Why I joined Moov: Komal Long
I owe my personality to my dad. I watched him become an entrepreneur and open his very own computer store. I spent many years there exploring computers, games, and building whatever I could. Problem solving and creativity were ingrained in my personality because of these early years.
After graduating college, I started my career in corporate finance and was on a very average path. I was semi-happy in these roles but knew something was missing. I decided to make the leap to investment banking where I thought I might find that extra passion, but after a year I found myself in the same repetitive cycle as previous roles. Overall, they weren’t fulfilling my need for exploration. I started attending some meetups in San Francisco to network and learn about other companies capable of satisfying both my creative and technical mind. That’s when I learned more about fintech.
The beauty of working in fintech is in the challenge itself: applying modern ideas in unlikely places. Having spent years working in more traditional roles, I was excited by what fintech offered. I felt I had enough context to understand what’s broken in current processes and products and I could help change it for the better. So, I joined the Capital Markets team at Funding Circle. I helped build their investor reporting API and investor-facing application while continuously establishing operational processes using their custom-built ledger. I soon realized product was a perfect fit for my personality.
During my time at Funding Circle, I met a group of women who were starting a women-focused resource group. It was clear to us fintech was a male-dominated industry and was lacking a network for women who wanted advice, mentorship, and resources. We decided to fix that. We started by bringing together our female coworkers for happy hours and to hear success stories from women leaders in the company. Due to the popularity, we expanded our reach with external events like trivia nights and educational panels. After tickets continually sold out and our community grew, it became clear we were on to something, so we incorporated Women in Fintech as a 501c3 non-profit. The community now spans across the US with over 2,000 members and we provide opportunities for knowledge sharing, mentorship, career growth, and networking.
Wanting to continue pursuing product management, I decided I was ready for a new challenge. I met the co-founder of Provide, a modern lending platform for dental practices. I was intrigued by the business model and joined their team. I quickly became their only product manager overseeing all products. This step in my career was essential and taught me about product management processes, creative thinking, and I shipped not only features but brand new products. Just as I was getting a little too comfortable in the lending space, Scott Wittrock, a product manager for Moov, reached out to me about an open PM role. Having worked in lending for over five years, I was ready to explore payments, an area that touches all verticals of fintech where I could think about a new set of challenges.
I was immediately impressed by everything the Moov team said during my interviews.
Everyone had immense passion and dedication to make money movement better and it was clear they had hired an incredible team of people to execute the vision.
In addition to the notable team and product, Moov’s cultivated a robust community of fintech builders who contribute to and use our open source libraries. Having the experience of building Women in Fintech, I value having a dedicated space for knowledge sharing, mentorship, and inclusion. All of these things showed Moov’s dedication to making the payments space better for everyone. What’s more, seeing that Moov had already hired a female Chief People Officer meant they prioritized and cared about representation and the employee experience, which is generally unheard of for a company of its size.
I’m now working alongside amazing PMs and engineers who all show up every day equally enthusiastic and devoted to building a payments experience unlike any in the market.
As the PM for the ledger team, I help implement payment rails and think deeply about features that create an exceptional developer experience and make it easy for them to start offering payment options for their users. The best part is, payments is extremely complex with a lot of moving parts and I am continuously challenged and encouraged to creatively simplify that complexity so our customers don’t have to.
The culture that’s inherent at Moov is unique given the remote work environment. I know more about my colleagues than I did at previous in-person companies. This is driven by the Pecha Kucha presentations where employees share our personal stories with the company. Everyone (even the CEO) attends and it really fosters a transparent and trusting culture and introduces a level of respect and understanding for your teammates. Overall, I’m grateful to be a part of the Moov team and look forward to our continued momentum.
These are the reasons why I joined Moov—and why you should too.
