Faces of Unity – Maxine Schlein

As part of our commitment to democratizing development, solving hard problems, and enabling success, our Product Marketing team works closely with our product and sales teams to ensure we build tools and services that serve the opportunities and challenges of our developers. In this Faces of Unity post, Maxine Schlein, our Head of Product Marketing for Monetization, Analytics, and Machine Learning, gives us the inside scoop into what she does at Unity and what motivates her here!

Read on to learn more about Maxine! And if you’re interested in joining Unity, check out our careers page.

I lead our Product Marketing team across Monetization, Analytics, and Machine Learning. It is my team’s job to understand the opportunities and challenges for our developers and to work with our Product teams to create tools or services that will help our community. We then take what the teams have built and communicate the solutions to developers, making sure they’re offered in a way developers can use.

Every day is different! In general, I get to spend a lot of my time working with people across a variety of teams, especially Marketing, Product, and Sales, to make sure what we build solves our customers’ needs. At the beginning of the quarter, we set up product and marketing strategies, and then we execute.

As a manager, I spend a large portion of my time making sure my team is set up for success. I help remove barriers, drive their work forward, prioritize our time, and represent us across the organization. I’m also committed to our team members’ personal growth and focus efforts to ensure they are working on projects that play to their strengths and interests while giving opportunities to learn. (By the way, I’m hiring!)

I was at Facebook working in Monetization Product Marketing where I got to be part of building a team that focused on business in emerging markets. It was there that I developed a passion for tackling tough problems and creating products that could be used globally.

I’m excited by what Unity has done, but even more excited about where it can go. Real-time 3D is just at the beginning: simulations, AR, design - Unity is part of all of it! Games and other industries are moving towards more real-time 3D and Unity is driving that forward while making sure it as easy and flexible as possible.

My team led Unity’s first ever major presence in the creative agency and brand world at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. We partnered with Cannes Lions and built AR directly into the Festival’s app. This put AR into the hands of some of the world’s most innovative creators and showcased the possibilities of using Unity. I was inspired to meet a whole new set of Unity creators who were building mind-blowing projects with a focus on brands.

Unity is the first place I’ve gotten to build a team. Ready for the corny metaphor? I’ve learned building a team is not just putting together a puzzle, it’s making sure you have the right pieces - people with the right skills and experiences. To actually complete the puzzle, we layer on support, training, structure, and relationship building so we are in a place to accomplish our goals - and be happy and motivated doing it.

Collaboration is key. We work on new, market-changing products and we solve hard problems, which requires people with a lot of different knowledge and experience to bring their own perspectives in the room. Even though we’re collaborative, we’re not a “yes” culture. You can respectfully disagree with someone to build to a better outcome.

You are given a lot of responsibility and ownership at Unity. The projects are meaty and interesting and could take a lot of different directions. You are not told what to do, you figure out the best way to solve problems or accomplish goals. We get to think creatively about these opportunities - the best answer may not be the obvious one.

Mario Party 2. As of this post, I’m officially challenging my brother to a rematch.

One of my favorite made with Unity experiences is “My Africa” developed by Vision 3. “My Africa” is a VR experience that transports you to an elephant sanctuary in Kenya. In part of this experience, you get to take care of a baby elephant - feed it, wash it, and give it medicine. Beyond the visual quality and immersion, what was so incredible was that all of these tasks had physical objects associated with them. When you fed the elephant there you were given a bottle that was weighted to feel like a real, full, bottle. It was a perfect blend of the physical and digital world to bring you to a new reality.

I’m a decent juggler.

Come to Unity if you like solving problems or finding opportunities that don’t necessarily have “right” answers. We work in a fast-paced environment and there are always new projects emerging so I would not expect you to ever be bored.

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To learn more about Maxine’s work and what we’re up to at Unity, check out the websites for our Monetization, Analytics, and Machine Learning teams! And get to know more about other Unity employees by reading previous Faces of Unity blog posts!

If you’re interested in joining Maxine’s team or other teams at Unity, you can find the latest job openings on our careers page.