 can you hear me? Awesome. I am so sorry there was some technical difficulty but we're here now. Thank you for joining. I am Sneha and I'm so glad to connect with you all. I have a little bit of a presentation that I prepared but we don't actually have to stick to it. If you have questions I'm happy to answer as we go. So while I'm trying to figure out how to share my screen, don't actually know how to do that right now. Okay I think it's going to be a bit hard for me to share my screen because I don't really know this interface too well. But that's fine. Let me introduce myself. My name is Sneha. I was the head of product for a team called the service platform at Spotify as of last two weeks ago. I'm in between jobs and I'm switching to a new job starting on Monday that I haven't publicly disclosed yet but you'll be the first to know. I'm joining Colibra which is a vendor for data governance and data intelligence and joining them as a director of product leading their platform ecosystem. So I'm super excited about that. It's been a while since I switched jobs and in a way I'm you know perhaps in a similar boat as some of you who are thinking about their their next gig and how to break into product management. My background really over the past couple of years has been specifically in platform product management and I'm gonna talk about what that means in a second and besides work I think it's also good to know who we are as people because work is not our only identity. I am a mother of two little kids. I'm actually in one of the kids rooms so you can see a little valley bed sheet behind me and that's my little kid and I am also a dog rescue worker. I enjoy working with little pups getting them to a better home and when I'm not working I enjoy weightlifting. It's a good stress buster and I think as product folks you kind of need to find what that thing is to mentally and physically you know stimulate your energy and balance the chaos because as much as I love product marketing I think most PMs would agree it's a very chaotic world that we live in. So a little bit about my career I'm also monitoring the messaging so if you have questions for me you know feel free to ask them and I will you know keep looking for specific questions that I can help you with. I'm here for you I understand you know making the pivot towards product management is never an easy one so while I'm monitoring the messages I'll keep talking but feel free to you know interrupt me at any point. So a little bit about my career journey I started off as a developer back in 2006 I got a degree in GIS which is Geographic Information Systems and then I quickly over the next two and a half years I networked really hard with a lot of nonprofits who were sort of in that sphere and landed a very cool gig at NASA data center called FISN and worked as an individual contributor as a data engineer for about four years and through the work I did I found that I was leading product and project initiatives at a very large scale at the data center and I really truly enjoyed doing that. The bigger the complexity the more the dynamics of decisions and stakeholders and different types of use cases that came in the more I enjoyed you know sort of developing and I'm working through solutions through those challenging moments and I worked at a few media houses like New York Times, Comcast, which is an ISP as everyone knows, and then I landed at Spotify so I've been at Spotify for six and a half years so and it's a it's a lovely organization I couldn't recommend it more. I'm guessing everyone has probably heard of the brand but it's a music streaming platform that pivoted to audio first a couple of years ago so Spotify is way more than just music it's audiobooks it's podcasts and you know so many more experiences that we keep turning out. I say we because I've been there long enough that it's become a part of me and what I did at Spotify during my time was I worked with growing the data analytics capabilities so if you experience a personalized experience on the platform it comes from us understanding deeply understanding your taste understanding the genres that you are have a natural affinity to and perhaps you know exploring affinities that you haven't been exposed to introducing you to new indie artists and new you know types of you know music genres that you haven't really been exposed to with the intent that that might expand your world you might actually enjoy it or if you don't enjoy it you'll let us know and that will help us find more fine-tuned fine-greened experiences for you so that's what I did for the first two years I helped turn out the analytics that would personalize that user experience for you the next two years from 20 18 to 2020 I helped Spotify through the chaos known as GDPR which is really to help you know hold users whole companies accountable for user data and to help consumers get more control over what data is exposed by and is owned by companies and if you're uncomfortable with the amount of data that any enterprise has you have the right to ask for what they have and ask them to essentially scrub the ecosystem of your information and that was a very tough job because no one had ever done that before it was a compliance rule that had come initiated by the European Union but had soon become like the ways of working for many different countries California state had also adopted a similar policy then Russia did and India did and so governance and data governance was top of mind and working through those challenges with with data infrastructure teams or working out how to build capabilities