Meet Jacqueline Ryan, Product Manager

Jacqueline Ryan is a Product Manager at At-Bay, working primarily to support our Claims team. She has built an internal claims system from the ground up, which aids in the team’s day-to-day function, makes claims data more accessible to other teams, and helps optimize our claims process so that clients can get back on their feet ASAP after an event.

After joining the company in July 2021, Jacqueline jumped into the claims handling process — a previously unknown domain for the product team — and ramped up quickly on the needs and pain points. “With curiosity, empathy, and collaboration skills, Jacqueline has formed strong relationships and earned the trust of both her customers and her peers across engineering, design, and analytics,” says her manager.

Read on to learn more about Jacqueline’s experiences and accomplishments:

1. What has surprised you most since joining At-Bay?

I come from a tech background and am new to both insurance and cybersecurity, so I’ve been surprised to see how working in this unique space affects At-Bay’s products.

Insurance is a cautious and regulated space, while cybersecurity is unbelievably fast and dynamic. As a product manager, I’m constantly threading the needle between moving quickly enough to keep up with cyber risk but carefully enough to comply with regulations and avoid breaking anything. At the end of the day, we’re working with people’s businesses and livelihoods, so a high degree of conscientiousness is required.

Additionally, cyber is a still new and developing field, so I’m often building from scratch without prior versions to refer to. This sets my job apart from past product manager roles for more mature products, which tend to be more iterative and less exploratory.

2. What’s your favorite aspect of working at At-Bay?

I love the amount of diversity I get in my day-to-day. I wouldn’t perform well in a job where I repeated the same tasks every day, which is why At-Bay is a good fit: Product work here goes above and beyond the typical variety.

I attribute this to At-Bay’s collaborative environment. We combine expertise from so many different industries that it’s actually impossible to work in a silo. 

As a product manager building a new system and features from scratch, I’ve experienced an evolution in my role that mirrors the evolution of the product I’m working on. I dive deeply into each area of focus before I move on to the next, which allows me to learn continuously from the many area experts that make up At-Bay.

3. What skills have you developed over your career that help you shine at At-Bay?

My ability to distinguish between when I know something and when I don’t serves me well in my role at At-Bay. 

A good product manager recognizes when they have what they need to move forward and when more information is needed before taking action. This is a daily balancing act. You don’t want to be paralyzed by decision-making or waste time asking what you already know, but you also don’t want to act hastily and build something without enough information — only to find that you’ve missed the mark and need to re-start from square one.

I’m always aiming to drill into the center of a user’s problems as quickly as possible to understand what they don’t like or what would better serve their needs. This allows me to remain agile and adjust my course as I gain new insights.

4. What has been your most rewarding achievement so far?

Going live with our claims system product for the first time and seeing it actually put to use has been my most rewarding achievement at At-Bay. This moment represented months of work coming to fruition, and it was exciting to see the team adopt the system immediately.

Building new products is fun, but I don’t believe in tech for tech’s sake. All my work is impact-driven, so I’m always most fulfilled when I get to see a product I’ve built positively impact someone’s day-to-day.

5. What’s your favorite memory of At-Bay? 

I joined At-Bay when the company was remote due to COVID precautions. We resumed hybrid work in spring 2022, and our return to the office is easily one of my favorite memories.

There’s no virtual substitute for organic hallway run-ins or sharing lunch with coworkers. Being back in person changed how we collaborate in ways I didn’t expect. On our first day back, for example, I was able to grab a whiteboard, sit down with a coworker, and solve a problem we’d been discussing for weeks.

Since the reopening of our offices, I’ve appreciated the balance afforded by a hybrid schedule. I can come into the office a few days a week and be energized and inspired by other team members, then on work-from-home days I process, put my head down, and execute on ideas.

At-Bay is hiring! Check out our careers page to learn more and explore current job openings.

About At-Bay

At-Bay is the InsurSec provider for the digital age. By combining world-class technology with industry-leading insurance and security expertise, At-Bay was designed from the ground up to empower businesses of every size to meet cyber risk head on. Our InsurSec approach provides end-to-end protection for modern businesses. It’s a force multiplier that includes security, threat intelligence, and human experts to close the SMB cybersecurity gap — all as part of their insurance policy.