Meet Product Analyst, Sinéad MacDonald

I joined in January 2023, so I’ve been at Fire for almost two years.

Essentially my job is to ensure Fire delivers a product that provides value to our clients and solves their needs. The role itself is a blend of product management, ownership, and design so I cover the entire product lifecycle, from initial concept to final delivery. Every day is different, but for the most part my responsibilities include user research and gathering customer feedback, defining requirements, product design and prototyping, writing user stories and planning sprints, and participating in industry working groups.

Getting to work with some really amazing and talented people and seeing the positive impact our product has on users. It’s very fulfilling to see the team’s hard work translate into real-world value and positive feedback from our clients.

I’ve had the opportunity to work on a lot of exciting projects at Fire, but the one that sticks out is a recent project that optimised our open banking payments service to allow users to identify successful payments far more quickly. It was the most technically challenging project I’ve led, so I really enjoyed working through those complexities, and I was really proud of the positive impact we were able to deliver to our customers.

I studied Business and Spanish at Dublin City University, and like many business students, I had no idea what I wanted to do after college. I spent a couple of years working and travelling in New Zealand, which was an amazing experience. By the time I moved back home, I knew I wanted to work in tech and for a smaller company where I could dive in and learn a lot.

I was particularly attracted to Fire because it seemed like an authentic company doing something unique, especially in the Irish payments industry. Two years in, I can confidently say it was a great decision—I’ve found the opportunities for personal development and working on exciting, impactful projects incredibly rewarding!

Dynamic, supportive, innovative.

Our customers trust us to handle significant volumes and values of payments, and since we’re subject to regulation, this demands a high level of precision. I really enjoy being pushed to work to those high standards, and it also suits my detail-oriented, rule-stickler personality!

I play canoe polo, which is a sport most people haven’t heard of! It’s like basketball in a canoe, and it’s a great sport to both play and watch. I also enjoy a few more conventional activities like reading, baking, and going for hikes.

Just a terrible fear of spiders!