Katie M.

I’ve always been in San Jose, first from 2009 through 2014 at PayPal, which was an eBay company at the time, and then at eBay Marketplaces since 2014. At PayPal, I was in Marketing Analytics, first as a predictive modeler and eventually as an analyst for the marketing technology platform. When I first joined Marketplaces, I provided insights and analytics to my partners in North America Marketing.Then I made a shift to HR, where I use my analytics skills to make eBay an even greater place to work. Although that entails data analytics, I’d like to think that my PhD in psychology helps me to understand what motivates our employees and determine what we can do to keep them satisfied in their careers.

As a data scientist, I use data, algorithms, and analytics to outwardly present eBay as a top career destination — a place where people will enthusiastically seek employment and want to remain over the long haul. In my work, the “end-users” are eBay employees, so I’m focused on improving the employee experience. Our team conducts employee engagement surveys for HR three times a year. I’m among the people who evaluate the results, including all of the employee comments, to see what we can do to make eBay an even better place to work. To highlight the impact of our work, I recently gave a presentation at Outsell Inc.’s Data Money Conference. I’m pleased to say that the Wall Street Journal covered the event, resulting in an article entitled “How Analytics Helped eBay Tackle Worker Retention.”

What I do these days is entirely focused on analyzing the experience of eBay employees and making recommendations on how to keep eBay the best place to work. As for the end-user’s point of view, my perspective is limited to that of being an eBay customer myself — and I must say I like what I see. I’m a big buyer, and have found some great deals on our site, particularly on Legos. One of my favorite purchases from last year was five pounds of Lego Friends (yes, I have three young kids)!