Meet the Team: Episode 1
Meet five of the talented individuals behind Metropolis: Ian Tabolt, Valerie Slepak, Kaleb Loo, Anusha Sowdhari, and Prem Kurumpanai. This blog post will introduce you to these key members of our product and engineering teams, offering a glimpse into their roles, what inspires them, and their experiences working on some of our most impactful projects. Read on to discover what makes our team tick and how their dedication has helped shape Metropolis into what it is today.
Ian Tabolt
Staff Software Engineer
Application Development
4 Years at Metropolis
New York, NY
What does your team work on?
The Visit Enablement team owns internal tools that the operations org needs to ensure a remarkable consumer experience for those parking at Metropolis locations, including the valet platform, visit dashboards, and admin tooling.
What are some standout attributes about your team/coworkers at Metropolis?
Our strong product-driven culture where engineers view technical initiatives through a customer lens while also weighing in on the product roadmap during the design phase. This creates collaborative ownership over both new features and long-running systems critical to the platform.
What are the three words that best describe Metropolites?
Owners - Each engineer leads the full development lifecycle and embraces responsibility for both new features and legacy systems.
Collaborative - We work closely across product and engineering, contributing to roadmap decisions while maintaining customer focus.
Adaptable - We've successfully scaled to thousands of locations while solving unique challenges that don't exist in typical software problems.
What advice would you give to someone interested in joining the team?
Embrace ownership of both new and existing systems. You'll often lead the full development lifecycle of your work while thinking beyond immediate feature requests to find designs that scale with the product roadmap in mind.
Valerie Slepak
Product Manager
Product Management
3 Years at Metropolis
New York, NY
What does your team work on?
My team works on member growth and retention. This means we focus on initiatives that are aimed at adding more Metropolis members and keeping them active in the Metropolis ecosystem by driving preference for Metropolis. This includes things like reservations, partnerships, and loyalty.
What is your favorite thing about working at Metropolis?
My favorite thing about working at Metropolis is the great opportunity I have to make an impact. While the company has grown a lot since I’ve joined, I feel we’ve been able to preserve the start-up feel in the sense that everyone is empowered to speak up and voice their ideas.
What has surprised you about your time working at Metropolis?
As a company, we are always pushing boundaries at Metropolis. From modernizing an industry that has historically been fragmented and resistant to change, to taking a 100+ year old company private, I am constantly in awe at what we’re able to achieve.
Kaleb Loo
Staff Software Engineer
Advanced Technologies Group
4 Years at Metropolis
Honolulu, Hawaii
What does your team work on?
My team works on building cloud systems that interact with hardware and machine learning on the edge.
What is your favorite thing about working at Metropolis?
During my time at Metropolis, I’ve been able to wear many hats and have had many opportunities that I would not have had at another company. Through these experiences I have learned and obtained many skills that are extremely valuable to me as a growing engineer.
What has surprised you about your time working at Metropolis?
The company has grown from 100 employees to over 20,000 employees during my time at the company. The company excelled through many hardships that occurred in the industry through the past 5 years and has always been able to come out of them stronger.
What is your advice to anyone interested in joining the team?
Join Metropolis if you are interested in complex challenges and like to work with abstract problems. Engineers at Metropolis should be constantly thinking about how to keep growing while being at the top of the market.
Anusha Sowdhari
Senior Data Analyst
Data Engineering and Analytics
3 Years at Metropolis
Atlanta, GA
What does your team work on?
Our team is responsible for developing reporting across the company, ensuring stakeholders have access to clear and actionable insights. We also design and maintain the backend data pipelines that power these reports, enabling reliable and scalable analytics.
What is your favorite thing about working at Metropolis?
My favorite thing about working at Metropolis and specifically on the Data Team is the freedom to explore end to end, which gives a true sense of ownership. Everyone’s perspective is valued, which makes collaboration both inspiring and productive.
What are some standout attributes about your teammates at Metropolis?
Our team is distinguished by strong collaboration, ownership, and maintaining accountability in every deliverable. We continuously learn from one another, adapt quickly to change, and consistently drive impactful outcomes.
What has surprised you about your time working at Metropolis?
I am immensely surprised and inspired by the level of growth and innovation the company is achieving. It’s exciting to witness such rapid progress and to be a part of an environment that not only achieves ambitious goals but also creates room for individual growth along the way.
Prem Kurumpanai
Machine Learning Engineer II
Advanced Technologies Group
3 Years at Metropolis
Atlanta, GA
What does your team work on?
Our team is responsible for development and maintenance of our vision platform. We are consistently developing at the edge and the cloud to adapt our technology to improve our customer experience as we grow into new spaces.
What are some standout attributes about your team at Metropolis?
I have learned so much from my fellow coworkers because we share a culture of never settling for how things have been done. The more and more that I collaborate within and outside of my team, I get more excited to explore into the unknown with curiosity and come out the other side with tangible outcomes.
What has surprised you about your time working at Metropolis?
Even with the amount that the company has grown since I joined, I am always surprised at how quickly an individual is able to create impact. By fostering a sense of ownership, celebrating our wins, and learning from our losses, the teams are always thinking out of the box to make meaningful improvements to our customer and employee experiences.
What has been your favorite project at Metropolis?
Being a part of fleetwide firmware and software rollouts. While it requires a high amount of orchestration, we are able to effect change to thousands of edge devices in a short amount of time.
