Meet Dena Hassani, Lineup Product Manager
For Dena Hassani, people-focused experiences must be designed for impact.
As Lineup’s new Product Manager, Dena Hassani turns our mission into action. She uses deep knowledge of design and user experience (UX) to build solutions that empower people, and she has a passion for how emerging technologies impact the way we live.
Interested in art and design, Dena started her journey by studying architecture and developed a fascination with how city planning influences lifestyles. She began exploring human-computer interaction and earned masters degrees in both architecture and UX design. Then, she applied that knowledge by building products with startups. Most recently, she served as Design Lead at McGill University School of Physical & Occupational Therapy and Product Designer at Glodon Company Limited.
Over time, Dena realized she wasn’t solely interested in the design aspect of product development—she wanted to create road maps, assess priorities, and manage all the tradeoffs and different stakeholders needed to make decisions.
That calling brought her to Lineup in October 2025.
We sat down with Dena to pick her brain about product management and how it can shape the future of Lineup and people management.
Q&A with Dena
Lineup: How do you define your role and your day-to-day at Lineup?
Dena Hassani (DH): To me, a product manager is the one who rallies a team to solve the right problem with the right product. When I say “right problem”, it means we have to know our users and understand the problem they're facing. There are many times when someone has an idea to build something, so people find a problem to justify that idea. But in reality, it’s important to find the right problem, and it's even more important to find the root cause of that problem to find more durable and stronger solutions.
At Lineup, it's interesting because Lineup is a product for people management that's being used by people. So, we're actually building a product to make the workflow smoother for the users of Lineup as well as those end users who are the candidates. So, in my day-to-day life, I’m keeping both of these groups in mind.
Lineup: Since you joined the team, have there been any big aha! moments on either how you approach work, technology, or the Lineup platform?
DH: One of the biggest aha! moments that I had in these three months was when I realized how powerful customization can be. Lineup allows organizations, teams, and leaders from different industries to use the platform and to shape it around their own workflows and needs. That's amazing. We're not prescribing the solution to our users. We're empowering them and supporting them to solve their own problem the way that's comfortable for them.
Lineup: As a platform and a strategic partner, how can Lineup support leaders in having better conversations with their teams?
DH: Lineup can help leaders by providing traceability, strong filtration, and an intuitive visual. We allow them to find the people that they need with real data like their qualifications, participation, history, and interests. All this information helps them to match the right people with the right opportunities. Lineup’s shared view even allows different managers in a team to have a better conversation around these things. And from what's going on, we help them go faster to what they can do next.
Beyond the product, we have regular meetings with clients to make sure we're supporting them and we're hearing them. We see how they're using the product and where in the workflows there are gaps that we can support. So, these are the kinds of relationships that we make with our partners to make sure we’re giving them the fullest support possible.
Lineup: What does reimagining people management actually mean in practice? What does this look like for Lineup users?
DH: One reality I’ve seen firsthand is that many candidates never even get the chance to be seen. Their resumes and applications don’t make it far enough to be truly considered. Reimagining this process means speeding up workflows for admins, managers, and decision-makers. It also means creating real visibility into the full pool of talent so that every qualified candidate has a chance to surface at the right moment.
Credentialing plays a critical role in that shift. It’s deeply connected to people management, because talent data is constantly changing. By tracking credentials in real time, we ensure information stays current, and reviews are always up to date. This means that teams can move faster and have confidence knowing that for every role, the right people are not only available, but fully qualified and ready.
Lineup: What excites you the most about the future of people management? What are you most looking forward to at Lineup?
DH: What excites me is that there's a chance we can grow and position Lineup in many different industries. I’m excited to find partners that have completely different goals or workflows but could use Lineup.
Also, we're exploring how AI integration will amplify the different features of Lineup. With AI, we can improve many of these already great features. I’m excited to see how we will make Lineup even stronger moving forward.
