My Perspective: A Product Manager at Microsoft.

Recently, I reached out to the LinkedIn community to share an opportunity to ask questions about my experience as a PM, my experience at Microsoft, and a bit about my career journey. My inbox was flooded with messages following my job updates and I wanted to respond to every message, but it wasn't feasible. Instead, with this platform, people were able to ask questions. The chances are high that more than one person had the same question. Thank you to everyone who reached out with questions. I took some time to answer below. I hope that this is beneficial for at least one reader. See below:

What has been a cool aspect of working at Microsoft?

It is hard to choose one cool aspect, so I will break this down into a favorite aspect of the company and then a favorite aspect of my team.?

One of my favorite aspects about working at Microsoft is the emphasis that is placed on the values the company advertises. I am specifically referring to what Microsoft terms as a "core priority" of Diversity and Inclusion. When I first started here, it was during a time when employees were doing their reviews--also known as "Connects". I wrote one as well despite not having any experiences to speak towards. I wrote about what I hoped to accomplish over the next six months. This included committing to taking actions to live out those core priorities in my day-to-day job. The same way that we were required to think about the impact we wanted to have on the business, we were required to think about the impact we wanted to have from a diversity and inclusion standpoint. This resonated heavily with me and motivated me from the very beginning of my Microsoft career to get involved in the Black community at Microsoft and to attend other ERG's events.

As for what I appreciate at the team level, because I can’t attest to every team being this way, is the flexibility! I am constantly encouraged and supported by my team to take time off if I don’t feel well or if I just need an extra day. If I need to step away for however long, my team understands that. I find that with this type of flexibility and trust, I am more productive. I am a firm believer in taking breaks and doing mental/physical resets. Personally, too many hours sitting behind a computer hurt my head. I also trick myself into working harder without actually producing what it is I committed to. I think those breaks in the day help us to work smarter.

What is the difference between a Product Manager and a Project Manager?

I understand that the names sound similar. Some people may even use them interchangeably. However, Product Manager and Project Manager are two different roles.

As a Product Manager, in my experience, there is more of a focus on the product, service, or set of features that the team is building. Some of the accountabilities are highlighted in a later question, but my wheelhouse includes the product vision, strategy, and development. At the end of the day, the actions I take are centered around what value is the product adding and for whom.

As a Project Manager, typically the focus is more on managing timing, risks, and project resources. Project Managers communicate progress, provide regular status updates to stakeholders, manage budget, and monitor tasks.

At some companies, job descriptions may depict some overlap between these two roles. While this does happen, there should be a clear delineation between the two types of PMs mentioned. There are more capabilities under each of these roles, and I encourage anyone curious to do more research, but at a high level, the two are not the same. Needless to say, both are still very important.

Your background looks interesting. How did you end up becoming a Product Manager?

The journey is a long one! It started for me when I decided to study Computer Science at the University of Notre Dame . While I enjoyed some of the challenging concepts, I didn’t feel fulfilled, nor could I truly grasp what I was being taught until we shifted from theory to more practical, real-world application. Everyone processes things differently. For me, this was the most effective way. As I advanced in my college career, I started working in small groups on cool projects from video games to an educational game for students to a screen reader mobile app for users with disabilities. The products that we were building added value for users and that was probably my favorite part. I enjoyed the collaboration with my teammates as well.

After doing some research and understanding where my interests and skills intersected, with coaching from Michelle Florendo , I was fortunate enough to apply and earn an opportunity to intern for Intuit in San Diego the summer after my junior year of college. This is where I got my first real taste of the Product Management experience. I loved my experience there and I enjoyed working with the people I worked with.

I know it sounds like pure bliss and no type of challenge, but this is the point where things got hard. I am going to be transparent here. Following that internship experience, I had to go back to the drawing board in terms of applying for full time Product Manager positions. There wasn't head count for full-time PM conversions from our internship and even then, there might have not been enough time for me to demonstrate what I could bring to the table as a PM by the time the internship was up. With that, I applied to Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn for PM roles, given the amazing things that I heard about each program for new hires coming out of college. At different stages for each company, my journey for the desired role was cut short. Honestly, I was angry with everyone because I felt like I had put in so much work to get to the point that I got to. In life though, people or things will quickly remind you who you are. I easily could have sat around and moped, but this was my post-college career I was dealing with. I saw what my parents and others sacrificed for me to be here. I was taught to stay hungry and be scrappy. I had to make adjustments.

