Explore a Career in Product Management in Tech - Discussions with Product Manager at LinkedIn, Amazon, Google and BetterCloud
With the tremendous amount of interest in Product Management in Silicon Valley, it only made sense for us to do a podcast on what this role is all about. We've done interviews on how to get your first job, to what a PM does, to how you can excel as a Product Manager. See the list of all the discussions below!
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Note: Do you already have interviews lined up? Don't forget to check out our Interview guide for PM interviews in Tech, our Question bank for behavioral questions, and our Question bank for Product Design questions to help you prep for your Product Management interviews!
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Nitin Julka, Group Product Manager @LinkedIn, describes how he went about getting his first PM job, and was able to get one in just 5 weeks.
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Here are some things that Nitin talks about in this episode:
1. How Nitin prioritized getting meetings in the beginning, as opposed to getting a job
2. How Nitin got these meetings - from introductions, to cold mails, to even trying LinkedIn ads!
3. How he chose which companies to apply to
4. What worked for him during the job search process and what didn't
5. Advice for aspiring candidates
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Ntin has also written a post on this topic, we encourage you to check it out!
Discussion with Christine Fok, Senior PM@LinkedIn, on what does a Product Manager do
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Having spent a few years as a Program Manager @Microsoft followed by working as a Product Manager @LinkedIn, Christine comes with a wealth of experience, both in the tech industry as well as in this role. She shares many useful nuggets throughout the episode, and this discussion can be a great resource for anyone interested in the PM role.
What I do to Excel as a Product Manager - Discussion with Nkem Nwankwo, Senior PM @BetterCloud
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What I Do To Excel As A Product Manager - Nkem Nwankwo, Senior Product Manager at BetterCloud, describes what he does to excel as a Product Manager. Nkem has over 5 years of experience as a PM. His educational background consists of a B.S. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech and MBA from Ross School of Business.
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Some of the areas that Nkem touches upon include:
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What Nkem focuses on - Ruthless prioritization, Time Management, Stakeholder management, Personal management
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For prioritization, Nkem uses a whiteboard that forces him to focus on only the most important items each day
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How he comes to office 3 hours before everyone else to get work done
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How he does not go for meetings unless explicitly asked to
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How having an understanding of the informal networks in your organization can really help get things done - since a lot of this job requires influencing people
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Staying up to date with the industry and exposing himself to new ideas through reading and listening to podcasts
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How you can add value in a variety of ways as a PM - being technical is not necessary. Eg: You can excel at communication and a thorough understanding of the user.
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While Product Management in Tech is a highly sought after function today, transitioning to Product Management without prior experience can be daunting. In this discussion, we talk to Anubhav Mangal, a Product Manager with AWS, Amazon, on how he switched from a role in Corporate Strategy at Cisco to Product Management at Amazon.
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A Product Manager works with people across many different functions, to bring a product to life. A key role that Product Managers end up collaborating with is UX Research (if you’re curious about what a UX Researcher does, check out our podcast that explores this role with a researcher at Airbnb).
In this post, we talk to Chloe Doan, a Senior UX Researcher at Google, about what makes for a great PM <> UXR relationship.
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Matteus Pan, Principal Product Manager at Bina Technologies, a genomics based cancer diagnostics company, and formerly Group Product Manager at Dropbox, talks about working as a Product Manager in the Biotech space. Bina Technologies was acquired by Roche Sequencing recently.
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Matt has a bachelors in Economics and Computer Science Engineering from University of Pennsylvania.
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What is it like to transition from Product Management in Tech to being the Founder of your own company? What skills are transferrable and what skills do you need to learn afresh? How do you hone these skills on the job?
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Learn about all this and more in this discussion with Israel Shalom, former Product Leader at Google and Dropbox, who has now started his own company (currently in Stealth mode).
