Product Manager · B2B SaaS
Zoho CRM, CPQ & Revenue Ops

Building products
that move
the number.

5 years of full-stack engineering at Zoho Corporation, owning the Zoho CRM CPQ configurator and dynamic pricing engine used by 3,000+ B2B businesses globally. I write PRDs, run discovery, prototype AI layers, and have published product strategy that reached a funded startup CEO within 48 hours.

3,000+
B2B businesses
served
35%
API latency
reduction
40%
Config time cut
via AI prototype
See my work Download CV Get in touch

About

Technical depth.
Product instinct.

I spent 5 years at Zoho Corporation as the sole engineering representative in product discovery sessions for Zoho CRM CPQ, effectively functioning as a co-PM while owning the CPQ configurator end-to-end. That is where I built the instinct most PMs acquire years into the role.

I write PRDs, not just specs. I run discovery workshops, prototype in Lovable and Claude Code before the first stakeholder meeting, and have cut 3-week requirement cycles down to 1 week by introducing structured discovery templates across Sales, Operations, and Customer Success.

My published product strategy for SimplyInsured, a $7.7M funded US health insurtech, reached the company CEO within 48 hours. That is the level of thinking I bring to every product problem.

Product

PRD Writing Roadmapping User Story Mapping RICE Prioritisation A/B Testing Go-to-Market Discovery Workshops North Star Metrics Backlog Management

AI & Prototyping

Claude Code Claude Cowork Lovable Replit AI OpenAI API (GPT-4o) Cursor Windsurf

Technical

Java / J2EE REST APIs SQL CPQ Configuration API Integration CI/CD GCP / Google Anthos Git

Domain

B2B SaaS Zoho CRM CPQ Revenue Ops ERP Integrations Financial Analytics FinTech InsurTech

Languages

English Hindi Gujarati Tamil French
3,000+
B2B enterprise clients globally on Zoho CRM CPQ
< 2 weeks
to prototype a full AI recommendation layer inside CPQ
48 hrs
for a published product strategy to reach a startup CEO

Experience

Where I have built.

Zoho Corporation

Product-Focused Engineer, Member of Technical Staff · Zoho CRM CPQ

Feb 2022 to Present · Chennai

  • End to end product ownership of the Zoho CRM CPQ configurator and dynamic pricing engine built in Java/J2EE, the primary interface through which enterprise sales teams configure complex product bundles with real-time pricing. Used by 3,000+ B2B businesses globally.
  • 35% reduction in CPQ configuration API response time through query optimisation and caching, directly improving pricing accuracy for high-volume accounts processing 10,000+ configurations per month.
  • AI prototype in under 2 weeks: Built an AI-powered product recommendation layer using Claude Code and Replit AI. Reduced manual configuration steps by about 40% in internal testing. Pitched to leadership and approved for roadmap consideration.
  • Compressed design reviews from 2 weeks to 3 days by replacing static specs with Lovable and Claude Cowork interactive prototypes. Stakeholders approved features 4x faster.
  • Discovery process redesign: Introduced structured discovery templates across Sales, Operations, and Customer Success, cutting requirement gathering from 3 weeks to 1 week.
  • Sole engineering representative in product discovery, sprint planning, and requirement workshops alongside the product team for 2+ years, effectively operating as a co-PM.

Payoda Technology Inc

Software Engineer, Product & Platform

Aug 2021 to Feb 2022 · Chennai

  • Built a Financial Analytics Dashboard 0 to 1 using Hybrid Cloud and Google Anthos, giving 5 business units access to real-time financial data that previously required manual weekly reports.
  • Integrated querying that enabled non-technical finance teams to self-serve data without analyst support, cutting ad-hoc reporting requests by about 30%.
  • 40% reduction in deployment time, from 5 hours to 3 hours per release, by rebuilding CI/CD pipelines and unblocking feature delivery lag.

Strategy & Projects

Thinking in public.

Product Teardown & Strategy

SimplyInsured, Health InsurTech Roadmap

Analysed a $7.7M VC-funded US health insurtech and identified the gap between plan discovery and decision intelligence. Proposed a 3-pillar roadmap (Recommendation Engine, Renewal Intelligence, Financial Dashboard) with a north star metric, competitive analysis vs Gusto and Rippling, and a 12-month execution plan. Prototyped the recommendation UX in Lovable before publishing.

2,900 word strategy CEO replied in 48 hrs Lovable prototype Competitive analysis
Read on Medium ↗

Product Strategy & MVP Scoping

CredSense, Privacy-First Credit Card Insights

Led product strategy for a local-first credit card analytics tool that delivers reward optimisation via PDF statements with no credential access. Scoped a Phase 1 MVP and built a progressive automation ladder that moves from manual upload to regulated Account Aggregator flows without compromising user trust.

MVP scoping Automation ladder Regulatory pathway Privacy-first
Read on Medium ↗

Design & Communication Essay

Typography Can Improve Your Communication

A deep dive into how typography quietly shapes clarity, hierarchy, and trust in every product interface. Written for PMs and founders who treat type as decoration rather than a core UX decision, with practical rules I apply to my own PRDs and strategy docs.

Design essay UX fundamentals Practical frameworks
Read on Medium ↗

AI Prototype · Zoho CRM CPQ

AI Recommendation Layer for Zoho CPQ

Prototyped an AI-powered product recommendation engine inside Zoho CRM CPQ in under 2 weeks using Claude Code and Replit AI. Reduced manual configuration steps by about 40% in internal testing. Pitched to leadership and approved for roadmap consideration.

Built in < 2 weeks 40% config reduction Roadmapped
Internal build

Platform Engineering to Product Impact

Financial Analytics Dashboard, Payoda

Built a 0 to 1 financial analytics platform for 5 business units on Hybrid Cloud and Google Anthos. Integrated natural language querying so non-technical finance teams could self-serve data without analyst support, cutting ad-hoc reporting requests by about 30%.

0 to 1 build 5 business units NL querying
Case study
More teardowns, critiques, and MVP write-ups incoming.
I publish product strategy work regularly on Medium. Use the filters above as the catalogue grows.

Who I am when I log off

Beyond the
resume.

I get energised by depth across different domains. While I am shipping products at Zoho, I am equally invested in reading, writing, crocheting, puzzling, and occasionally arguing my way through a family dinner.

Other hobbies include irritating my brother, testing my mom's patience, and arguing with my dad. Guilty pleasures are gossip threads on Reddit, trashy TV, and eating so enthusiastically that I can probably name the best spots in any area I have been to.

The best product insights, in my experience, come from living with diverse experiences and not just talking to users.

01
Writing, fiction and poetry
I write because it is the best way I know to calm myself down, or confuse myself further. Everything else about me is inside my articles, go read them and write about me.
02
Reading
I have read since I was a child, though I am sorry to say I am not very fond of non-fiction. My entire dream is a room with all four walls turned into a library.
03
Crochet
Always been bad at art, but somehow I picked up crochet and now gift something to almost everyone. Small, slow, handmade, the opposite of shipping a sprint.
04
Puzzling
Fond of jigsaw puzzles and sudoku. Somewhere between training muscle memory and just liking the feeling of clicking the last piece into place.

Contact

Let us build something worth shipping.

Open to PM-1 and PM-2 roles and founding PM opportunities in B2B SaaS.

Chennai, India · +91 88258 55609 · payalprakash.shah@gmail.com