 Do you know what does a product manager do in Microsoft? Do you know how to transition into product management with engineering background? In this video, I'm going to interview a senior product manager from Microsoft. She's going to share with you all the behind the scenes story. How did she make it happen? Hi, this is Dr. Nancy Lee, a director product from drnancy.com. Today, we had a pleasure to invite Sherry from Microsoft. She is a senior product manager at Microsoft. She has so much to share with you guys regarding how she transition into product and what does she do? As a product manager in Microsoft, if you want to learn the most effective way to become a product manager, please make sure you subscribe to this channel and turn the bell button. So we notify every time we turn on the new video every Wednesday. If you'd like any content, please make sure to smash the like button because we really love your support. All right, Sherry, do you want to quickly introduce yourself to the audience? Hi, everyone. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks, Nancy, for the invitation. My name is Sherry. I'm currently the product manager for Microsoft, and I had about 10 years experience in extended reality domain. I come from technical background. I was a developer and through my journey, I successfully turned to a product manager right now. I'm so happy to share my tips to you and hope you had a great journey as well. Awesome. So nice to have you, Sherry. Today, we have a list of questions already pre-submitted by our audience today. Let me start to ask you this quick question, and first of all, congratulations for your offer as a product manager joining Microsoft. And yeah, I know lots of people are trying to join Microsoft. I also know that you join Microsoft very quickly through your interview experience. So therefore, let's do this. Let's start to learn more about what do you do as a product manager in Microsoft? Okay, so in Microsoft, product manager in charge of connect between the customer and the internal technical product. So what I did is I need to invest, I need to talk to our customers, which is our product. We need to evaluate what customer needs and how their experience is and what the business needs as well and then convert their needs of business needs into internal product requirements and communicate those requirements with our technical team. And hopefully we can ship next greatest product to the market for our users. Awesome. So basically it sounds like it's similar to other companies, all the product management functions, writing requirements, figure out what customers needs are and ship the product to them, right? Do you think anything special about Microsoft you like to share with us, such as the culture, the people, or maybe you develop product faster than any other companies, we just want to learn more about how Microsoft is different from any other companies. I think the biggest difference is the title and you will see all Microsoft Hair program manager instead of called it product manager, but the roles are really varied from team to team. So if you want to interview for Microsoft, you need to think about, you need to actually ask in your interview, say, are you a team, are hiring a product manager or are your team are looking for a program or project manager? So the Hair manager will give you a specific answer to your question. Then you can better understanding what are you gonna face in your future? That's the biggest difference between Microsoft and all other technical company, I would say. Internally, Microsoft, people in Microsoft is very collaborative and the more people you can reach out, the more power you can have to empower them work on the same goal and then eventually you can have a smooth work relationship. Yeah. I see. So sounds like if I summarize it correctly, Microsoft has the title that's slightly, like similar, everyone has similar title, but you focus on different things even if it's on PMs. And then the next part is more collaborative culture, which I believe you need lots of people skills to help people navigate politics and also making friends in the company as well. That's very exciting, awesome. Yeah, can you also tell us more regarding how you prepare for product management interview because we know that recently actually you got offered from Microsoft and also I think you get to offer like very quickly as well as only more. You only have one interview which is went all the way to the final round, get an offer. Can you share it with us regarding the secret? So what do you do in the interview preparation process so that people can get ready for their recruiting session coming up in September? Yeah, of course. So in part of the manager, generally they have two type of question you need to prepare. One is product sense questions and it's like how you design a product, how you design an elevator. And another type of question is product metrics question you need to prepare. And if you're looking for a technical question, technical product role, you need to have at least one technical domain knowledge that the company is looking for. So then you can squeeze into the technical product manager ward. And also like I participate in Nancy's PM program and it helped a lot because Nancy has a lot of free framework can help you narrow down the product management interview question. Very cool. A quick reminder is that hey guys, we recently released the Gucci framework for product strategy interview questions. Feel free to