AMA with Development Director Katy Swainston
By Raman Kang
Katy Swainston is the Development Director for FIFA Mobile’s new features. Originally from the UK, she started her digital career leading projects for museums and galleries. Since then, Katy has delivered work spanning apps to CMSs, in sectors ranging from healthcare to e-commerce. She is passionate about creating impactful work, building brilliant teams and optimizing processes.
Q: Hi Katy! Thanks so much for joining us today. I definitely have the travel bug and would love to hear how you moved from the UK to Canada from a professional standpoint. Did you get your role here before moving? Got a work visa? Any tips on how to do this well? Any learnings?
A: Good question! So I came here on a working holiday visa and have applied for PR (sadly taking forever, thanks to COVID). I interviewed from the UK for about a year and would often make it into the final round but not quite get there. One thing I found difficult was the length of the process, which would sometimes stretch to 3-4 months. When I got here, it took me a few months to find a role. I took quite a significant pay cut from my London jobs, which was tough, but I got to know the job market from being here and going to meetups. I would say that everyone's experiences can be different, but for me, it would be to persevere and keep in mind that things will work out, but it will take a little bit of time.
Q: What does it take to be a DD at EA? What’s a day in the life of a DD at EA?
A: Well, my background was in Product and Project Management, which has served me well for this role. My day typically starts with meetings with the broader organization and the team, some of which I'm leading and some of which I'm just listening in on. The rest of the day can really vary. Every second Monday and Friday tend to be the busiest, as we are having meetings to kick-off and close sprints. During the week, I will track how everything is going and am very involved in improving things for the team. I have meetings with stakeholders about different tracks of work going on a fair bit too. I also catch up with the team on an individual basis very regularly to see how they're doing and also to follow up with bugs or tasks that I feel I could support them with.
Q: I'm curious to know about the challenges you've gone through with your work and how you overcame them? What's the most challenging part of your job and the most enjoyable?
A: Another excellent question. I'd say stakeholder management can be difficult for me, especially when stakeholders are senior, there are many of them, or I have a similar role. As a disclaimer, I don't think this is something I'm brilliant at and is something I'm working on! What I've found has worked for this is bringing conversations back to a common goal and asking how I can help support that. In previous roles, the best thing I've done is to let some things fail, especially if a very senior stakeholder is dead set on it being a certain way and won't budge. In those instances, I would usually present the data, flag the risks with that course of action but ultimately, if they want to do it still, do it.
I find the people I work with the most enjoyable. Clichéd I know, but I like learning from people and am a big question asker. I also love data, planning and strategy, so the chances I get to do that to improve what I'm doing are things I really enjoy.
Q: If someone was looking to get started in tech project management, what would your advice be?
A: I think what worked well for me was moving into it through the area I was already working in. So I started working with tech in museums because I had so much experience in museums. I started looking at what would be needed in terms of qualifications. Then I did an Agile Atern qualification, which is what worked best for museums because it's Scrum but using the rhetoric associated with Waterfall. Then I started finding people who had a job like the one I wanted to aim for and asking them how they got there, meeting them for coffee, etc.
Q: You have experience in project management across a few fields. Can you enlighten us as to how that path eventuated?
A: I had a bit of an unusual route into Project Management as I was initially an archaeologist! I got a place on a corporate PR grad scheme and was put on the digital team and really took it. From there, I started doing Product and Project Management with museums and arts organizations and enjoyed it. As I did a lot of agency work, I'd had exposure to many sectors and eventually realized I enjoyed it, regardless of industry and wanted to challenge myself with something that would perhaps be faster-paced. I made the giant leap in e-commerce a few years ago and haven't looked back. I love learning the ins and out of new sectors and feel that there are common threads between them.