for engineering teams like developers within Spotify which at that time were about 4,000 strong and helping them understand that as they were building features personalized experiences for consumers that they needed to think through why did they actually need a personal user information and in 99.99 percent you don't actually need to know who a user is to serve them a specific experience you can do it anonymously and that was such a fun experience I really grew a lot I learned a lot the company was growing tremendously at that point as well and then over the past two and a half years I I moved into you know leading Spotify in its cloud journey so back in 2016 I believe the GCP journey had started so Spotify moved from the data centers to Google Cloud Platform we did a lift and shift if folks are familiar with what that is just take your environment take all the applications shifted on to the cloud we were one of the first on GCP it was a wild ride you know it was a cool collaboration with Google and then the next you know era of like being on the cloud is optimizing your application so that they're more conducive for you know app modernization so being able to push code more often and to test and release more often and to be able to observe patterns of you know incidents and like optimizing the response time to incidents it becomes more and more critical so that's the kind of stuff that I I I worked on with my theme both as an IC and then manager and then a manager and managers the growth was tremendous in the span of 2.5 years I thoroughly enjoyed it it was wild it was crazy to go from you know through such a steep learning curve because being a product an individual contributor focusing on the craft focusing on the end user is a different skill set than you know managing a team of brilliant technical product managers and then you know the scales are quite different when you're leading in teams that are led by by leaders as well and I'm happy to talk through all three of those journeys as that's what I've experienced and essentially that's what I mean by my my career has essentially been building platforms whether in for NASA's data centers and you know for remote sensory imagery whether it's for GDPR compliance for Spotify and ensuring that we have checks and balances to respond to users and they need to understand what we have and what we know about them and to be able to do that responsibly or whether it's scaling out the capabilities to stream data to stream like these massive consumer experiences efficiently at scale on the cloud I've done that and I there's just so much to grow in in the sphere and I feel like I'm at the start in many ways there's and it's something I've thoroughly enjoyed so that would have been my presentation for you in a nutshell if there are any questions that you have feel free to drop them in the chat I see a lot of introductions I see a question are you currently hiring product interns for summer 2023 I think that's a great question for Spotify I as I mentioned at the start of this I I no longer work at Spotify I left the company about two weeks ago but there are several summer internships and there's like a cohort of summer interns that are hired every year so I would recommend going to the job site and sort of watching that space for dates and you know applications and how to go about it I hope I hope that answers Shristi I hope that answers your question awesome um anyone else I'd love to hear from the folks I see they're about at least 20 people on the call if not more I can't actually see the whole list um I'm just going through the chat list what do you see so a question from Samal what do you see the future of music beyond streaming oh fantastic if I was Oracle I would say that and again this is totally my opinion but I think that the future for music will always exist it's such a fun experience it's it's such a personal experience to like the music I like based on my identity where says what you assume I might enjoy versus what I actually enjoy there's just a lot of complexity and a lot of like you know psychological metrics that go into like the choices we make at every stage of our life so as a child as a teenager as a young adult as a parent it keeps changing it keeps evolving so there's always more to explore and now if the question is about how does music evolve I think we're seeing it we're seeing music as a short format we're seeing podcasts as like a longer format we're seeing people artists sort of experiment between you know the piece that they create and then releasing content around how they created it in the form of podcasts and that in itself becomes an album of content which is very interesting so if you're like me and you're you're crazy about a specific you know show like I loved Game of Thrones I wanted to know how they compile like the battles and how did they produce those those pieces I would actually dive into the extra content and I'd listen into the podcast and I'd listen into other fans and what they're thinking about and how they responded to like a specific dialogue or specific point and and that's just the way we're consuming content right now so I don't have a specific answer I think it's a great question I think the um we're going to see how things evolve in you know tangible experiences in person experiences face-to-face concerts COVID has you know sort of shown us that we need to get comfortable with you know being at home and so how does that change the way we experience concerts and you know those virtual experiences versus people are dying to go back out there so physical stage