Allie:<\/i> I manage our contingent workforce program, which means I work with our contractors. When I started in this role a few months ago, there weren\u2019t a lot of existing processes in place\u2014so I\u2019ve been looking over the program and identifying areas where we can make some changes. It was doing well before, but I do see some opportunities to make it leaner, implement some new processes, and just help it grow.<\/p>\n
Philipp: <\/i>I\u2019m the operations manager for Firefox Add-ons<\/a> where third-party developers create extensions that allow users to customize their Firefox experience. Essentially, it\u2019s my job to keep the Add-ons ecosystem running, including community management and editorial as well as our security work. Our team tries to give developers the tools they need to succeed, but we\u2019re balancing that with keeping bad actors out and keeping the platform safe. What\u2019s best for the users is always a strong focus at Mozilla.<\/p>\n Tell us about your first stints at Mozilla and what brought you back.<\/b><\/p>\n Allie: <\/i>I worked here in 2018 as a contractor on the Recruiting team, and I loved it. I never wanted to leave. It might sound cheesy, but I love the culture here. It feels like Mozilla\u2019s mission of keeping the internet safe and free comes through in every interaction; the people are so open, welcoming, and kind. They\u2019re amazing\u2014just a pleasure to work with.<\/p>\n Unfortunately at the time, we didn\u2019t have the headcount we would have needed to convert my position into a permanent role, so I ended up taking a full-time job elsewhere. But I kept in touch with my manager here and kept my eyes open for an opportunity to come back. I got a lot of experience with contingent workforce programs in that other job, so this role ended up being a perfect fit.<\/p>\n Philipp:<\/i> I started volunteering for Mozilla in 2006, through a contest I saw on Slashdot\u2014the person who verified the most bugs got a gift certificate to the Mozilla Gear Store. Then I ended up joining a company where I live in Hamburg that had been contributing to Mozilla projects, and eventually I became a contractor for Mozilla, working on Thunderbird<\/a>. After that I spent four years at a company based in France, again on Mozilla-related projects.<\/p>\n One catalyst for joining as an employee was Mozilla\u2019s strength as a distributed team. I wanted to get into management, but it was also important to me to stay in Hamburg long-term. And as many companies are learning now from the pandemic, remote work isn\u2019t as simple as telling people to stay home and giving them laptops. You need to create specific programs and have certain processes\u2014which, because we\u2019ve been doing this for so long, Mozilla really understands. My team has members across the U.S., Costa Rica, Canada, England, the Netherlands, France, Serbia, and Germany, but it feels like they\u2019re all just next door.<\/p>\n The other thing that gets a lot of folks excited, including me, is the sense of purpose here. As Allie said, the mission and vision definitely sets this team apart. Reconnecting with all the people I\u2019d met over the years brought me so much joy; it felt like coming home.<\/p>\n Tony: <\/i>Absolutely. I remember when I started here the first time, as a program manager, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. I thought, \u201cThere\u2019s no way people are this nice!\u201d But they really are. Working in privacy and security always meant a lot to me, too, especially being gay. When I was younger, I practically lived in private browsing mode\u2014it was a safe space where I could ask questions that I couldn\u2019t in-person and learn. I want other people going through that experience to have the same comfortable environment.<\/p>\n I left in 2020, and honestly, it was because the layoffs<\/a> we\u2019d had scared me. I took a program management role in another company. But I really wanted to get into product management, and then a product manager role opened up here early this year. The hiring manager was someone I knew and wanted to work with again, so we started talking. The company\u2019s financial situation was much better, which was reassuring. And because Mozilla had actually let me split my time between program management and product management when I was there before, I was now prepared and excited to take on a fully product management role. Plus, like Allie said, these are the best people in the world.<\/p>\n Tony Cinotto<\/em><\/p>\n How would you describe the moment Mozilla is in right now?<\/b><\/p>\n Philipp:<\/i> I think whenever you have a layoff, it\u2019s important to think about what\u2019s happened and where we\u2019re going next\u2014and something I really appreciated is how Mitchell, our CEO, was so frank and open in that conversation. It wasn\u2019t sugar-coated business speak; it was real, like she was talking to friends. She took responsibility and explained what the leadership team was doing to get back on track.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve also been realistic about the fact that when you lose people, you can\u2019t just do more with less and expect the team to recover. Of course there are critical programs we need to keep up and running, but there\u2019s also an acknowledgement that we need to take a different approach. It\u2019s saying, \u201cOkay, now that we\u2019re going in this new direction, what are the things we can achieve?\u201d<\/p>\n Tony: <\/i>I really agree about Mitchell\u2014she\u2019s never reading a speech when she talks to us; she\u2019s speaking from her heart and being vulnerable and honest. And I do think we\u2019re becoming more strategic as a company and really working to diversify our product offering. Everyone knows Firefox, but Mozilla is more than that. Now we have these standalone products like VPN that we\u2019ve been able to develop in parallel, and that can reach people even if they don\u2019t use Firefox.