Season 2 Episode #14: What happens when a trained psychologist takes on the fast-paced Tech Industry? Kinga, Product Manager at YouTube, shares how studying human behaviour shaped her approach to building products at global companies like Spotify and YouTube.

Kinga also explains how her psychology background helps give her a deeper understanding what users actually need versus what they say. How AI and vibe coding are reshaping how PMs lead development, and why taste and quality are the most underrated skills a product manager can develop.

From psychology to product - how empathy, curiosity, and startup grit shaped a PM career

A passion for understanding people led Kinga from medicine to psychology, where her MA gave her an applied toolkit for human behaviour
She co-founded an organisation to make psychology more accessible, sparking a desire to reach people at scale
Moving to Amsterdam and joining a startup was a culture shock - psychology goes slow and deep, tech demands the opposite
Customer support proved the ideal entry point, eventually leading her to discover product management

Understanding users through psychology and translating empathy into metrics at scale

Rule number one is genuinely wanting to understand your users - talk to them, but know that what they say and do often differ
Cognitive and social psychology offer lenses for interpreting urgency bias, motivation, and group behaviour
Metrics help you monitor and hypothesise, but without empathy you'll never understand the "why" behind the numbers
Startups are the best school - fewer resources force you to learn fast, while larger companies bring greater responsibility

AI as a force multiplier - from removing barriers to rethinking the PM workflow

AI frees PMs to focus on curation, vision, and strategy by handling repetitive tasks
Vibe coding compresses spec writing, design, and testing into rapid prototyping from a single prompt
Quality is the number one thing users take away - PMs must build sharp taste and intuition to police output
AI can act as a research assistant, turning interview notes into personas and surfacing actionable patterns

Timeless product truths and advice for career changers from non-traditional backgrounds

You are building for humans - that should always be done with care and quality regardless of company size
Find a few AI tools that work for you and master them rather than chasing every new release
Lean into what makes you unique - a non-traditional background is a strength, not a gap
Seek out startups early in a career change for the broadest exposure to roles and opportunities

Kinga Asbóth

Product Manager at YouTube

Kinga Asbóth is a Product Manager at YouTube with a background in psychology, holding an MA in the field. Her journey into tech began through customer support at a startup in Amsterdam, where she discovered product management as a way to bridge the gap between users and the products they use. Having worked at companies like Spotify and YouTube, Kinga brings a unique perspective rooted in cognitive and social psychology to understand user behaviour beyond surface-level feedback. Her current work at YouTube focuses on building a flagship GenAI product for Creators at YouTube Studio.

Josh William Burmistre-Griffiths

Digital Marketing and Paid Ad Specialist

Josh William Burmistre-Griffiths works at TestDevLab, focusing on digital marketing and paid advertising across multiple platforms. His past experience working at agencies and unicorn startups has equipped Josh with the expertise to bring valuable digital marketing insights to Tech Effect.

#33 Kinga Asbóth (YouTube): What Users Say vs What They Do - A Psychologist PM's Perspective

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