---
title: "Pushkar Dongare - Product Manager 2 in Bengaluru | Tal"
description: "Meet Pushkar Dongare, Product at Zynga | 0 to 1 Products @ Masai School & Lokal(YC’19) | IIT Bombay based in Bengaluru. AI stack includes cursor, opencode, and claudecode."
image: "https://tal.club/meet/pushkar-dongare/share-image"
---

# Pushkar Dongare on Tal

## Headline

Product at Zynga \| 0 to 1 Products @ Masai School & Lokal\(YC’19\) \| IIT Bombay

## About

Senior Product Manager with 8\+ years building and scaling monetization, growth, and platform products across gaming, marketplaces, and edtech — serving millions of users and driving significant revenue impact\. Hold B\.Tech from IIT Bombay\. Currently at Zynga, I own Mercury, an internal lifecycle messaging platform serving 40\+ games and delivering billions of messages annually across 6 channels\. I am building AI\-powered product features, optimising engagement through experimentation, and leading cost\-reduction initiatives through platform migrations\. Previously, as Director of Product at Masai School, I architected internal platforms that enabled 8x scale — growing admissions from 250 to 2,000 per batch while improving conversion 5x \(2% to 10%\)\. I built assessment and proctoring systems that saved ₹48M annually and designed an LMS that eliminated 2,000 operational hours monthly\. My platforms directly contributed to the company's revenue growth from ₹50M to ₹400M\. Before that, I was the first hire at Lokal \(YC S'19\), where I took a vernacular news platform from 0 to 5M users in 2 years across 3 Indian states\. I achieved category\-leading retention \(50% D1\) through deep user research with non\-English Tier 2/3 audiences\. I built three monetisation streams from scratch — ads, hyperlocal advertising, and a jobs marketplace that reached ₹1\.6M MRR with 50K\+ organic listings\. I also scaled the product team from 1 to 5 PMs and Designers\. My expertise spans: 0→1 product development, growth funnel optimization, A/B testing & experimentation, AI\-powered products \(LLMs, agents\), platform architecture, marketplace design, and cross\-functional leadership\. I won the Zynga Global Hackathon \(top 4 of 200 entries\)\. I ran weekly PM peer\-learning sessions and am passionate about building products that scale impact\.

## Location

Bengaluru

## AI stack

cursor

opencode

claudecode

## Work experience

Product Manager 2 at Zynga, Dec 2023 \- Present · 2 yrs 9 mos, Greater Bengaluru Area, Own Mercury, Zynga's internal lifecycle messaging platform serving 40\+ games, delivering billions of messages annually to Millions of users across 6 channels \(email, push notifications and more\)\. The platform directly impacts daily active users, engagement, and monetisation across Zynga's portfolio\. Key Achievements: \- Built intelligent send\-time optimization for push notifications; validated meaningful engagement uplift through rigorous A/B testing, now rolling out across 40\+ game titles \- Designed and developing an AI\-powered email template builder featuring specialised agents for content generation, HTML conversion, and QA; A/B tests showed significant improvement in click\-to\-open rates and campaign creation efficiency \- Launched new rich media message formats for Android, resulting in substantial click\-through rate improvements \- Led strategic migration of games from third\-party CRM vendors to Mercury, saving significant annual spend \- Devised a deduplication system for customer support tickets, reducing support volume and enabling the team to handle higher ticket volumes with the same headcount \- Won Zynga Global Hackathon \(top 4 of 200 submissions\) for innovative product solution \- Led weekly PM peer\-learning initiative, curating and facilitating content for 40\+ weeks

