Ana, tell us about yourself and your story at Zalando.
My background is in engineering. After getting a degree in Telecommunications Engineering, I did a PhD in AI around multi-agent systems. After that, I decided to go from academia into industry, since I wanted to apply my research to real customer problems, which is not always the case in academia. Then I joined Zalando as a senior Applied Scientist. I was focusing on topics around NLP, working with applied scientists and engineers. After three years in Dublin, I left for Madrid to join one of the biggest retail companies in Spain, where my role was to build and shape their data science department, and drive all the AI initiatives. It was a great experience, because it allowed me to learn more about laying foundations to something new. And then, two years ago, I decided to come back to Zalando to lead topics around outfit inspiration and style advice.
Could you speak more about what you and your teams do?
We provide our more than 48 million customers with style inspiration and advice. The teams that I lead build machine-learning solutions for these purposes. If a customer finds a pair of jeans that they like, our algorithms will suggest matching items to complete the look. It is a subtle art because it’s not just about suggesting items that match well together, but about suggesting pieces that the customer would like. We also help our customers discover what they like and draw inspiration from the looks of creators and we assist our creators and fashion experts in getting their content and styling advice across to the people who’d appreciate it.
What do you like the most about your work?
I love how scientifically stimulating it is because we work with state-of-the-art technologies and algorithms. Then it has a lot of impact on our customers, and we can really help the customers to get the inspiration and advice they need. And also, I get to work with extremely talented people in my teams. Those are the three things that make my job wonderful.
I also wanted to ask about the team spirit.
The teams are great. They are really motivated to make a change, and they are very collaborative. We brainstorm together, we collaborate a lot, and the vibe in the teams is really good. Everyone in the teams has different backgrounds and brings in different experiences, but they complement each other really well. We aim to deliver the best customer experience, and all work together towards that goal.
Is there any milestone project that the teams have accomplished?
One of the projects I am proud of is the carousel on Zalando’s home page. It is a carousel of machine-generated outfit recommendations based on your personal preferences. It is just one example of the projects that we have been building over the past couple of years. The good thing about machine learning is that it helps us to personalize, automate, and scale. That allows us to support fashion professionals, who have the knowledge and insight into the industry, but not the capacity to look at everything that our 48+ million customers click on.
What do you expect from your candidates? Do you think you could give some advice to them? What should they be prepared for?
A strong background in scientific work and research experience, knowledge about machine learning, and understanding of how to convert research into something that we can bring to the customers. My advice to whoever wants to join us is: “Put the customer first”. We all love — I mean, everyone in the teams does — scientific topics and research. But the thing that really brings us together is customer focus.