<\/p>\n Before, we would put technology out and just sort of see how it did in the market. Now, we\u2019re not afraid to talk about money\u2014or about data. But everything is still done in a way that preserves users\u2019 privacy and fuels that mission. We\u2019re seeing revenue as a tool that enables us to keep going and protect more people.<\/p>\n Allie Mendelson What\u2019s most challenging about your work?<\/b><\/p>\n Tony: <\/i>I think privacy and security is just a challenging space, especially as you get into premium offerings. Most people care, but they still might not really understand\u2014or even if they do, they might not be willing to take action. A lot of the solutions out there today take so much time and effort to use, and we want to solve for that. On the education front, we do a lot of work with the Engineering team, user experience team, and our partners in Research to figure out how to first help people learn about the benefits of our privacy and security products, and then give them steps they can take that are as seamless as possible. Rather than having to download a tool and configure a thing, it should be built into your experiences. If you want your email masked, for example, you just click a button.<\/p>\n I think our experience with Firefox Monitor<\/a>, which helps users track data breaches, has been a great signal. We worked with a partner called Have I Been Pwned?<\/a> that was very popular in tech but not well-known in general. We were able to use Mozilla\u2019s brand to introduce it to more people, and we also translated it from English to 20 other languages. Now, millions of people are using it.<\/p>\n Allie: <\/i>What\u2019s been tricky for me is learning a new role while simultaneously figuring out what it\u2019s going to look like\u2014there was a lot of process in place at my previous company, and this role definitely didn\u2019t come with a manual. But really, drawing on my prior experience is part of why I was brought in, and I\u2019ve been given a lot of autonomy to set things up. For example, we were relying on a small group of staffing suppliers that Mozilla has worked with for a long time. But I know a ton of other options and have a pretty good idea of which companies excel in which areas, so I\u2019ve started bringing in new vendors. I love that I have the opportunity to say, \u201cI think this could be better. Let\u2019s change it,\u201d and I get so much support. It\u2019s really cool to have that freedom.<\/p>\n Philipp:<\/i> For me, resources can be a challenge. Mozilla competes with some very large companies, and we have to achieve similar things with fewer people. I think my team does a great job, but it\u2019s tough sometimes to figure out how to scope our work properly and not get burned out. I will say, though, that Mozilla is a very data-driven organization. When a new director comes in and needs to understand what our team is about and why it\u2019s important, we can show them the numbers to help explain the business impact. And I\u2019ve noticed every time, leadership is genuinely interested in understanding our space. It\u2019s not, \u201cWell, you don\u2019t have budget, so make do.\u201d It\u2019s, \u201cOkay, let\u2019s figure out why you don\u2019t have budget and what you need.\u201d They will happily do a deep dive to build that knowledge, which I really appreciate.<\/p>\n Philipp Kewisch When you think about your career development, what\u2019s most exciting to you?<\/b><\/p>\n Philipp: <\/i>I\u2019m looking forward to growing into a leadership role at some point. I like being in a position to remove roadblocks for my team, and I want to try managing people as well as resources. I just want to keep trying to be the best version of myself until I retire. Of course, moving into management when you\u2019re remote has its challenges; in most companies, the leaders are sitting in a room together. But if there\u2019s any company that can succeed with remote leadership, it\u2019s Mozilla. So I\u2019m hopeful that I can continue being home with my family, continue seeing my kid on my lunch break, and still fulfill that dream.<\/p>\n Tony: <\/i>I\u2019m excited to grow in this product management role and to keep learning and taking on new challenges. One thing that\u2019s great about Mozilla is our education budget, which managers strongly encourage us to use. Every time I sit down with my manager, she\u2019s asking about the next class I\u2019m taking. People genuinely care about your growth, professionally and even personally.<\/p>\n Allie: <\/i>I\u2019m taking a course in contingent workforce program management soon, which I\u2019m excited about. It\u2019s virtual, but I\u2019ll get to talk with people in similar roles at other companies and learn from what\u2019s been successful for them, so I can bring it back here.<\/p>\n Beyond that, I\u2019m excited to continue growing this program and collaborating with other teams: The Procurement team is helping us analyze where we can improve, and we\u2019ve partnered with Talent Acquisition to see where we can help with some possible contract-to-hire options for hard-to-fill roles. As much as I didn\u2019t want to leave after my first year at Mozilla, I think getting that outside perspective ended up being really helpful. And now that I\u2019m back, I have the freedom to apply my experience and make us stronger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tony Cinotto (Product Manager), Allie Mendelson (Contingent Workforce Program Manager), and Philipp Kewisch (Add-ons Operations Manager) work on three different teams at Mozilla. But they all have something in common: … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":524,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451122,4883,451108],"tags":[466624],"coauthors":[306191],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Tony](\"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/files\/2021\/09\/tony-cinotto-300x242.jpg\")
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