews now updating their ratings post-revamp

But honestly, the proudest moment was watching our QA lead use the app to make her first mutual fund investment and say, “This doesn’t feel like work anymore.”

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What I’d Do Differently

• Start user testing even earlier — even sketches reveal a lot

• Push harder for feature flags — we learned this the hard way during UAT

• Document decisions better — we had way too many “wait, why did we do this?” moments

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Final Thoughts

Rebuilding KFinKart wasn’t just about pixels and flows. It was about earning back user confidence — one interaction at a time. If you’re working on modernizing legacy fintech apps, feel free to ping me. There’s a lot I’m still unpacking, but for now — I’m just taking a deep breath and watching those app ratings slowly go up.