Jon Soini

An experienced product team leader who loves taking on new challenges to bring services, apps, or even hardware to market in sustainable ways. Leads with a strong focus on creating simple & beautiful experiences to solve customer pain points and inspires others to do the same, starting from the base API services to the last pixel on the screen. 


[email protected]
(206) 850-9063

Seattle, Washington


Vision & Strategy

Taking an idea from a sketch to full product roadmap and successful delivery over months to years is no easy task, but I'm up to the challenge, whether it's a frontline app, customer feature, or hardware product. 


Innovation

With a proven track record of innovative products that are used millions of times a day, I can take a simple prototype through iteration to production release, build re-usable services to power that product and save millions while meeting business needs. 


User Experience

User experience is baked into the core of every product I ship, from the very beginning ideation sessions to every debated feature change - the end user experience is a key ingredient to delivering the frontline tool with the highest satisfaction at T-Mobile.

Experience

Manager, Grand Central Product Team, Enterprise IT, T-Mobile USA
January 2015 - Present

The Grand Central Product team drives T-Mobile's customer care troubleshooting and support toolset and has evolved from managing one application, Grand Central, to ideating and launching multiple complementary apps, enablers and even hardware products. Grand Central is recognized at the highest levels of the company and by JD Powers as an industry-leading support solution and is covered by multiple pending patents. 

  • Original co-inventor of Grand Central; created vision and internal marketing materials to get exec buy-in to kickoff product
  • Built a high-performing team through hiring and ongoing coaching, team consistently delivered high quality output from user stories to final product experience
  • Drove design and user experience for GC and related products ensuring a consistent, simple and beautiful experience
  • Oversaw all product roadmap, design and architecture for Grand Central, starting each year with a product vision all team members could rally around
  • Brought cross-collaborative teams forward on reporting product status, roadmaps and operational issues with better tooling and communications for the org beyond the GC team, leading to more team transparency and faster product delivery
  • Coordinated multiple dev teams to deliver complex systems that distilled to simple and delightful end-user experiences
  • Invented multiple enabling services to support a seamless user experience across frontline: Troubleshooting Engine, Alerts Engine, QuickCode Service, DeviceSummary Service, Seamless Remote App Install, CMS Engine
  • Led Troubleshooting enhancements to Grand Central, transforming it from a diagnostics dashboard to full-fledged troubleshooting platform, saving over a minute on every tech support care call
  • Shipped the GC Hub, a custom hardware product and its back-end services to enable return device identification, reducing overpayment or mis-identification of trade-in phones, saving T-Mobile millions of dollars
  • Designed and integrated a common device lookup system, QuickCodes & Device Summary APIs, integrated with Apple's FMiP which reduced return of bricked devices by over 80%, saving T-Mobile tens of millions
  • One of the top inventors in the org, filing eight patents over two years

Principal Product Engineer, Self Service Team, T-Mobile USA
March 2013 - December 2014

  • Provided technology evaluations for potential vendor solutions for integration into the teams' services & products
  • Led internal marketing efforts for the executive pitch and creation of Grand Central
  • Evaluated, piloted and implemented a dynamic remote support solution for millions of Android Phones in Grand Central
  • Invented and patented 1-Click fixes, a simple fix wizard for T-Mobile's frontline reps, improving call resolution time
  • Initiated a new design and product creation workflow to speed time to market for Grand Central
  • Led the Retail branch of Grand Central and developed it as a 2nd experience alongside the Care version
  • Prototyped and won the RFP for a device identification and verification system for retail stores

Manager, Self Service Web Team, Product Realization, T-Mobile USA
February 2011 - March 2013

Built a successful, self-starting team to manage search, advertising, mobile web and entertainment services from conception to production launch for T-Mobile US. 

  • Launched and managed the T-Mobile mobile portal for all devices
  • Responsible for mobile storefronts for all game, ringtone, music/mp3 and games content, including MRC programs driving tens/millions dollars
  • Handled pre-load app certification and built custom security scanning tools for Android
  • Developed successful parental controls products to safeguard families
  • Managed multiple vendor relationships for mobile store and enabler products like location/gps and 411 suite of products

Senior Product Engineer, Product Realization, T-Mobile USA
May 2007 - February 2011

  • Developed technical architecture for content delivery and browser-related integration to the T-Mobile network
  • Managed mobile portal design, content store enhancements & large-scale user testing for new experience prototypes
  • Led cross-functional sessions and design for new mobile portal products
  • Owned and maintained mobile browser product requirements, drove accountability with device OEMs and industry browser vendors

Mobile Web Ops & QA Test Lead, Product Realization, T-Mobile USA
September 2006 - May 2007

  • Led creation of QC test plans and initiated handset-based testing for all mobile web products in the org
  • Ensured compliance to product requirements and communicated across orgs to close out product gaps
  • Tested products through deployment and follow-on defect cycle fixes

E-commerce Store Manager, Web & Print Designer, IT Manager, Zoka Coffee, Seattle WA
September 2005 - September 2006

  • Planned, designed and launched an e-commerce store for both retail and wholesale customers that introduced 100+ products and saw sales triple over the previous storefront
  • Created all print and in-store signage, product packaging and marketing collateral for Zoka, ensuring a consistent on-brand message for the company
  • Handled all IT tasks for corporate and the two stores ensuring data and network integrity and enabling better collaboration tools for the company

Creative Tech & Designer, IT Manager, Walsh Design, Seattle WA
October 1999 - September 2005

  • Managed websites from concept to publication with an emphasis on web standards, pleasing on-brand aesthetic and client needs to drive happy customer relationships
  • Delivered a variety of projects to clients, including business card design, semi-truck banners, product packaging and large print catalogs in both digital and offset print
  • Handled all IT tasks for the company ensuring the employees had a consistent work environment and no client files were ever at risk of loss

Education

Bachelor of Arts - Visual Communications, Seattle Pacific University

Intellectual Property


  • DIAGNOSTIC AND WORKFLOW ENGINE WITH SYSTEM INTEGRATION 
  • WORKFLOW ENGINE FOR TROUBLESHOOTING USER DEVICE ISSUES 
  • SYSTEM AND METHOD OF REMOTELY CONTROLLING MOBILE DEVICE SETTINGS AND FUNCTIONALITY 
  • REMOTE SUPPORT INSTALLATION MECHANISM 
  • SELF-HEALING CHARGING DEVICE
  • DEVICE DIAGNOSTIC AND DATA RETRIEVAL 
  • SMALL FORM FACTOR DEVICE DIAGNOSTIC AND DETAIL RETRIEVAL
  • SINGLE INTERFACE FOR PROVISIONING COLLECTED DATA TO REQUESTING SYSTEMS