Meet Supriya Ponnaluru, MTM Class of 2024

Supriya is currently a Senior Software Engineer at Meta. She worked as a Software Engineer in India for seven years before joining MTM. 

Q: Why did you want to join the MTM graduate program?

A: I came from a software background, and I have been a developer for quite some time. I always looked at product development from a software developer perspective, but then when I realized that there is also another side of it, how it comes to the developer, I became very curious to know about all the processes behind this. I wanted to understand how certain features of certain products are validated before they get to be developed. There were many times when I used to suggest a few changes to the product, but those were not prioritized, and I would get frustrated. But then I learned that there is a whole lot of customer research, understanding, and requirements that go into decisions about products, and that made me curious about what goes into those decisions, such as how things are done, what are the different layers of business requirements, and how the pipeline flows from the initial requirements to development. That is what drew me to this sort of program, so I could learn all about product development. 

Q: What was something you learned that you look forward to using in your career?

A: I learned how to understand market trends and about how important it is to look ahead to place ourselves right in the market. I learned about how to position yourself, your product, and your company, in order to understand what decisions to make and when. I learned that there are many aspects related to how businesses are evolving with current technological market trends, but there are also tools we can use to predict what is coming ahead. 

Q: What was your favorite course and why?

A: I had two favorite courses, Entrepreneurship and Strategy for Technology-Driven Companies. These two courses were the areas I was looking at when I applied to MTM. I learned a lot in these two courses, at a product, company, and industry level. I learned frameworks to look at things differently than how I had been looking at them. If there is some company that failed or did not do well, I am now usually able to read an article and see why the company’s actions didn’t work in the current competitive environment. I learned that type of framework or mindset that I can use to assess things better in order to understand the current market. And I learned how a product should be developed to be successful or address a customer's needs. 

Q: What was your favorite part about going to graduate school in Santa Barbara?

A: The beach, I love the beach here. It is a beautiful setting in which to have a university. I don't know what I was expecting when I came here, probably a good program, a nice time, and a break from corporate work. It was also a vacation I would say. The program was pretty rigorous, but I really loved being here. I would not have wanted to do it anywhere else. 

Q: What was your field project and what skills did you use to solve this business challenge?

A: I was a part of the Deckers Assortment Planning Team. It gave me really good exposure to how a non-tech industry functions. There were quite a few surprising elements for me, when I realized there were a few technology related aspects that were needed to be adopted. I realized that each industry is still trying to transform digitally. Through the MTM coursework, each one of us learned how we can transform every company to compete with its peers and how we can make it better. Deckers was a great place to have my field project, and I got to interact with three to four levels of hierarchy, from directors to product managers. I also valued getting in-depth exposure to how U.S. corporations work in the field project, because my prior experience was completely from India. It was nice to see how the company did not just consider us master’s students, but rather they were very curious to understand what we brought to the table, what we had learned, and what they could learn from us. On the last day of presentations, a senior leader from Deckers attended our presentation, and he was very interested to see what we presented. It was exciting, and a little stressful!, because of the trust they had in the MTM students. It gave us confidence.  

Q: What is your favorite new technology?

A: We used ChatGPT throughout the program, and it has been like a friend, teammate, mentor, interviewer, and professor. We generated quiz questions with the help of ChatGPT and learned from it. That is my current favorite, and I think it will remain so for a while. We also have been aware of how it is affecting learning, so I have been very focused on not letting it negatively influence my learning and on using it as a help. 

Q: What is your new work role, post MTM?

A: Right now I am working as a Senior Software Engineer at Meta. I started to use the learnings from MTM in a way I never expected to. The futuristic thinking that MTM has instilled in me is helping me in my role.  The takeaways that I gained from this program will continue to help me currently and more in the coming years. 

Connect with Supriya on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pbsupriya/ 

Watch Supriya’s video feature to learn more about her MTM experience: https://youtu.be/1E6_xulwx6o

Learn more about the Master of Technology Management program: tmp.ucsb.edu/mtm