To really understand what it’s like to work in the tech organization at natif.ai, we went directly to the source. We asked our Head of Product Nico Herbig a series of questions to uncover what it’s really like to be a leader of our fast-growing tech teams.
What is a Head of Product?
As the Head of Product, my focus is on driving our company’s product strategy to ensure the successful development, launch, and continuous improvement of our product offerings. A foundational aspect of my role is product discovery, which ensures that we are building the right product for our target customers. This involves deeply understanding our customers’ needs, pains, and desires, and validating our assumptions.
Prioritization is also a core part of my day-to-day responsibilities. Given the myriad of potential features and enhancements, it is crucial to make informed decisions about what will deliver the most value to our customers and the business. This requires close collaboration with engineering, design, marketing, sales, and customer success teams. By gathering diverse perspectives and aligning our efforts, we can ensure cohesive product development and effective go-to-market strategies.
In line with continuous discovery, I strive to balance delivering iterative improvements to our existing products while planning for significant product innovations that will shape our future. This dual focus ensures we not only meet our customers’ current needs but also anticipate and create solutions for their future challenges.
By fostering a culture of continuous learning, experimentation, and customer-centricity, I aim to lead our product teams in building products that truly delight our users.
What path did you take to get to your current role as Head of Product?
I studied computer science and later completed my PhD at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). My PhD focused on the intersection of natural language processing and human-computer interaction, particularly the development of AI tools to improve collaboration between human translators and AI translations. I also worked on projects in computer vision and AI for document understanding.
Towards the end of my PhD, I joined natif.ai, first part-time while finishing my thesis, and soon after as one of the first full-time team members. In our super small team at that time, I contributed to almost everything: front-end and back-end coding, developing annotation tools and quality benchmarks for our AI algorithms, participating in research projects, providing technical expertise to sales, creating end-customer use cases, and most importantly, growing the team.
This wide range of activities gave me a very broad view of market needs and technical capabilities. I also discovered my passion for working deeply cross-functionally. This realization led me to my current role as Head of Product, where my broad understanding is essential and I can continue to do what I love.
Why did you choose to join natif.ai?
Coming from an AI research background, I sought an innovative environment with brilliant people dedicated to advancing the state of the art. However, I wanted to shift from purely academic pursuits to building products that people use daily to automate their processes. I also valued the ability to work independently without the constraints of the overly complex decision-making processes typical of large companies. natif.ai perfectly matched these requirements, making it the ideal place for me to contribute and grow.
How has your career developed since being at natif.ai?
With a growing team, I gradually transitioned from deep technical roles to more organizational and management positions, organizing how we work as a team and setting goals. While I still enjoy diving into specific parts of our product and code occasionally, I have found much more joy in coordinating cross-functional work and planning from a broader perspective.
With the recent acquisition of natif.ai by
DocuWare and its parent company
Ricoh, I am now also responsible for integrating our product into their offerings. This new responsibility presents many opportunities for growth and learning, making it an exciting and fulfilling task.
What is your favorite technology or tool used at natif.ai?
Pre-Training! It’s incredibly exciting to work at a company that develops its own large-scale self-supervised pre-training models, rather than merely integrating APIs from large models like ChatGPT. Our Large Document Model (LDM), as we call it, has processed millions of documents during pre-training. This extensive exposure allows it to quickly and accurately learn a customer’s requirements from just a few documents.
What type of leader are you and how are you building your team?
First, it is great to have a team of highly skilled and dedicated people at natif.ai, where everyone can learn from each other. Given these amazing colleagues, I usually focus on the roadmap and high-level topics, engaging with stakeholders to gather ideas and requirements and creating an initial plan. When presenting this plan to the product and engineering teams, I emphasize why the new product, feature, or enhancement is needed and what it might look like. We then engage in deeper discussions to refine and improve the plan with input from the team.
I believe in collaborative leadership, where open communication and collective problem-solving are key. By fostering an environment where everyone’s ideas are valued, as Head of Product I ensure that we leverage our collective expertise to build the best possible products.
What do you think makes natif.ai a great place to work in tech?
The people, the product, and the technology. We have a great team of highly qualified and passionate colleagues, which forms the foundation for a fulfilling job in tech. Our product is also very cool, enabling non-AI specialists to train state-of-the-art AI models for their document-related challenges. Finally, we utilize excellent frameworks, libraries, and tools, and we encourage open discussions about adopting new technologies to stay ahead.
What makes natif.ai’s tech team unique compared to other companies you have worked for?
Apart from the colleagues, the product, and the technology, what truly makes natif.ai’s tech team unique compared to other companies is our flat hierarchy and the high level of autonomy each team member enjoys. This structure empowers us to take ownership of our projects and make independent decisions, fostering a strong sense of responsibility and innovation. Operating in an agile and flexible work environment allows us to quickly iterate and adapt to changing requirements and new challenges. We are constantly searching for novel AI methods to apply and adopt the latest tools and frameworks. We maintain a customer-centric approach, listening closely to feedback to enhance our product offerings. These unique aspects make natif.ai’s tech team an exceptional place to work.
What advise do you have for someone considering a role in your teams?
Bring curiosity! Take the time to explore our product in depth, understanding what we do well and identifying areas for improvement. Share your ideas and thoughts openly and be ready to engage in meaningful discussions. We value innovative thinking and collaboration, so your fresh perspectives and enthusiasm will be highly appreciated.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed getting to know Nico a little better and gaining insights into what working at natif.ai looks like. If you’re inspired by what you’ve read, we have some open positions available. We’re always on the lookout for new talent—come join us!
