JuliePechony Jones

– Product Manager at Hereworks

“Insights come from unexpected places and people. Be open and approachable. ” 

  • Mentoring at UX Tree since September 2023
  • Based in Lisbon, Portugal
Julie Pechony Jones

About

“My name is Julie Pechony Jones and I work as a Product Manager at Hereworks. I decided to be a mentor as this has just been something that I naturally gravitate to. I know I always have a lot to learn but I also love sharing the knowledge with my colleagues and see them succeeded.

I believe the energy exchange that happens during mentorship is beneficial to both people and for me personally its very fulfilling. The other reason is that I know it can be hard to start when one is just out of college so why not making the experience more enjoyable.

Top Skills

  • UX Research
  • UX Design
  • Information Architecture
  • Mobile Design

Favourite Topics

  • Product strategy
  • Research Ops
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Cross-functional Team Processes

Mentoring Skills

  • Goal setting
  • Active listening
  • Portfolio review
  • Empathic Feedback

Working experience

Hereworks | Product Manager

Jan 2022 -Present

Workhuman | Product Research Team Lead

July 2015 -June 2021
My Portfolio
Portfolio - UX Tree
My LinkedIn

What led you to the world of UX?

“In high school I loved art, I used to paint a lot  I also loved biology and statistics so I thought that visual communication study would suit me as this included all of my passions but biology. During my college, one of my core courses was UX design and since then everything gradually fell to the sidelines as I fell in love with what UX stands for in real life (UX is in everything we interact with, it’s a very broad topic however I ended up in the product and web side of things as I was fascinated with websites and the potential of that seemed very big. indeed everything is online today in one shape or form.

Before entering the UX industry, I did military service in Israel. In the scope of that I was a dental assistant for 2 years, and one year after but quickly realised it was not what I wanted to do for life, so I changed things around and went to college.”

What advice do you have for future mentees and UX designers?

I was very lucky with colleagues in the places I worked in, I have a number of managers that were great inspirations and brilliant mentors. When I came to Ireland, my first job was in a design agency Ebow and that was an amazing experience as a fresh immigrant. Later, in Workhuman I was on an amazing team of designers and design managers who supported me along the way and i learned a lot from them about life and UX. 

Advice: UX isn’t created in a dark room, great UX is a result of the collaborative work of the team and people you work with. Getting to know your colleagues well and learn how to work collaboratively will lead to creating good products that people love.
P.S. Be patient, things always take longer than we initially plan for.