Picture of Patryk Kabaj sitting on a sofa, smiling and looking left.

I am a product leader and engineer. I have 12 years of experience in product development. I've worked as a full-stack engineer, product designer and chief of product. Though I’ve progressed towards leadership roles, I’ve stayed closed to tech and never gave up on engineering.

I am a founder. With experience co-founding three companies, I have worn many hats as an entrepreneur and a generalist. I've pitched to investors, negotiated contracts, optimised SEO, designed pre-print processes, and more.

I am a product & tech consultant. I help organisations build and get better at building products. I advise investors, startups and leaders in areas related to my experience.

Outside work, I am a cyclist, runner and an amateur photographer. I ride with Ride Warsaw Cycling Club and run with Swords Athletics.

I believe in the power of keeping teams small. That deep async work is critical to going fast. Work culture is hired, not created. Remote works, given you hired the right people. Great product designers are great copywriters. Heart is as important as logic.

Ifreelance and remain open to new opportunities. More on work here →

Short story...

  • I co-founded and led product at Packhelp, Series-B startup with €52M in funding.
  • I co-founded three startups: one in London, one in Paris and Packhelp in Warsaw.
  • I have six years of experience as a full-stack engineer.
  • I designed web apps, mobile apps, internal tools and Adobe plugins.
  • I graduated with MSc in Computer Science at UCL, London.

Public appearances

  • Tips for Product Designers from PM's Perspective @ Santa Grafika, 2023
  • What the Best Product Management Books Don't Tell You @ ProductCamp, 2022
  • Discussion Panel Designing a Company's Image, Warsaw Stock Exchange, 2020
  • Pragmatic Approach to Fast Software Development@ meet.js, Co-talk, 2017

Bio

Today

(Freelance) Product Engineer, Consultant

Splitting time between freelance projects and working on my own ideas.

2023

Break

In 2023, I took time off to chill have fun and to reflect. I fell in love with road cycling, made lots of new friends, returned to photography and reorganised important things around me. I figured what I want to do next. A life-changing year.

2015-2023

CPO & Co-Founder at Packhelp, Warsaw

Packhelp was my most remarkable and rewarding experience. Over the course of six years we grew from 6 to a team of 280 and became a Series-B company.

As the CPO, I led and scaled product org to a team of 32 across product management, design, marketing automation, growth and data science teams. Designed and tried various product operating models. Developed a tight-knit relationship with tech to work as one. Pitched to investors, deployed company-wide tools and processes.

Under my leadership, product team:
· Developed a suite of 6 highly-integrated websites and apps.
· Designed ecommerce experience and owned its performance.
· Built proprietary tech giving us crucial competitive advantage.
· Created state-of-the-art 3D online packaging design tool.
· Enabled scalability through process automation and integrations.
· Developed a comprehensive product instrumentation and analytics.
· Localised Packhelp into 9 languages and served the EU and UK markets.
· Led brand redesigns and overhauled all apps twice.
· Received industry recognition for outstanding email campaigns.

In the early days, when there was just few of us, I contributed substantial amount of code to the codebase; mostly to the core website, 3D online editor and pre-print DTP automations. The design of the internal app helping process thousands of orders each month was my work and is still in use today.

2021

(Diploma) Leadership Academy

I completed a year-long course in leadership and psychology at Andrzej Santorski's Academy of Leadership, at Warsaw University of Technology.

2015-2019

(Freelance) PM, Full Stack Engineer, Product Designer

During the early stages of Packhelp, I took on web development and product design projects. I built a team of freelancers to help me deliver as I progressed in my product role at Packhelp.

As a team, we delivered multiple Wordpress and Squarespace, extended 3D web apps, secured sites and developed plugins.

2015

Technical Co-Founder at Les Petites Tables, Paris

My second startup experience. I was offered the role of a technical co-founder and helped Les Petites Tables get into the Parisian startup accelerator called Numa. The idea was to create a listing for delicious, authentic restaurants in France for less than 10 Euro and (somehow) monetise the large traffic coming to the site.

2013-2015

Full Stack Engineer & UX Lead at OpenAsset, London

My first role as a software developer. OpenAsset was where I learned how to code and how to deliver high quality, reliable software.

After a year, I led transformation from feature-driven development towards design-driven one. After two years, I took on the role of UX Lead, ran workshops with customers (for example with Fosters & Partners), designed features and coded them up.

We were one of the early adopters who deployed React to production. I was an avid tech meet-ups attendee with a goal to learn from the best. I spent too many evenings improving my programming skills to level up with my more experienced colleagues.

2009-2012

Co-Founder, Full-Stack Engineer & Media Production Director at Collaborative Arts Network, London

My first startup. The goal was to build a social network dedicated to young creatives and connect them with agencies to help find jobs and/or projects. I wore many hats there: ranging from software development to leading a team of media producers helping us promote our talent pool through video, short film festivals and artistic events. Unfortunately, we were very young, inexperienced, disorganised and each one of us pulled in a different direction. It had no chance of working out. Nevertheless, it was an invaluable experience.

2008-2012

MSc Computer Science at UCL, London

I got my master's in Computer Science at UCL in 2012. The course was a life-changing experience as I rediscovered my passion for everything technical. Programming pulled me in and helped build stuff for my first startup (see above). Prior to MSc at UCL, I got my BA in Media & Communications at Goldsmiths College, University of London.