Meet our Partners: Asana Experience Researcher, Sofia Dewar

Welcome to our blog series, Meet our Partners, where we guest feature members of the Asana Product team.

Sofia Dewar, Asana Experience Researcher

Meet Sofia Dewar, Experience Researcher at Asana based in San Francisco. Sofia is passionate about social issues related to technology, developing tools for creativity, and understanding the ways people interact with intelligent systems. Prior to joining Asana in November 2020, Sofia worked at Spotify and Google as a user researcher and advocate. Most recently, Sofia completed a master’s at the UC Berkeley School of Information, with an emphasis in human-computer interaction.

Learn about what led Sofia to the Experience Research Team at Asana and what her experience has been like since joining.

🔎 Considerations during my job search

During my recent job search, there were a few dimensions that I was considering as I looked for roles.

• The domain and product space — I wanted to take on a role where I would be really interested in the domain itself. I find work to be fascinating because it is complex, highly social, and increasingly intertwined with technology. We rely on digital tools more and more for structuring our processes, communicating, holding onto institutional knowledge, staying organized, etc. This merging of work, people, and digital tools creates really interesting areas to learn about during research.
• Research organization and structure — Research is a highly cross-functional role. I have had wonderful experiences at organizations where research was part of the design and data science departments. That said, what stood out to me about Asana is that research is its own department within the product function. This was unique and appealing to me for several reasons, one of which was the opportunity to work closely with my manager and fellow researchers.
• Team size and maturity — Having just wrapped up graduate school, it was important to me that I continue to develop as a researcher in a more applied setting. I wanted to be part of a team where I could receive mentorship and grow as a leader.

📍What I’ve found since joining Asana

• Research is valued — At Asana, we value the insights we gain from behavioral data, larger surveys, and experimentation. I have been very pleased to see the respect and weight that qualitative insights have at this organization as well. Qualitative research is essential when we explore new domains and develop product strategies.
• We have strong cross-functional partnerships — At Asana, we operate as a cross-functional product team. There is excellent problem-solving and dialogue between product, design, PMM, data science, engineering, and research. My engineering counterparts attend research sessions and debriefs regularly, I have collaborated with PMM on a project to inform go-to-market strategy, and I regularly work with data science to complement qualitative findings with quantitative insights. We are a cohesive team and deliver better work as a result.
• The organization fosters a collaborative and welcoming culture — At the organizational level, Asana does an excellent job emphasizing collective goals and individual advancement. And at the team level, it is remarkable how generous people have been to share their time, energy, and expertise with me. I joined with high expectations on culture and continue to be impressed every day.

🔮 What I’m looking forward to

• The team is growing and developing — We have new roles and titles opening across the global Experience Research team and product areas. As we scale, the team has continued to discuss how we can work together on cross-program initiatives, whether it be pairing on large projects or developing new programs together. Furthermore, our Research Ops team is helping us solidify our processes and how we work with cross-functional partners. It has been exciting to see the team be intentional about remaining a cohesive unit as we develop our areas of specialization.
• We’re increasing our strategic influence — Research is already a key input on decision-making at Asana. However, we are continuing to push how we can transform customer insights into longer-term product strategy and vision. Leaders at Asana believe that research can help break down silos, uncover areas we may be overlooking, and structure how teams approach new domains. We are in the unusual position of being asked to deliver increasingly more strategic influence as we embark on future work.

Work with Sofia — Join the Experience Research team!

Check out opportunities to join our team. We have open roles in San Francisco, Vancouver, and New York.