What’s it like to start a new job at Lyft? To find out, we spoke with Shreya Shankar, a product manager who joined in July, about why she joined the company, how she likes it so far, and what she hopes to accomplish.

Welcome to Lyft! What are you working on?

I’m a product manager, focused on the pre-request home experience for riders — everything that a customer sees on the home screen, from when they open the app to when they request a ride.

How did you come to Lyft?

It’s pretty funny. I just graduated from business school. When I was there, David Risher came and spoke to our class. We were studying Lyft and Women+ Connect in particular — the reasoning behind it, how it was put together. He talked a lot about customer obsession. The way he framed it, at Lyft growth comes from truly understanding every kind of rider, and going in-depth to make rideshare better for every one of them. We win by showing riders we know who they are, we care about them, and we surface rides that work for them. That’s where the opportunity is. I remember thinking, That’s an interesting way to run a business. 

I know you haven’t been here long, but have you seen that strategy come to life?

Oh, yeah. Right now I’m working on a feature for riders with service animals. Obviously they should be able to take a Lyft ride like anyone else. But occasionally, when a driver arrives and sees an animal that they didn’t expect, they’ll cancel the ride or just drive away. That’s frustrating. I want riders to trust that Lyft will be there to support them and reassure them that they won’t face a scenario like that.

That sounds tricky.

It is, because you have to also think about the driver side. They’re our customers, too. Our hypothesis is, if we can let drivers know as early as possible that a rider has a service animal, we can solve that confusion at the point of pickup. So we are working on a feature that will let riders declare that they have a service animal. They only have to upload it once. And then the driver will be notified. That way there shouldn’t be any surprises — or confusion or frustration from getting stranded.

It’s cool that you get to work on something like this so soon after starting.

Yeah, before I went back to graduate school I worked at a really large tech company, and I didn’t feel like I was making a difference. Lyft is big enough that I’m doing work that reaches people, but small enough that I can make a real impact.