Director of Product Management at Masai School, May 2022 \- Aug 2023 · 1 yr 4 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Led product strategy and execution for internal platforms enabling Masai School to scale 8x while unlocking yearly revenue growth from ₹50M to ₹400M\. Built and managed a high\-performing product and design team of 7, establishing data\-driven decision\-making culture and agile development practices\. Growth & Acquisition: \- Architected and launched automated admissions platform, scaling capacity from 250 to 2,000 students per batch \(8x growth\) \- I mproved admission funnel conversion from 2% to 10% \(5x improvement\) through experimentation and user experience optimization \- Reduced "time to admission" from 24 hours to 1 hour, dramatically improving user experience and operational efficiency Platform Products & Cost Optimization: \- Built in\-house assessment and proctoring platform, replacing third\-party vendor and saving ₹48M annually \(70% cost reduction\) \- Designed and launched internal Learning Management System \(LMS\), eliminating manual workflows and saving 2,000\+ operational hours per month \- Increased operational efficiency through intelligent automation across admissions, learning, and placement workflows New Business Initiatives: \- Spearheaded launch of LevelUp, a new business vertical successfully expanding Masai School's service offerings to a broader developer community \- Built comprehensive placement product streamlining workflows for multiple stakeholders \(students, instructors, hiring partners\); achieved 50% reduction in placement team work hours Strategic Impact: Led build\-vs\-buy analysis that resulted in in\-house platform development, enabling the company to scale rapidly without proportional increase in SaaS costs or operational headcount\.

Product Manager at Masai School, Mar 2021 \- May 2022 · 1 yr 3 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Senior Product Manager at Lokal, Jun 2020 \- Oct 2020 · 5 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, First hire after the founders\. Built and scaled a vernacular news and classifieds platform from 0 to 5M\+ downloads in 2 years, achieving product\-market fit in Tier 2/3 India\. 0→1 Product Development: \- Created launch playbook and product strategy to scale from 100 to 5M\+ downloads across 3 states in just 2 years for vernacular \(non\-English\) users \- Conducted extensive user research to deeply understand mental models of Tier 2/3, non\-English internet users, resulting in differentiated product experience \- Achieved category\-leading retention metrics \(50% D1 retention\) — highest user retention in the News app category and Daily Active Users per location higher than traditional newspapers in Telugu markets Monetization & Marketplace Design: \- Built three monetisation streams from scratch: Google ads, hyperlocal advertising, and classifieds marketplace \- Launched jobs marketplace achieving strong product\-market fit: 50K\+ organic job postings, ₹1\.6M monthly recurring revenue, and 45 NPS score from employers \- Experimented across multiple revenue models, identified jobs as highest\-engagement category with strongest unit economics User\-Generated Content Platform: \- Designed and launched a UGC platform with moderation workflows, enabling users to voice local problems and opinions \- Scaled to 1\.8M\+ moderated posts, reducing content costs by 20% vs\. paid journalists while maintaining engagement levels Growth & Virality: \- Launched gamified referral program with leaderboards, reducing customer acquisition cost by 25% while maintaining user quality Cross\-Functional Leadership: \- Built and scaled product team from 1 to 5 product managers and designers \- Established data\-driven culture: implemented analytics infrastructure and user insight accessibility for 100\+ team members

Product Manager at Lokal, Sep 2019 \- Jun 2020 · 10 mos, Bengaluru Area, India

Product Manager/Designer at Lokal, Jun 2018 \- Sep 2019 · 1 yr 4 mos, Bengaluru Area, India

Freelance UX Designer at Self\-Employed, Jan 2018 \- Jun 2018 · 6 mos, Mumbai Area, India

UX Design Intern at Aasaanjobs\.com, Oct 2017 \- Jan 2018 · 4 mos, Mumbai Area, India, \- Carried out micro\-usability tests of the prototypes \- Performed user\-testing on all major stakeholders \- Designed wireframes and web pages based on user research and analysed data \- Reduced bounce rate of the page from 60% to \~15% \- Suggested UX changes based on user flow observations \- Created user personas

## Education

Bachelor of Technology \(B\.Tech\.\), Metallurgical Engineering and Material Science, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay

[View the original profile](https://tal.club/meet/pushkar-dongare)

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