From Intern to Product Owner: Mile GrnCarov

Berlin-based MB.ioneer Mile GrnCarov pulls back the curtain on his journey since 2019. 

Testing out new things can be adventurous, but Mile doesn’t shy away from that – whether it’s on a personal or professional level. In 2019 at the age of 22, he moved from Bulgaria to Berlin to start a new job and a new life at Mercedes-Benz.io.

The beginnings as an intern

“While I was in university, I knew that I wanted to work in tech, mainly in marketing but I was open to try anything via an internship, so I applied to Mercedes-Benz.io,” he says. “I started as a growth and marketing intern, working with the Bertha team – a product that helps users to find the best gas station and enables them to pay for their gas from the app.”

Mile describes the move from Bulgaria to Germany, especially Berlin as quite a change. But after graduating in Business Administration and Political Science at an international university with a busy environment, starting at MB.io felt like a continuation of the journey he was already on. 

“I never felt out of place here. I remember one of the first meetings that I ever went into, I heard so many ideas flying around from everybody, people showing what they’ve done over the sprints and everyone immediately taking action on specific tasks. And I thought: This is the atmosphere that would be cool to spend a lot of time in.”

“I quickly realized that this role was not just traditional marketing, but also data insights, UI/UX, and product development and we got to do everything from scratch.” In the eight-month internship, Mile created big marketing campaigns and developed product strategies to improve the retention rate or general user flow with a lot of data experimentation. He implemented new tools and tested out different acquisition channels for the product – from Instagram, and YouTube to even outdoor car cinemas. 

“One thing I like about Mercedes-Benz.io is that you get entrusted with so many different responsibilities from the beginning. That helped my transition from being a young professional or an intern to working full-time. The responsibilities were already given to me and I was allowed to run small and big projects by myself”. 

Becoming a Product Owner

After working as a Growth Specialist for the Bertha and Mercedes me Service app, becoming a product owner for Fuel & Pay in 2021 felt like a natural progression for him. Fuel & Pay is a product for the Mercedes Me app, allowing Mercedes drivers to pay for gas with the app and the Headunit system in the car. “Everything that I was doing before, was in a way leading me to this new role. In my growth role, I was already trying to organize new initiatives and trying to get different team members to move together to create something. Being a product owner seemed at the beginning something that’s a larger scale of what I was already doing.” 

Following the mentorship of other MB.ioneers, who were sending him all sorts of books, articles, and YouTube videos to prepare for his Scrum.org exams, Mile admits that: “Nothing really got me as prepared as actually starting to do the role itself.” He started shadowing other Product Owners at the company, joined meetings, and looked through their documentation to understand the dynamics and impact of the role in practice. 

When asking him what he specifically likes about being a Product Owner, he refers to the fact that: “It feels like every sprint you get to start a fresh page and try and do it better this time or try it at least differently. So it’s like a constant iteration of the work we do together.”

Exploring things & being inspired

One of his passions outside of work is producing visual content for himself. It ranges from work-related topics such as explaining new marketing tools to simple things in life he enjoys like making coffee – something that keeps him inspired to explore new things:

“It’s a culmination of experiences and content I consume every day and it drives me in my daily work life too. I don’t like to separate work and life too much. The two areas are more supportive than balancing each other out.”

Testing out new things can be adventurous but for many like Mile, it can lead to finding purposes, and arriving at new homes on a professional but also a personal level. In the end, it always feels like a mind-broadening experience. 

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Meet the MB.ioneer Season 1 Recap

Ask our MB.ioneers what this company is about and they will tell you one thing: People. 

In our Meet The MB.ioneer – Series, we introduce our people by asking them quick-fire questions about their roles, what they like, and how they would describe their jobs to their grandmas. Season 1 is finally wrapped up now and here you can have a glimpse of the MB.ioneers who drive our company. If you don’t want to miss out more content – just subscribe to our YouTube channel!

#MeetTheMBioneer Season 1 Recap

MARGARIDA COSTA – QUALITY ASSURANCE ENGINEER

Check out what kind of testing Margarida prefers and what you will always find on her desktop!

JOÃO ALMEIDA – SITE RELIABILITY ENGINEER

João calls himself “one of many Joaos” and describes in this episode what a typical day at work for a Site Reliability Engineer looks like. 

ANA MARTINS – BACKEND ENGINEER

 A lot of coding, a lot of meetings and a lot of fun – Ana Martins speaks about her life at MB.io and the most memorable experience so far. 

KARINA IVANENKO – PROGRAM LEAD

Karina is a MB.io legend who is in the company for about six years already. Find out what she is doing as a Program Lead and how many meetings she is doing on a daily basis. 

MARIUS KEMPF – PROGRAM LEAD

In this episode, you will hear what Marius does when he starts his day at 04:15 am and why he has a love for scrunchy cables. 

FILIPA PESTANA – PRODUCT DESIGNER

Filipa not only likes to talk about her cat, but is also a passionate UI/UX designer who would love to ride a giraffe. 

TASNIM BHUIYA – PRODUCT LEAD

“There’s the thing called the internet.” This is how Product Lead Tasnim would start explaining the role to her grandmother. Click on the video to see what else she would say about her job. 

CARLOS COSTA – SCRUM MASTER 

People’s person Carlos joined the tribe just recently and knows exactly how to help his team to deliver the best of their work. 

SNEHAA RAVEENDHRAN – PRODUCT OWNER

Meet Snehaa in the last episode: A Product Owner who makes sure to be the bridge between different teams and stakeholders. 

You will meet more MB.ioneers in the second season which is already in production. To stay tuned, just give us a like and subscribe on YouTube!