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Elena Tonkikh

I help product teams reduce uncertainty before development: I turn complex B2B workflows into clear product logic, prototypes, requirements and measurable discovery outcomes

Focus — Product discovery · B2B SaaS · UX/CX background · AI-assisted prototyping

UX roots, eight years in product. Strongest in B2B SaaS, fintech and complex CX: I find where users lose context, frame the problem in business terms and carry it through to a product solution that reduces support load and cost-to-serve

Experience — 8 years
2026

Atomic English · solo pet project + AI agents

Pet project · Android MVP · research project

Tested whether one person with AI agents can ship an Android MVP end-to-end: product logic, UX, runtime, dictionary contract, QA and a managed build pipeline.

2024 — 2026

Senior Product Manager · Product Owner

X-Keeper · B2B telematics · 2M+ devices

Shifted the customer dashboard from a support-heavy model to genuine self-service: rebuilt device-setup flows, introduced an asset-centric monitoring model and shaped the web and mobile experience for large B2B accounts.

2020 — 2024

UX/UI → CX → Product Owner

Sber · fintech / loyalty · team of 15

Operated inside a large fintech environment: interfaces, design system, user research, CJM, hypotheses, backlog and adjacent teams.

2018 — 2020

UX/UI designer · branding and web

Studios and freelance

Branding, landing pages, web interfaces and no-code prototypes. Systems thinking grew out of components, states and patterns.

Education
2022 — 2023

HSE University · Analytics in Digital Product Management

2015 — 2020

Russian State University of Justice · Civil Law

Master's
Courses

Yandex Practicum · Product Manager · 2023  ·  Moscow Digital Academy · UX Design  ·  Paper Planes · Win The Market & Win The Digital  ·  UsabilityLab · Customer Journey Map training  ·  Krasnodar Art College · Easel painting

Elena Tonkikh · How I work Role · Agile · Discovery · tonkikh.netlify.app →
Page 2 · How I work · Role & responsibilities · Discovery & AI

My role in an Agile team — and the value I bring at discovery

My core responsibility is discovery and product logic. In the later stages I step in selectively — I help preserve the intent of the solution, but I don't replace design, systems analysis, delivery, engineering or QA

01

Discovery

My role — core
  • Frame the business problem, user flow and success criterion
  • Build a flow prototype: steps, states, permissions, errors, edge data
  • Run the research, tests and leadership presentations
  • Stress-test the feature for viability before it reaches a sprint
02

Backlog refinement

My role — supporting
  • Write feature documentation
  • Split must-have scope, risks and future improvements
  • Help the team keep user logic intact while decomposing stories
03

Sprint delivery

My role — selective
  • Answer product questions whenever an implementation fork appears
  • Help the team trade off value, time and scope
  • Check the demo against the original flow — without managing engineering
04

Release & learnings

My role — product learnings
  • Check whether user behaviour and support load have shifted
  • Isolate the real effect from noise
  • Frame the next round of hypotheses and improvements
Discovery — that cuts the cost of being wrong

My job is to help the team see — earlier — which hypothesis works, where the flow breaks and what should not be handed to engineering at all. The team saves time, design and engineering stay unburdened, and discovery leaves behind a clear base of decisions

01 · Hypotheses

Validated before expensive engineering

I validate hypotheses on flow prototypes, real data and explicit success criteria.

02 · Risks

Less wasted work

I pin down roles, permissions, states, errors, data and edge cases up front.

03 · Decision memory

Artefacts the team can return to

I leave behind reports, documentation, research findings and metrics for every hypothesis.

How I use AI agents in discovery

AI-assisted prototypes that leadership and research can act on