JaredK.
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A Product Manager who can work with engineers

8 years building and delivering internal and customer-facing products, across engineering and product.

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About Me

Hey there! I’m Jared Konarska.

I started my career as a software engineer, but quickly realized that for me, the most satisfying moments weren’t in the code. They were in the early planning — figuring out what actually needed to be built — and seeing how real users interacted with what we shipped.

I embrace the mess

I’m often pulled into work where requirements are half-formed and ownership isn’t clear. My first move is aligning on what problem we’re actually solving, what’s in or out of scope, and what the team can realistically ship next.

I start by shipping small

I always try to focus on shipping the smallest useful version, watching how it’s used, and letting real constraints shape what comes next, rather than recklessly swinging for the fences everytime.

I speak engineer (without overstepping)

I started as an engineer, so I’m comfortable getting into edge cases, data shape, and system behavior early, without trying to design the solution myself.

I focus on impact, not output

The work I’m proudest of usually removes steps, errors, or manual work. I care more about making the system better than checking a box.

Example Feature

A recent, real-world feature I owned

Risk-Specific Prop 65 Disclaimers

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Project Snapshot

About
California's Prop 65 law requires products to carry specific warnings about chemical exposure risks. WebstaurantStore displays these warnings across its storefront, mobile app, and checkout flow. This project replaced a generic, non-compliant warning message with risk-specific disclaimers tied to individual chemicals — driven by a hard legal deadline.
Trigger
Legal determined that generic Prop 65 messaging put the company out of compliance, creating urgency to deliver risk-specific warnings before the Q1 deadline.
Users
Content team managing chemical data in the admin portal, plus downstream teams (StoreFront, Mobile, Checkout) displaying warnings to customers.
Success
Risk-specific warnings live across all surfaces by the Legal deadline, with the content team able to assign risks without retraining.
Project
Risk-Specific Prop 65 Disclaimers
Timeline
Q1 2026
Role
Product Manager
Company
WebstaurantStore
Team
Cross-functional (Engineering, QA, BA, Content, Legal, StoreFront, Mobile App)
Goal
Enable content users to assign specific chemical risks to satisfy legal compliance requirements

Problem / User Pain

Generic messaging put us out of legal compliance

Legal determined that generic Prop 65 messaging put the company out of compliance, creating urgency to deliver risk-specific warnings before the Q1 deadline.

Users affected

Content team managing chemical data in the admin portal, plus downstream teams (StoreFront, Mobile, Checkout) displaying warnings to customers.

Failure mode

No way to associate specific risks (cancer vs. reproductive) with individual chemicals in the admin portal

Success looks like

Risk-specific warnings live across all surfaces by the Legal deadline, with the content team able to assign risks without retraining.

  • Legal determined existing Prop 65 messaging was non-compliant
  • No way to associate specific risks (cancer vs. reproductive) with individual chemicals in the admin portal
  • Downstream teams (StoreFront, Mobile, Checkout) were blocked until the core risk data existed

Previous workflow

Chemical added to item → Generic Prop 65 warning displayed → Warning does not specify risk type per chemical → Legal flags as non-compliant

Solution Overview

Add risk specificity at the chemical level, unblock downstream teams fast

  • Integrated a new risk dropdown directly into the existing Manage Chemical modal
  • Leveraged existing UI components and patterns — no dedicated UX designer needed
  • Planned a DML script to mass-assign risks to 100+ chemicals, reducing manual content effort

Out of scope (v1)

  • Mass-assignment DML script deferred to Phase 2

New workflow

Content assigns risk (cancer / reproductive / both) to each chemical via modal → Risk data stored at the chemical level → StoreFront, Mobile, and Checkout read risk data and display specific warning → Legal requirement satisfied

Approach

Phased to unblock downstream teams while managing capacity constraints

My role: Owned scope, phased delivery, and acceptance criteria; aligned stakeholders and partnered with engineering through release.

PHASING

Backlog / phased delivery

Decision principle

Optimize for fastest time-to-value and defer lower-priority work until the core solution proved adoption.

  1. 1

    Phase 1

    • Add risk dropdown to Manage Chemical modal
    • Unblock StoreFront, Mobile App, and Checkout to display risk-specific messaging
  2. 2

    Phase 2

    • Create and run DML script to mass-assign risks to 100+ chemicals
    • Eliminate manual chemical-by-chemical updates for the content team

CONSTRAINTS

Tradeoffs & decisions

The explicit "no's" that prevented scope creep while still delivering the highest-impact work first.

Scope vs. Time-to-Value

  • Deferred mass-assignment DML to Phase 2
  • Shipping Phase 1 first unblocked StoreFront, Mobile, and Checkout immediately

Capacity vs. Deadline

  • Reassigned engineers from low-priority bugs to meet the Q1 legal deadline
  • Escalated to the Engineering Manager when capacity still fell short — all deadlines were met

Internal UX Ownership

  • No dedicated UX/UI designer for the admin portal
  • Owned all design decisions — prioritized existing modal patterns to minimize friction and reduce implementation risk

Discovery: Spanish Name Constraints

  • Found mid-delivery that Spanish chemical names lacked the unique constraint applied to English names
  • Avoided scope creep by logging it as a fast-follow rather than blocking the release

Outcome & What's Next

Outcome

Shipped Phase 1 by end of January, giving downstream teams maximum runway to complete their work

What improved

Risk-specific warnings live across all surfaces by the Legal deadline, with the content team able to assign risks without retraining.

Risk reduced

Legal non-compliance exposure across storefront, mobile app, and checkout — affecting every product with a Prop 65 chemical.