experiences are also here to stay so I don't actually know I think things will evolve as they always do which is watching trends is is I guess what I would do if I was in the music streaming like industry as a product manager to listen to watch the space to watch what customer needs are and evolve that experience accordingly. Samuel that was a very long response but I hope that got it got somewhere um all right I'm going to try to go faster with my responses here I see a lot of introductions hi everyone hi summon hi Nikita hi Snehal um you have a question somewhere in there what would your recommendation be to a new grad entering product management especially considering the current job market my heart goes out to everyone who is starting out right now I know I feel it the recession is hard it's a tough time no doubt um but if you know if my experience matters here I would say that I graduated with as an immigrant so I wasn't born in America I was born in Dubai and I moved to America to study and I had I was a student on a F1 visa and I needed a job after I graduated and I graduated 2008 and if you don't remember 2008 was perhaps one of the worst recessions of our time um and I I was struggling for a good six months interviewing you know posting my resume networking as much as I could doing everything that was within my control and not really getting a lot of contacts because people or folks were not hiring but um I I think at that moment I I just kept going and that would be my recommendation I know it can be demoralizing when you know you keep doing what you're supposed to do but the outcome uh that you're looking for doesn't quite hit um but keep uploading your resumes keep connecting with hiring managers whatever hiring managers do do share their contact information get in touch with recruiters at the companies you want to connect with try to go to like you know you're here right now at this career fair maybe uh you know a connection is made right here right in this moment share what what's your passion what is it that you're looking for what specific rules would be interesting to you um I would challenge you to to dig within your own skills your own capabilities along with where you aspire to be because sometimes there might be a gap between you know where you'd like to be uh and the skills that the company is looking for versus what you have at this you know point in time uh you might need to you know take like an ABC sort of journey to get to that you know that that role that aspirational role or that aspirational company that you're looking for and that's okay um you know life is a linear and let's start treating it linear um these are the cars that were being served uh a recession is or macro recession or macro economics as they call it um you know it's happening it's it's not great uh but I'm convinced that connecting with people and um you know showing your positive intent showing what you're passionate about demonstrating that maybe through some projects that you have maybe writing a personal note to a hiring manager about a role and how that can mix with you all of these things make a difference and uh don't stop don't give up uh that's the one thing I I I really hope uh you know you you take with you uh I know it's hard uh but you got to keep going um I hope and I've helped them in um answering all uh is shita uh I see a question from you hi um always wondered how could Spotify improve the experience for the artists and still be profitable for both are they already on it um I I think so I mean we've been doing it for a while we've been serving our artist community and being equitable with how we pay in comparison to labels in general and other streaming platforms you know the numbers are out there we Spotify is very competitive and and uh and does uh do as much uh as they can to keep of the music industry uh as equitable for every artist in fact uh you know Spotify is also leaning towards helping individuals uh you know create their own destiny so uh you know we have a mission to to serve as many creators so that they can live off of their art whether you're an independent uh you know musician looking uh to you know collaborate with you know famous artists and and join their band or whether you are an indie artist that you know wants to sort of bring your creation forward they're all of these tools and ecosystems that have been created on Spotify specifically for creators um and um at various different like um equitable thresholds like there's a free experience as a premium experience and there's like you know the platinum experience for those who are backed by large enterprises there's advertising and getting your name out there um so i i think Spotify is doing a fantastic job here is there more work to be done absolutely but um that would be less of my concern at at this point and um i think at the 20 billion dollar company i think they're quite profitable and uh they're they're doing they're doing fine um what else can i help you guys with uh while i'm here i'm scrolling i'm scrolling uh nice to meet you all jyoti aditi um i see a question here as a hiring manager how can a career changer to product make an impact while their application and convince you to take a bet on them particularly someone who's moving from another part of debt that is customer success and operations um i think that's a fantastic question and i sort of touched on it in a previous response you always want to bring your transferable skills to your next job i uh i think everything that you've experienced in life makes you a better you know employee at the next company