31 - Building Digital Products at a Legacy Brand — with Samantha McCarthy, AVP, Product Management at Sotheby’s

<p><br></p><p>In this episode, Samantha McCarthy, AVP, Product Management at Sotheby’s, joins us to discuss what it takes to build proprietary tools inside a 300-year-old company. She shares how her team balances the weight of tradition with the speed of modern product development, and what it means to build for ultra-high-net-worth clients in real time.</p><p><br></p><p>We discuss:</p><p><br></p><p>How Sotheby’s matured its internal product org to support digital transactions.</p><p>Why clear communication and analogies help bridge tech and non-tech teams.</p><p>Challenges of building tools for a small, ultra-high-net-worth user base.</p><p>How legacy data informs the shift to platform-level thinking.</p><p>Why the team chose to build proprietary tools instead of buying off-the-shelf.</p><p>What it takes to deliver real-time, high-stakes auction experiences online.</p><p><br></p><p>💬 Samantha says: “There’s a performance and a drama and an immediacy to a lot of the auction experience that goes into how we think about things that I think really impacts not just how we build products, but how we work with the rest of the business. And how they understand what we&#39;re doing is really crucial.”</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>Resources Mentioned:</p><p><br></p><p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/samanthajmcc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Samantha McCarthy</a></p><p>https://www.linkedin.com/in/samanthajmcc/</p><p><br></p><p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/sothebys/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Sotheby’s | LinkedIn</a></p><p>https://www.linkedin.com/company/sothebys/</p><p><br></p><p><a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Sotheby’s | Website</a></p><p>https://www.sothebys.com/en/</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>This episode is brought to you by Majestyk Apps</p><p><br></p><p>We imagine, design and build digital products. With clients like Chevrolet, Audiomack, IBM, Barefoot and more, you can be sure you are in good hands. Reach out to us at MajestykApps.com </p><p><br></p><p>If you enjoyed today’s show, please leave a 5-star review. For more information and links to all of the resources mentioned in today’s episode, visit ProductBuildersPodcast.com.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>FOLLOW US: </p><p> ►Newsletter: https://www.majestykapps.com/newsletter</p><p> ►Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/majestykapps/</p><p> ►LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/majestyk-apps/</p><p> ►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MajestykApp</p><p> ►Twitter: https://twitter.com/majestykapps</p>