check out this new video right here. about the Gucci framework. And Sherry regarding your experience become PM, you mentioned that you actually has lots of technical domain for like over 10 years that you transitioned into product management. I just want to ask you several questions for example, how you bridge the gap? So you were a tech lead, I know, as a software engineer and as leading a team of software engineers, how did you convince the interviewer that I also know product management knowledge so eventually you land where you are. I think lots of people thinking about the bridging the gap process. Yeah. Yeah, of course. So as a tech lead before, I know how a system work and how to design a system, how to implement it. That's something engineer background or technical background would master at and to bridge in the gap, product management ward are looking for a strategic thinking. Say if you want to interview for the same domain you have, you should look for what is the technical trend and what is the market. Say you work for Google and who is the competitor for the same technology you are working on in the industry. And if you do some analysis between them it can show the interviewer you have product sense. That's what they want to see from your background. Yeah, exactly. I like you talk about the technical aspect of you know this market. You also need to know who are the competitors of any kind of product you're going to interview for and so that you show that you have the strategic thinking as if you are product manager. That's very exciting. Can you also tell us more regarding what do you wish to know before you become a product manager? Well, so I wish to know how many meetings I will be seeing every day. So tell us more, how many meetings do you have every day right now? Sounds like a lot. Now I would say average I will have 8 to 10 minutes per day. It ranges from 30 minutes to an hour. And in between that and the reason being as a product manager you need to communicate with customer. You are the center of the product. Everyone comes to you. You are holding accountable for the delivery. Every department who participate in this product will have to interact with you. So that's why all the meeting coming from. And that's and I would say like all the strategy or the decision or the tradeoff you made are between meetings. That's sometimes you need to figure out for yourself. I see. Yeah, I think becoming a product manager also needs to learn how do you manage your time effectively? I have a lot of meetings as well. And I made another video talk about how do I manage my day for full day of meetings from like 7 to 11. That's my work hours. Crazy. I totally understand this. All right. So besides you wish to know how many meetings you would have before you become a manager, what else do you wish you know? Yeah, of course. So I wish I know what exactly the delivery are looking like. Because before I moved to a product role, I was interested in the creative side of a program, of a product. And I want to switch from engineer to a product manager because I want to be the person who makes decision and who created cool things for the customer. But there is another side of product manager is the perfect company wants you to make on top of your product. So that's the business side. And as a technical background product manager, that's something I wish I know before head. So let's dig in a little bit. We talk about it in the PMX Saturday program regarding the reality. In reality, the company wants you to drive revenue for the company. So do you feel like your performance was tied up to the revenue bring into the company? Is that why you think that you wish you have known this better? I could say that, yes. And it has two ways. You know, the money comes by how many problems yourself. It's all just because like you want to make money and the money will come to you. So if you're really good at your product and if you really solve your problem, the money will come. True, exactly. Perfect. I like how you summarize it. So therefore, the advice to everybody who's watching this video is no matter what company work for, even if companies are for profit, most are coming for profit. And you need to make sure you solve the customer problem. And then towards the end, you help the company to hit the revenue goal as well. Awesome. So Sherri, one last question. And if there's any advice you want to give to anybody who wants to transition into product management from a technical background, what would you tell them? So my suggestion will be do enough research before you jump. Also, do some boot camp to prepare yourself and try it out if you like, like whether you like it or not. And this program has good opportunity to help you build up your product portfolio to prepare your interview and also to try out whether you feel you are really into this career. Thank you so much for letting me know about the importance of product portfolio. And if you guys want to learn more about how to build product portfolio, I feel free to check out this video up here. And thank you so much, Sherri, for sharing with us. So if you guys like the content like this, please make sure you hit the like button and subscribe. And let me know if you want me to bring more product managers like Sherri from all the fan companies share with you, the insider information. What does it look like for fan companies? So I'm going to see you next time. Thank you. And also, Sherri, thank you so much for joining us. See you guys. Bye.