The Real Pete + Pari – Kristina Thai

When we created the characters of Pete + Pari for “A Giant Story,” we grabbed inspiration from those closest to us – Intuit employees and our customers. Here is a real-life story behind the inspiration for Pari.

Meet Kristina. She’s a Senior iOS Engineer on the QuickBooks Self-Employed team who’s been with the company since college. This is her prosperity story.

Intuit: Tell us about your role at Intuit.

Kristina: I’m a Senior iOS Engineer on the QuickBooks Self-Employed team. I work directly with the QuickBooks iPhone app that helps our self-employed customers manage their finances and get ready for tax time.

The app helps connect our customers bank accounts with their taxes to empower them to look for the largest deductions possible and track their mileage through the app. This allows them to get a better look at finances as they get ready for tax season.

Intuit: How did you end up at Intuit?

Kristina: When I was in college, a friend of mine interned at Intuit and raved about the experience. After knowing more about the company, I went to the career fair my sophomore year confident enough to walk up to Intuit’s table and talk to the recruiter. I ended up getting the internship my sophomore year! Intuit was a supportive company even though I was young – they knew how eager I was and how much I wanted to learn.

Intuit was actually my first technical interview and I luckily passed with flying colors! I really love the fact that the company took a chance on me my sophomore year because I interned at Intuit for the next 3 summers. After graduation, I was hired on full-time in the rotational program and eventually transitioned on to where I am today.

Intuit: What about your role gets you most excited to come into work each day?

Kristina: I love the fact that I am working on something that makes a huge difference in someone’s life. Finances can make or break whether a small business succeeds and can put food on the table. I’m inspired by the risk and hard work that our customers are putting into their own businesses and really enjoy helping them so they can focus on what they need to.

Rather than thinking about financial terminology they can create their craft for their business or sell more stuff on Etsy or do more than they have before. We’re really saving them time and money to do what they love!

Intuit: What did you think of the film?

Kristina: I thought it was very inspirational because it centered around a woman engineer. One of my biggest passions is to get women into technology, and seeing this film portray a woman in this innovative light was inspiring.

Intuit: What aspect of Pari’s character do you identify most with?

Kristina: I love the dozing off scene – when Pari was trying to find a solution to get everything to work and she fell asleep and the piece of toast hit her in the head. I definitely identify with this scene – having issues with bugs I’ve had or features at Intuit that just did not fit together and then waking up the next morning and having the answer in one of my dreams. I wake up energized that I found the solution and would walk into work knowing things would fall into place.

Having that moment seen in the film was awesome because I have it too!

Intuit: How does Intuit help you power prosperity in your day-to-day role?

Kristina: My position allows me to see first hand what issues our customers are encountering and how to make a direct impact on how to get them fixed. This enables our customers to move forward and grow their business.

Intuit: What’s your real-life ‘Giant’ invention?

Kristina: My favorite feature is the “Receipt” capture within QuickBooks. Where you can take a picture on your phone of a business receipt (say you bought lumber for your customer at a store) and then forget about it. Within our app we have their bank account connected and we are able to run the algorithm over their bank statement and find the date, amount, and vendor to automatically match it to the receipt capture.

A lot of users would have those shoe boxes full of receipts and have to find the right one and categorize it themselves. Now they have the power of QuickBooks “Receipt” capture to do it all for them!