Employee Spotlight: Lexie Ernst, Head of Product

Meet the Butter team! Every month we chat with a Butterton to learn about their role, why they joined Butter, and to get their take on our culture. This month, we caught up with Lexie Ernst, Butter’s Head of Product.

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What does a typical day look like in your role?

Every day at Butter is an adventure, and that’s what makes it so exciting! I get to dive into all different areas of the business, which keeps things fresh and dynamic. One day, I might kick things off with a customer call to uncover new pain points for a product use case - like our dispute feature set - or a new Butter interface that brings customers closer to our value proposition and brand. Then, it’s typically onto brainstorming with the broader product and engineering teams to scope out experiments.

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What drew you to Butter?

A few years ago, I was working at Quartz as a Product Lead on a new membership vertical, launching the company’s first subscription-based journalism product. While scaling, I encountered an unexpected challenge—hundreds, if not thousands, of our early subscribers' recurring payments kept failing for no obvious reason. It was frustrating, and that’s when Butter first came onto my radar.

At the time, Butter was still scaling, and I had the opportunity to collaborate with Butter’s founder and CEO, Vijay Menon, to address Quartz’s payment issues. A few years later, when Butter was ready to expand their product function, joining felt like the natural next step in my career. Being part of Butter’s growth definitely feels full circle.

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How would you describe the culture at Butter?

“Butter has a dynamic, supportive culture where people are encouraged to go beyond their job descriptions. If you see a problem, you’re empowered to tackle it.”

Butter has a dynamic, supportive culture where people are encouraged to go beyond their job descriptions. If you see a problem, you’re empowered to tackle it—our “ask for forgiveness, not permission” mentality fosters a proactive approach. I’m proud to say our culture prioritizes high emotional intelligence and low ego, which promotes a collaborative environment where honest discussions happen.

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What has been your favorite project to work on at Butter?

My favorite project is unconventional for a Head of Product. Six weeks into my role, I stepped in as interim head of our Technical Account Management (TAM) team—also known as Customer Success—to reimagine and level up the function. At a startup, you often wear many hats, and this was one of those moments. I hadn’t led a TAM team before, but I relied on my customer-facing experience from the product side and jumped in. 

What I thought would be a short-term and need-based role turned into one of the most rewarding experiences of my career. Being so close to customer conversations—understanding the value Butter was delivering, identifying gaps, and learning about pain points—gave me a deep understanding of our business and how we could differentiate. I enjoyed the role so much that I opted to stay in it for over six months.

Another project I’m excited about is our Customer Interface Revamp. Butter’s value is deeply tied to the data flows and insights we’re able to demonstrate—how much we’re saving for customers, where we’re optimizing, and how that value evolves over time. Previously, we didn’t have a centralized hub to present this information in a cohesive, Butter-branded way. I led the effort across teams to build a new ecosystem that not only showcases our value but also introduces customers to additional product areas and features that can drive even more impact.

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What is your favorite perk/benefit of working at Butter?

“Working remotely gives me flexibility, which I value, but Butter's leadership is also thoughtful about bringing the team together in person to foster collaboration and maintain a strong, positive culture.”

My favorite perk of working at Butter is our annual offsites and in-person meetups. Working remotely gives me flexibility, which I value, but Butter's leadership is also thoughtful about bringing the team together in person to foster collaboration and maintain a strong, positive culture. We meet in smaller groups every 6-8 weeks for things like industry events, product team gatherings, or hackathons, and we also have at least one full-team offsite every year. 

One of my favorite memories since joining Butter was our full-team offsite in Berkeley this past August. It was amazing to finally meet everyone and connect in person beyond work. We accomplished a lot in terms of roadmapping and brainstorming, but the unstructured time—like playing Pickleball, wine tasting, and team games—was the real highlight for me. It made the experience feel balanced and fun, and it reminded me why Butter’s culture is so unique.

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Interested in joining Butter? See our open roles.

Related article: Employee Spotlight: Kim Tran, Head of Legal