Audible Sound Bites with Amber Brown

Amber Brown is a Senior Technical Product Manager on Audible’s Retail Product team, helping customers around the world easily find and purchase Audible content, at competitive prices, without a membership. She joined us just over a year ago after heading up product teams for the world’s biggest social media and entertainment companies. Here she reflects on her experience so far.

Can you describe a bit about your role?

Simply put, my role is to create products that make it easier for our current and future customers to enjoy stories and ideas shared on Audible, a la carte. On a typical day, I work with engineering, data science, design, research, marketing and finance teams to strategize how we can use technologies like machine learning to present the best offers and experiences to our members and non-members who want to make a one-time purchase.

What was your employee onboarding experience like?

Our HR and recruitment teams executed a phenomenal new-hire program that not only helped me setup my workstation and gain access to necessary systems and technologies, but also arranged presentations and discussions with various parts of the business, such as Audible Studios and the Customer Relations team. These gave me an early understanding of Audible’s history and current operations. My recruiter was (and remains) a very supportive, valuable resource, checking in to make sure I am settling in well and directing me as needed.

My manager was also very helpful, putting together an onboarding document with key contacts, goals and resources. In my first week, we had a casual chat where he filled me in on the team and my role, and answered all of my initial questions. By my second week, though the expectation was for me to continue ramping up, I was also equipped to start making small, but meaningful contributions, while continuing to learn the ropes and gel with the team.

How do you exemplify our People Principles in your day-to-day work?

I leverage all of our principles every day, especially “Be Customer Obsessed,” by working closely with our research and analytics teams to deeply understand our customers and their unique needs, and by teaming up with engineering and design teams to brainstorm and create innovative solutions. We have ideation sessions that blend technical and user-focused perspectives to make things better for our customers, always thinking about what they’ll need next.

We never stop learning or experimenting. Once I have defined our strategy and product brief, we “Move Fast” to obtain data that will prove or disprove our hypothesis. It's a continuous, iterative process, and we do it with a lot of respect for each other and our community of listeners.

How has an Audible leader empowered you to take on a challenge or explore a new area?

When I joined the new retail team, my manager described it as a start-up within a big company. My role was to lead a brand new pricing product, and it required me to take ownership and build alignment from scratch. I was empowered to dive into all aspects of Audible’s pricing technology and experiences covering deals, promotions, and various offer types.

Pricing is a vast and complex area, and required me to gain buy-in from multiple groups and build strong relationships across the business to unify everyone under one mission. On the technical side, it also meant working closely with Amazon counterparts to find solutions that best served our customers and unified Audible and Amazon experiences.

This autonomy, and the support from my manager, allowed me to leverage my existing skills to drive momentum, while also learning and sharpening new skills to navigate Audible’s unique environment.

What’s one quality people interested in working on Audible’s Retail Product team need to be successful?

Initiative. People on our team need to show initiative—taking ideas and making them happen, and inspiring others along the way.

What advice would you have for a candidate considering Audible?

Our People Principles are the foundation of our culture and they truly guide the work that we do. Review Audible’s People Principles and determine if they resonate with you. If they do, I encourage you think of ways you have incorporated these principles into how you work or think.

What made you choose to work at Audible, what makes you want to stay?

I have worked in technology within the media and entertainment space throughout my career, and the opportunity to join Audible was exciting: Audible is a leader in the audio entertainment space and leverages the latest technology to build new and better global experiences for customers.

What has kept me at Audible is the culture and the people. Everyone at Audible has a passion to do the right thing for our customers. Collaboration comes naturally, and our leadership team empowers us to find and test the solutions that we believe are best. I seek out environments that allow me the flexibility to lead, transparency to learn, and resources to execute in a way that is collaborative, and Audible allows me to do this.

Lightning Round!

Favorite genre? Literary Fiction.

Listening from a speaker or headphones? Speaker. Specifically while driving.

Favorite activity while listening? Driving.

Morning person or night owl?  Night owl.

Favorite snack? Blueberry scone and a cup of hot tea.

What are you currently listening to?

The adaption of 1984 by George Orwell and Joe White. It feels incredibly immersive and cinematic, like I’m right there in the story.

My favorite listen is probably The Elementals by McDowell, performed by R.C. Bray. I’ve recently ventured into the Southern Gothic Horror genre, and I’ve grown quite fond of it. McDowell is incredible at combining Southern folklore and period-specific nuances into suspenseful narratives, laced with the right touch of horror. The book is also written to emulate regional patois, and the narrator captures this perfectly, giving a lot of personality to all of the characters.