Connected interests can sometimes lead to unexpected career paths, but an openness to trying new things invites fresh takes on stubborn industry problems. For complex fields like insurance, it can be especially easy to fall victim to tunnel vision and reach hard limits on the number of creative ways to work out an issue — technical or otherwise. That’s why building a team with a wide range of experiences and a variety of backgrounds allows for all sorts of valuable approaches to industry roadblocks. By facilitating an environment for employees to share ideas, be accepted, and ultimately become better versions of themselves, a wealth of new outside-the-box solutions can be waiting just around the corner. 

Noyo understands that enhancing the benefits ecosystem presents challenges that are best solved from a multitude of perspectives, including angles from outside the industry. With this in mind, we encourage learning at every turn so every team member can obtain the experience they need to succeed at their own pace, regardless of their insurtech history. Celebrating a diverse roster of occupational backgrounds is one of the reasons Noyo is able to come to the table with unique viewpoints that shake up the status quo.

Noyo’s Senior Product Operations Analyst Ani Lee (she/her) has been on the job since February 2021 and is focused on optimizing our product workflow. Fresh to the insurance realm, she keeps us working together through systematized means that enable higher productivity — and fewer headaches!

What is your role at Noyo and what's an exciting, challenging problem you're solving?

I’m a Senior Product Operations Analyst and I’m currently working on establishing a global set of data definitions and metrics that enable users across the business to make data-informed decisions — it’s challenging, interesting, and humbling work.

What did your path to Noyo look like?

Noyo took me by surprise. I hadn’t thought to look into the insurance and benefits sphere for work before. My career has largely centered around a personal interest I have in textiles, but in practice what’s threaded (see what I did there?) my roles together has been a dedication to systemizing and documenting processes so that they can scale. Values-alignment with my workplace’s mission is important to me, and Noyo’s mission to empower people to get the most out of their health insurance ticked that box with ease.

What excites you most about our industry, our product, or your role in general?

There’s always space to innovate at Noyo. I’m encouraged to build processes, dashboards, and documentation from scratch when I see a need. I’m highly motivated by impacting people’s lives, even on a tiny scale, so I appreciate the Product Operations Team’s role in systemizing and standardizing work for our peers on the Product team. If I can improve my coworker’s day by making metrics or documentation more accessible, I feel successful.

How would you describe the culture at Noyo?

Everyone at Noyo is their own unique type of weird, and I mean that in the best way possible. I bring my own particular weirdness to this and feel accepted in that. (My personal flavor of weirdness is a relentless and wholly nerdy interest in textiles, as an example, but whatever your flavor, you’re welcome here).

I trust that my teammates will take my opinions seriously, answer any question I have, no matter how “dumb” I think it is, and encourage me to bring my whole self to work. Oh, and the dad jokes, though not myself a dad or a parent at all, for that matter, I get a deep satisfaction in how seriously Noyo takes its puns.

What does a typical day look like for you?

Something I value about working at an early-stage startup is how dynamic the work is, which is to say that I rarely have “typical” days at Noyo. Most days, I orient myself through our asynchronous collaboration tools toward what is most important (Asana is a particular favorite of mine). I usually attend a few meetings, sometimes with clients or vendor partners, sometimes internal cross-functional teammates. I am sure to carve out at least a few consecutive hours per day for focused work. Recently, after seeing our People Ops team successfully host a biweekly virtual coworking session, the Product Operations team has been trying out virtual coworking, which I’ve personally found very fruitful. We’re constantly experimenting with new ways of working together and I love how my feedback is valued in that process.

How have you personally, or professionally, grown at Noyo?

I’ve grown more comfortable with ambiguity, I ask bigger and better questions, and I’m less afraid of not knowing the answers right away. We’re solving remarkably complex problems and those problems take time and diligence to unpack. I did not come from the insurance industry, so I had some background to cover before I felt I was contributing meaningful ideas. At first, I found this uncomfortable, but with time and generous teammates, I came to realize that I was at my learning edge, and that that was exactly where I wanted, and want, to be.

What's your favorite way to stay connected with your co-workers now that we are all WFH?

I have been exceptionally impressed with Noyo’s commitment to gathering our team for social events in spite of our distance. Some highlights include: a group watching session of a nature documentary (so relaxing!), virtual Pictionary (and I say this as someone who categorically does not like games), and the biweekly “Getting to Noyo Coworkers” sessions we have. I attended one of these a couple of weeks before starting at Noyo and it completely validated my choice to join the team.

Improving the outcomes of benefits administration requires talents that span many occupations. If you have the drive to learn new things alongside a team that is constantly pushing the insurance envelope, we want to hear from you. Check out our openings here!