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About

Soumyata Binani
Product Manager  |  Innovator  |  Design Thinker

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A little about me

👋 Hey, I’m Soumyata! I’m currently pursuing MS in Technology Management at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. I am passionate about turning “What if?” ideas into products that make people think, “Wow, that works!”, with simplicity and usefulness in mind.

With 2+ years of experience in the Wealth Management industry, I have led projects using Big Data to help businesses make smarter decisions and achieve better outcomes. I specialize in turning complex data into clear, actionable solutions that drive results. When a task is assigned to me, I make sure it gets done, I’m committed to seeing things through from start to finish.

Outside of work, you’ll find me exploring new places, swimming, or capturing moments with my camera. Always curious, always learning!

Experiences

My Work So Far

Roles that have shaped my journey, each one teaching me something new and real.

May 2025 - July 2025

Riverside Natural Foods

Product Consultant

As a Product Consultant, I led a project to enhance employee productivity and engagement through AI solutions. We surveyed 150+ employees to uncover workflow pain points and inefficiencies, then benchmarked AI adoption across leading CPG companies. From this research, I identified 20+ high-impact AI use cases, from automating repetitive tasks to improving cross-team communication, and delivered a strategic roadmap enabling leadership to implement solutions that streamline operations and better support employees.

Jul 2022 - Jul 2024

BlackRock

Product Manager - Aladdin Wealth

In this role, I was responsible for making products faster, smarter, and more reliable for clients who depended on them every day. Whether it was rethinking how proposals were generated or improving system observability, my focus was on understanding user workflows, defining clear requirements, and collaborating closely with engineering to deliver solutions that fit naturally into their processes. I guided prioritization, tested ideas with users, and refined features to create tools that felt intuitive while meeting business goals. Additionally, I authored a technical blog on big data optimization, gaining industry recognition.

Jan 2022 - Jun 2022

BlackRock

Intern – Aladdin Wealth

I began by learning the systems inside out, then looked for ways to make them more transparent and responsive. I worked on building real-time dashboards to monitor key performance metrics, enabling proactive issue resolution. I also supported a large-scale cloud migration by coordinating with engineering, QA and operations to ensure smooth deployment and business continuity.

Jul 2020 - Jun 2021

SkillShip Foundation

Chapter Manager

At SkillShip, I worked to close the tech skills gap for underserved students. I led coding bootcamps for 80+ learners, helping them create projects that opened doors to internships and higher education. I also launched an online resource hub for women in tech - a space that offered career advice, learning guides, and networking opportunities to over 100 members.

Jun 2020 - Dec 2020

PrepBytes

Marketing Intern

At PrepBytes, I focused on optimizing the user acquisition funnel by analyzing customer journeys and identifying drop-off points. Using keyword research and SEO best practices, I collaborated with product and content teams to improve landing page conversions. I also developed targeted user segmentation and personalized campaigns based on behavioral data, which helped increase engagement and boost retention rates.

Skills

What I Do Best

These are the skills I use every day, learned through real experiences and always growing as I take on new things.

Product Management & Strategy

Product Lifecycle Management
Market Research
User-Centered Design
Feature Prioritization

Programming Languages

Java
Scala
Python
SQL
Bash
Perl

Project Management & Leadership

Agile Development
Scrum
Kanban
Jira
Project Planning
Stakeholder Management
User Stories

Data Analysis

Power BI
Tableau
Spark/Hadoop
API Integration & Management
Snowflake

Projects

What I’ve Been Up To

Explore the range of projects, blogs and case studies I have worked on independently. Click through to dive deeper into each piece.

May 2025

Booking.com Transperancy Redesign

  • Redesigned the Booking.com interface to improve transparency around hidden fees and unclear policies.
  • Design Challenge: "How might we empower users to make confident decisions through clearer cost communication?"
  • The outcome was a toggle-based price breakdown, prototyped in Figma, enabling users to see total costs upfront and book with confidence.
UI/UX Design, User Interviews, Prototyping, Journey Mapping
April 2025

Reliabl – Verified B2B Marketplace

  • Relaibl is an AI-powered marketplace that lets small retailers vet and connect with trustworthy suppliers.
  • The platform uses AI to generate credibility scores for both suppliers and retailers, helping both sides make informed decisions and reduce risk.
  • Led product vision, user flow definition, and AI-driven scoring logic, while collaborating on rapid UX design and pitch materials.
Product Thinking, Feature Prioritization, Storytelling, User Empathy, Lovable
Feb 2025

Auto-Sleep Mode for Streaming Platforms

  • This case study explores the Auto-Sleep Mode feature designed to enhance user experience by detecting sleep through smartwatches and automatically pausing content on streaming platforms. It tackles challenges like false positives, integration, latency, and privacy.
  • It demonstrates a real-world product development approach, focusing on problem-solving, technical execution, and business impact.
Product Management, Success Metrics, Competitive Analysis, Figma
Oct 2023

Cranking the Voltage on Spark

  • In this blog, we share insights on optimizing Apache Spark to enhance performance, specifically in the context of risk analytics for millions of portfolios, focusing on fine-tuning drivers, executors, and memory to boost performance.
  • It covers practical Spark optimization techniques like data partitioning, reducing shuffling, and caching frequently accessed data to boost efficiency and scalability.
Big Data Processing, Distributed Computing, Performance Tuning, Cloud
Jun 2020

Face Mask Detector using OpenCV

  • Trained a ML model during Covid-19 outbreak to detect correct face mask usage. Designed and trained the model using Python and TensorFlow, achieving 95% accuracy.
  • Scraped data from the web and existing Kaggle dataset to develop a model which categorizes inputs into three output values: with_mask, without_mask, mask_worn_incorrect, ensuring accurate detection for real-world applications.
Python, Tensorflow, OpenCV, BeautifulSoup
April 2019

ISLify: Speech-to-ISL/ASL Gesture Conversion

  • Developed a real-time speech-to-sign language converter, translating spoken language into Indian Sign Language (ISL) and American Sign Language (ASL) gestures using an intuitive graphical interface.
  • Implemented robust fallback mechanisms to display alphabet images for unrecognized words, ensuring comprehensive communication support.
Python, Tkinter, speech-recognition

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