Talking Tech With Microsoft PM Andrew Zhang

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Andrew Zhang is a Program Manager at Microsoft, working on an enterprise security product (Defender). Before joining Microsoft full-time, Zhang studied Finance and Systems Engineering as part of the Management and Technology program at the University of Pennslyvania. He has previously interned in product and analytics roles at Capital One and Dairy Free Games. In his free time, Zhang snowboards or meditates.

Frederick Daso: How has your academic background from UPenn assisted your development and growth as a PM?

Andrew Zhang: I did a dual degree at Penn, studying both Systems Engineering and Finance. Systems was a hodgepodge of different subjects, from signal processing to agent-based modeling to chaos theory. One thing I got good at was quickly ramping up on any given area. Being successful in school meant discerning between essential concepts and auxiliary information.

This has proven to be extremely useful ramping up in the security domain, where the amount of information is vast and deep. Obtaining the required knowledge to be effective in my role was an essential exercise in targeted information discovery. For example, one customer scenario I needed to understand was, "What happens when a user opens a malicious excel from a phishing email?" My learnings took me from the lowest level of the stack, requiring me to grok how an operating system grants code execution permissions, to up to our software's machine learning models, and to identify what features we could extract to detect such an attack.

The ability to assemble a self-learning plan and quickly come up to speed has proven to be particularly useful.

Daso: What was the starkest contrast in working at Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority versus Dairy Free Games?

Zhang: These two experiences couldn't have been further apart. Metro was a 10,000-employee large organization, responsible for transporting half a million people to work every day. As a network engineering intern, the goal was clear – keep the complicated web of servers and applications to support ridership.

Dairy Free Games was a mobile gaming startup cranking, at the time, on a game slated to be released the following year. While we had the theme pinned down, "tanks and airplanes battling… in space", everything else was blue sky. Working as a product management intern meant grasping with uncertainty, trying to find ways to quickly validate or disprove creative concepts, with no customers to ask or objective criteria.

The most significant difference was the clarity of the task at hand, pretty clear at WMATA, while very blurry at DFG.

Daso: What core lessons have you learned from your past PM experiences at Dairy Free Games and Capital One?

Zhang: Being a gamer myself, I had a ton of fun working at Dairy Free. Coming into work each day was exciting and felt like an adventure. Additionally, I loved the people I was working with. In particular, my managers were recent grads who wanted to help me maximize my growth. Having had such a positive experience, I learned to optimize for two things. One, working with quality people who care about you. Two, work on a product or project you're excited about. These two factors are vital in determining workplace happiness and making work not feel like work.

Many companies talk about being data-driven, Capital One puts their money where their mouth is. During my summer internship, I worked on evaluating whether telemetry from their Credit Wise app could be used in credit card approval models. The answer turned out to be no (with some nuances). Although the project hadn't panned out in the way that we hoped, I saw firsthand the discipline and rigor C1 used in decision making.

Daso: You mentioned during our earlier conversation that Microsoft is undergoing a cultural change. In what way is Microsoft evolving?

Zhang: Wow, books could be written on this (and they have). The one aspect I've felt the most is a shift towards a growth mindset. A growth mindset is a belief in one's ability to learn and develop new skills. I am excited to take on new challenges with a growth mindset, unencumbered by a fear of failure. I know that failure is simply a learning opportunity.

Coming into Microsoft, I felt a strong sense of imposter syndrome. Why did I deserve to be a PM at a company like this? I didn't even study computer science, what skills did I bring to the table? I now realize that Microsoft hired me not for what I knew, but rather, my ability to learn. I've taken advantage of that and have been soaking up as much information as possible. I've been blessed to work on a team with incredibly smart folks who are happy to take time to answer my noob questions or explain concepts. As a result, I've been able to learn quickly and make an impact. What excites me is the opportunity to continue learning.

Daso: Did becoming a PM come with a huge learning curve? If so, when did you start feeling comfortable in your role?

Zhang: I think the PM learning curve is heightened because it's somewhat unclear what a PM does. Their responsibilities may vary between teams or companies. Other disciplines appear to be more well-defined. A software engineer writes code. A designer creates wireframes.

"Being a PM is not a generative role; at the end of the day, our work is to forward ideas, not to produce specific artifacts like our developer and designer counterparts." – Nikki Lee

I started feeling comfortable in my role once I earned the trust of my engineers. As a PM, your success is inextricably linked to that of your engineering team, and theirs to yours. If you're going to direct work for that team, you better understand the implications of what you're asking them to do. Building trust is a gradual process. I spent many an afternoon sitting down with my engineers to learn about their work and associated challenges. The best PMs are good listeners.

Daso: What tactics do you use to keep the various teams working on a project on the same page?

Zhang: This is something I'm struggling with right now, working with a partner team in Israel. Regular sync meetings are an effective vehicle for each team to share what they've been working on and plan to work on next. Specifically, using status indicators such as 'not started', 'in progress', and 'at risk' help to raise important issues that need resolution.

Daso: What's the most challenging thing about being a PM that no one talks about?

Zhang: "The hardest thing about being a PM is that there are no shortcuts to gaining the knowledge and experience we need to be effective stewards of our products. Getting steeped in a product's functionality, uses, customers, industries, business ebb and flows… those things can't be rushed." - Rian van der Merwe

What's often overlooked in the motions of being a PM is the fundamental product understanding that forms the foundation for decision-making. As Rian hints at, there is no end to learning along this dimension. I try to carve out time each month to use our product, read industry reports, and talk to customers.

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