that you join and it's especially true in product management so when you say customer success in operations i i see a lot of breadth of tangible transferable skills that you come that you get with that you proud as a customer success person you have probably interacted with multiple edge cases and lots of different scenarios of you know what gets in the way of for customer truly benefiting from a feature service a product that is being put out there so how do you sort of translate what you have experienced the breadth of knowledge that you've accumulated through the careers that you've had the experience that you've had and put it on your resume a static document i think that's the challenge but you don't have to limit yourself if you have a powerful story your resume may be a good start you know try to find metrics to document your achievements in you know the business wins that you've had during that time during those roles that you've had quantify it you know if there's revenue goals or number of customer touch points that you've had or you know how you've actually need a customer's life better what did you do what did you specifically do in order to get there operations may be similar like how have you enabled a team or an organization to be more operationally effective what have you done what are your accomplishments so that's your resume but then there's also the option to write you know a blurb traditionally known as a cover letter but it could just be an email to the hiring manager sort of saying hey i see you have a job here i'm super excited to apply for this this is how i believe i would be an asset to your organization and then write about that experience that you have that directly you know that you can connect to the role that you're applying to i think as humans we're always looking for connections so if you can find what that common ground is that connects to like a specific responsibility on the job posting to a thing that you've achieved that might just be it or it could you know i would steer away from just talking about how you aspire to be a part of a brand and you know you're a big mega fan of a company and you're aspiring to just be a part of it and it would be your life's biggest you know goal to just be there i mean that's great you know being a fan fan boy fan girl it's great i've done it i enjoy it but how does that help the hiring manager make a decision about your skillset how does that help them understand i mean clearly you're passionate about the job or you know the company and all of that that's great the fashion is one dimension there's you know there's tangible hard skills as well so i would say balance your messaging to the hiring manager with fashion along with like this is what you get out of you know out of the experiences i've had this is how i enabled you um and i will stay online for as long as you go as one i have a hard stop as um well i said as long as you all want but i have a hard stop at one but i'm here till uh till then to answer any questions you have um but for those who need to bounce to like another session thank you all uh this has been great uh and uh i've dropped my linkedin um link on my bio page on hoppin feel free to connect with me and you know all the best uh you know i i love what i do and i uh welcome you to you know growing in uh you know as a product leader as a product manager as your first you know associate job as a product manager it's great it's exciting it's a wild ride thank you all um for those who are still on um so i see a note from kathya if you haven't already fill out the networking form and stay connected with everyone um please do i'm here i i love product school i love what they stand for so um i'm gonna keep doing what i can to keep this industry going um any other questions for me folks uh i see a question from basker uh can you please share how did you keep yourself motivated while looking for full-time roles during the o8 recession how did you keep your stuff positive um i think that's a really good question basker um it was tough i won't lie i um i you know i definitely had moments where i wasn't sure that i was actually going to be in the country for very long um but um i think in those moments surrounding yourself with family and friends who you know who are always going to be there like i think all too often we think of our job as our identity and our singular identity which is a really harmful place to be and it's taken me many years to sort of find a balance uh and to see my world as as many things that that you know in combinations sort of make me happy and a job is important obviously like it helps you achieve the things you want it helps you buy the things you need it helps you live a comfortable life um um and but family is important too and surrounding yourself with a community is really good um i remember um joining multiple associations at that point i'm indian i joined like indian professional networks um i you know i enjoyed connecting with others and just sharing notes about what was happening how were they going about it there were a lot of you know fresh grads who were in a similar situation as me and just talking about it somehow made made your heart lighter in that moment at least that's how i felt um i know a lot of people you know to picked up hobbies uh you know when it hit the gym for an hour or two just just sort of bust that anxiety that's building up um and whatever ways you find to cope with the anxiety that you're feeling at least that's how i felt um is um is it's personal and it's what you need to do for yourself um and i wish you the