I took a step back and after some serious reflection, I decided to open myself up to other opportunities. I applied for different roles at a few other companies and did receive a few offers. I decided to start my full-time career journey off as a consultant with Pariveda . It was a great place to start my career. I was taught to be a generalist. The experiences and engagements that I had here increased my marketability and ability to add instant value wherever I went. After almost four years at Pariveda, with a wide variety of experiences across markets, industries, tech stacks, etc, I put myself out there by applying to Product Manager roles because I knew what I wanted and somehow, I was going to get it. I understood that the experiences over the last few years were going to help me stand out.

Additionally, I had a couple of amazing people along the way, in Kelly Cauley and Sonia Subha Townsend , remind me what I was capable of. Fast forward several months and a few "we regret to inform you..."'s later, and my current manager came across my profile and resumé. We scheduled time to have an initial conversation. The compatibility in terms of skills, values, interests, and vision were there. I knew that the Azure Mobile Team at Microsoft was the team I wanted to be on. Following several shockingly fun interviews, I received an offer and now here I am.

As a follow up to how you became a Product Manager, since you studied CS, would you say that you have to be technical to be a PM?

I would say that it definitely helps to have a technical background. However, if you don't, that does not disqualify you from being an effective Product Manager. Being technical is great, but personally, I think intangibles are equally, if not more, important. Having a scrappy mindset to do whatever you can to put your team in a position to succeed at doing what they do is important. The willingness to get your hands dirty in research on a particular subject or going the necessary mile to learn how best to communicate with developers, designers, business partners, users, and so on is important. With all that being said, if you are going to have conversations with any function on your team, in order to have a well-oiled machine, being able to communicate and align across different groups is key.

What does being a Product Manager entail?

This is a good question. I honestly can’t speak to how it is everywhere, but I will speak from my own experiences. Also, I encourage any other PMs to tap in on the comments to speak on their experience if they think that would help. As a Product Manager, I see myself as an orchestrator and driver. I have to ensure that the set of features or the product life cycle is carried out from end to end. There is so much that goes into the role, but it is fun! It may help to create a bulleted list. I may be missing things as it all happens so naturally now so if I am, I again encourage other PMs to chime in:

• Identifying challenges that users and potential customers are experiencing
• Doing market research to understand what exists and what opportunities we have to support users
• Identifying OKRs
• Prioritization, more prioritization, and more prioritization based on need, impact, and how it ties back to business goals
• Lots of ideation
• Collaborating with designers to build prototypes
• Qualitative analyses and usability tests with UX researcher
• Quantitative analyses?
• Working with developers?
• Working with partner teams
• Communicating with all stakeholders to ensure alignment
• Engaging in verbal and written communication with potential and existing users
• Building reports that leverage data to influence decisions

Do you feel like you can be your whole self at Microsoft?

I would like to think that I can present myself at work in the way that I would like to. I think that being my whole self is great. At the same time, people interpret that term differently and I would be careful in that interpretation. For example, I think there is a level of professionalism that is necessary in work settings whereas when I am at home doing something like eating dinner or kicking back on the couch watching Netflix, I don’t think people should expect me to be entirely the same person as when I am having a conversation with a customer or grabbing dinner with a client. I hope that makes sense. Maybe a better way to answer this is that there are different versions of me that are still all me, but I don’t feel like I have to put on a mask in front of the people I work with, nor have they asked me to.

What are some good books that are worth reading as a PM or aspiring PM?

I started off with Cracking the PM Interview book which is how I discovered that a Program Manager at Microsoft meant Product Manager for some roles. I also read this book called The Product Book: How to Become a Great Product Manager by Product School. I also leveraged online websites that have sample questions and breakdowns of the different types of interviews. The thing I love about those is that some of those interviews are reflective of the type of work you will do and questions you may have to answer as a Product Manager. Other books on my list are:

1. The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
2. Good Leaders Ask Great Questions: Your Foundation for Successful Leadership by John C. Maxwell
3. Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works by A.G. Lafley
4. Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love (Silicon Valley Product Group) by Marty Cagan
5. Tuned In: Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs by Phil Myers

This wraps up the list of questions that were asked on the Slido platform. If you enjoyed what you read or have any comments, feel free to comment, like, or repost. Thank you for taking the time to read my perspective!