Adoption

Content team adopted immediately with no training required — familiar modal patterns reduced onboarding friction

Delivered

  • Shipped Phase 1 by end of January, giving downstream teams maximum runway to complete their work
  • Content team adopted immediately with no training required — familiar modal patterns reduced onboarding friction

Looking ahead

  • Execute Phase 2 DML to mass-assign risks to 100+ chemicals
  • Resolve Spanish chemical name unique constraint as a fast-follow
  • Confirm full compliance posture with Legal once all downstream teams have shipped their updates

Execution details

How I define scope, drive delivery, and validate outcomes.

PRODUCT BACKLOG ITEM

Add risk-specific dropdown to Manage Chemical modal

Inputs

Generic Prop 65 messaging was flagged as non-compliant by Legal. No mechanism existed in the admin portal to associate specific risks with individual chemicals.

Decisions

Add risk specificity at the chemical level, unblock downstream teams fast

Validation plan

Risk-specific warnings live across all surfaces by the Legal deadline, with the content team able to assign risks without retraining.

USER STORY

As a content user, I want to assign a specific Prop 65 risk (cancer, reproductive, or both) to individual chemicals in the admin portal so that StoreFront, Mobile App, and Checkout can display accurate, legally compliant warnings.

OUT OF SCOPE (V1)

  • Mass-assignment of risks via DML script (Phase 2)
  • Ongoing bulk update tooling for chemical risks

ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA

  • A risk dropdown (Cancer, Reproductive, Both) is available in the Manage Chemical modal
  • Risk selection is saved and associated with the individual chemical record
  • Single chemical, cancer risk: "WARNING: Cancer risk from exposure to [chemical name]"
  • Single chemical, reproductive risk: "WARNING: Risk of reproductive harm from exposure to [chemical name]"
  • Single chemical, both risks: "WARNING: Risk of cancer and reproductive harm from exposure to [chemical name]"
  • Multiple chemicals, single risk type: warning references one chemical name representative of that risk
  • Multiple chemicals, multiple risk types: warning references one chemical per risk type
  • StoreFront, Mobile App, and Checkout all display updated risk-specific messaging
  • Existing chemicals without a risk assigned do not break current warning display

DELIVERY LOOP

BEFORE DEV

  • Worked iteratively with the Content Manager to define expected messaging outcomes and logic edge cases
  • Designed modal behavior using existing UI components — validated by Content, signed off by Legal
  • Looped in downstream teams (StoreFront, Mobile, Checkout) early to confirm the proposed solution met their needs
  • Assessed backlog and engineering capacity; reassigned engineers from lower-priority bugs to meet the Q1 deadline
  • Identified that deadline risk remained even after reassignment and escalated to the Engineering Manager for additional resources
  • Wrote detailed PBIs with acceptance criteria covering all messaging logic combinations; led refinement and scoring

DURING DEV

  • Served as primary point of contact for requirements questions and edge case clarification across multiple teams
  • Discovered mid-delivery that Spanish chemical names lacked the same unique constraint as English — added to the backlog as a fast-follow
  • Conducted acceptance testing in DEV against defined acceptance criteria once past QA

RELEASE

  • Coordinated release timing to give downstream teams maximum runway
  • Wrote detailed release notes covering messaging logic and edge cases
  • Followed up with stakeholders to confirm expected behavior in PROD

AFTER RELEASE

  • Execute Phase 2 DML to mass-assign risks to 100+ chemicals
  • Resolve Spanish chemical name unique constraint as a fast-follow
  • Confirm full compliance posture with Legal once all downstream teams have shipped their updates

Experience

WebstaurantStore logo
WebstaurantStore

Product Manager

August 2025 – Present

  • Automated Hidden Item Report (HIR) workflow, eliminating manual copy/paste with downloadable reports, reducing manual effort, rework, and error risk across content teams.
  • Delivered Prop 65 risk assignment enhancements, enabling precise chemical risk labeling (cancer vs. reproductive) used across customer-facing web and mobile applications at scale.
  • Led certification workflow rewrite, replacing multi-page navigation with in-place editing workflows to improve usability and reduce workflow friction for content teams.

Wound Care Advantage logo
Wound Care Advantage

Software Engineer (Product-Focused)

June 2023 – May 2025

  • Partnered with PMs and stakeholders to define, scope, and deliver features under tight timelines.
  • Built an internal analytics platform used by clinical and finance teams, driving data-informed decisions across 3M+ treatments.
  • Led development of gamified learning tools such as “Woundle”, from concept to launch using iterative user feedback.

Verse.ai logo
Verse.ai

Senior Software Engineer

April 2022 – January 2023

  • Led redesign of the Capture settings dashboard, improving usability through better navigation and modular architecture.
  • Partnered with product and design teams to deliver high-impact UI/UX improvements across React and Angular platforms.
  • Mentored junior engineers and contributed to agile planning and feature discussions.

Seismic logo
Seismic

Senior Software Engineer I

February 2020 – April 2022

  • Shipped performance enhancements for the DocCenter iOS app and redesigned key UI components using Seismic’s design system.
  • Developed a reusable timestamp component used across multiple products for consistency and maintainability.
  • Worked closely with product and UX to modernize the user interface.

Verse.ai logo
Verse.ai

Software Engineer

November 2017 – February 2020

  • Led modernization of the internal Concierge Console, reducing tech debt and improving maintainability to support faster, more predictable product delivery.
  • Improved reliability of real-time customer and agent workflows by replacing a fragile WebSocket implementation, reducing live-session failures and support issues.
  • Partnered with product and design to redesign the Customer Portal experience, increasing retention and reducing support tickets through clearer flows and self-service configuration.