very best i know this is a tough time um and if you want to connect uh and talk more about it i'm i'm happy to you know take a call and to chat um hi shita i see you from pscp google um and i am looking through everyone's notes thank you all it has been wonderful connecting uh here um it's so great to see something new introductions and new faces um i see a question from steve uh consider consider yourself as the product consider the user the employer and their needs and what are the key features that are important to them then make sure your product you as a candidate speaks to those features in the marketing materials and actual feature set skills oh wow i love that absolutely uh i couldn't have said it better yes you are the product uh you are connecting with your user so find the audience and you know work on your pitch um and keep working on it you know practice makes perfect so if uh it you know maybe connect with steve he might help you get that pitch right because i i love what he just shared um Cecilia uh nice to see you too uh do you have any recommendation to practice hand on hands on skills when you're looking for pm jobs absolutely there's a lot that can be done if i had presented my slides uh i had actually put together some materials that could be helpful um i see so the industry is constantly moving and every company sort of has their way of building product but there is some consistency in the way planning cycles work so getting familiar with okr's objectives key results if this is new to you there are multiple references books on what is what are okr's how how are they sort of written uh how do i sort of get comfortable thinking about objectives and business outcomes versus outputs um that's like a mental shift for a lot of people so if you already know that great but if you don't uh i recommend sort of understanding and reading about um outcome driven and outcome oriented roadmaps um there's also lean business uh models and building out canvases for every single initiative that you are responsible for starting with the why like what is it that i am responsible to for what is the mission i'm on uh what is the customer need what is the business need why is it critical that we build this feature to the worst uh like why are we well positioned to do that that's what uh uh a lean canvas can help you achieve it can help it it provides prompts of questions to ask yourself upfront and then fill in uh fill in the blanks as as you as you go and it also helps you identify like you know what do you not understand about uh the opportunity that you've been placed on and it helps you you know put your energies towards ask getting uh those answers like what are the kpis that will uh will define uh success for the feature that i'm launching here uh is this just a business outcome and uh there are no customers out there who really want this well that may be a reason to go back to your leadership and sort of um ask them well help me understand what is the customer need here what is it that uh uh how will they benefit from this um there are a lot of biases in and product management um biases from leadership but by a biases from the executive biases from ourselves as you build products and i think as a product manager the best skill that you can hone in on is how to unbias yourself over time how do you sort of ask questions like i i start with assumptions we all do but how do you sort of check those assumptions along the way um um so assumption mapping lean canvas uh uh you know building on a lean business model canvas um you know understanding outcome oriented road maps and okay ours um i think this is a good start um i'd also recommend some books that uh i um i find always at my end table as like something i reference often um and the refresher helps me personally as well um i love good strategy bad strategy by richard remount um it's uh it's it's a book that's been around at least for a decade it's not longer but uh it's a classic it sort of demystifies what is a strategy uh what is what uh what makes uh for a good strategy um and uh how do you sort of check yourself as uh as you find yourself going down a rather goal of you know um writing a dog in assuming that that is uh you know a strategic direction enough for your team um another book uh and basically anything uh marty kagan is something i recommend i think he's a pioneer uh in product management and um i like his um a book empowered um but i would start with inspired if if you haven't read it inspired is uh you know series one empowered is more for leaders so if if you are looking for uh to lead a team of product managers designers i think that's a really good book um and then um i think something that uh leaders in general and something i've actively practice uh can be better at is vulnerability and knowing when to see what you're good at and knowing when to admit that you actually don't know and you don't have the answers um and uh brelly brown has written a really good book dare to lead um and i highly recommend uh you read it uh maybe it helps you become more empathetic uh towards those uh you connect with and collaborate with um uh all right folks i'm going to take one more question and and then i'm going to have to bounce this has been fantastic um and i'm scrolling scrolling scrolling and i think okay i see katya thank you so much for sharing my slides for whatever reason i wasn't able to um but i guess that's it folks all the best uh and uh i see a few things on linkedin so i'm gonna start responding to those but be connecting with you all and have a wonderful rest of the day take care bye