 My name is Harish Last time is a little hard to pronounce, but I can make it easy. It's bug about too many concerns there so Today's topic is a Role as a product manager in a startup Which is a large corporation? I just want to quickly check how many of you work for like a large company when they say large company It's about like more than hundred million dollar revenue Okay, good, and I want a small company. This is small startup is like revenues about zero to ten million perfect perfect so the reason I'm asking for that is When you are in a small company you always think about you know what why don't I work as in a as a product manager for a Big company because I will have so many resources so many people that I can talk to I can go to the customers I can do all these things Because I'm working for a small company. I don't have you know all I have all these budget constraints and resource constraints At the same time when you're working for a large company you feel that maybe I should work for a small company There's a lot of action going on every day. There's a challenge. Maybe I should do this do that You know what there is no right or wrong answer When you work for a small company or big company you have equal share of Fun and also pain so what I'll do is in next 15 20 minutes or so. I'll walk you through my Carrier a little bit. I will not bore you guys. I promise and also talk about How that relates to working for a small company versus a big company? Okay? So I started as a software engineer I Believe nowadays most of the product managers they start as a product manager I was talking to Carlos and he also mentioned just now that he started as a software engineer. So I started Before 2004 I don't want to reveal that because you know my age then So I used to work for Oracle before 2004 Then sometime into them for 2005. I kind of Figured out that I wanted to get into product management So I was dabbling few things at Oracle and end of 2005. I quit Oracle To go to that greener pasture right, you know a small company, you know what? I can do a lot more things. So I jumped ship and joined a company called skyer This was that small company 7 million to 10 million dollar company in Miller Park. I joined there I was a product manager there and then In 2012 that company got acquired by Oracle Not that I made a lot of money if I would have made a lot of money. I won't be here but Company got bought over which is good happy ending then they got into Oracle again Right, you know, you will always have the deja vu right you're working for Oracle So if I go back to make see my career for 13 14 years of our actually more than that 20 years now If I see all my the years of work experience that I have most of it is with the Oracle right now on and off Then 2012 to 2017 I worked there for at Oracle then recently I quit Oracle Before well actually when I was introduced It was said that I know I work for Oracle But when I started this process of you know presenting this I was at Oracle But in the last couple of months I quit now I'm partnering with a small consulting company to build new products So that is a little bit of my background The reason I'm talking about this background is it is very much related to what I'm going to present again today So when you're working for a small company versus a large company, right? The roles that you play is very much dependent upon how the organization is structured So when you talk about a small company The structure in the organization is very important where you are in that organization So for example the smallest company structure Well, this is I'm not saying that this is a generalized structure for all the small companies But typically this is what you would see in those companies where It's about like 10 million dollars. You have some budget constraints and resource constraints. How many people are you going to hire? So you will have a product management department, then there are product managers on that under that If you are lucky, you will have a UX person Otherwise the product manager will be the one who will be designing things Then of course you'll have sales executives all the VPs and other people then you have your sales team and professional services All the implementation people especially I'm talking from a product company point of view not services or anything and And then From a engineering point of view, of course, that is a bigger chunk, right? Because if you are a product company, you will have a lot of people there Then you will have all the Development folks, engineering folks and of course the DevOps and other people part of that organization Then you will have your Customer support, which is all the support engineers who will be talking to your customers And again, if you are lucky, you will have more than one person. Otherwise, there will be one person supporting for the entire product Now if you compare that with a Larger organization, let's say like Oracle again. This is not a generalized one But you know, you can typically see how people are you know companies are structured You will have a product management executive Most likely UX will not be part of that I'll explain why it is and why it is good why it is bad So typically product managers are part of that group Sales executives, of course, you will have all your account managers who are going and selling the product and Consulting services where they are doing all the consulting Professional services and other stuff and then you will see engineering executives like development team Again depending on the company most likely UX will be under engineering team Of course, you can always argue about that whether it's right or wrong But at least the companies that I have seen in this case Oracle it was under engineering organization Now if you see here one thing that is missing which is in my opinion a key component is our key department is customer support If you see in a small organization, it is part of the company or it is part of that Small company right in the business, but if you go to a bigger company Customer support is not part of your overall your organization because bigger companies they streamline that customer support So these people will be supporting like hundred different project products And they'll be sitting somewhere and they'll be taking calls And if there is an issue that will be sent back into your product management team or engineering team the reason why I'm saying that is it is different there is a Information that will not flow into your organization as a product manager Elaborate on that in a second, but you have to see that the key difference how these structures are built in the companies And how does it affect you as an individual as a product manager the decisions that you are taking? Again, I'm not saying that is right or wrong for bigger companies That's how they want to operate because That makes sense for them because you have all these customer support people under one organization They streamline it how they receive all these issues and other stuff from the cost companies Versus if you're a small company you have only one person most likely supporting those customers now the one now that we saw the structure of A company like organization structure in a small company versus a large company Let's see what are the different roles and responsibilities of all these people right and I'll kind of highlight What are the roles that a PM or a product manager would typically play in a smaller company versus a bigger company so On the right side if you see our On the other side if you see that is a smaller company where product management We talked about it just now a product management group You will have the product managers and UX UI designers part of that Now if you observe there is a star right next to that that means You will be playing that role Constantly most of the time product manager of course for sure But UX and UI you will be the UX UI designer also quite possible Because the company might not effort that right that person or people to actually do the UX UI designs Or even the visual designs or usability kind of I know flows wireframes and other stuff Merchants if you take the sales executive team again, I'm still on the smaller company side You will have the sales team and then you will have professional services and other people part of that Again the sales team is also highlighted here and it has a star right next to that The reason for that is most likely you will be part of that group too Because you are the product champion No one else knows the product you will be going out and you will be participating as Part of the sales demos you will be getting that call a day before saying that hey, can you come out to? Vancouver or we'll fly down like five hours and have a nap for like two hours and give that demo Because there is someone waiting for that demo like no sales people are like You have only handful of people and they are not equipped with all kind of training material So that they can go and demo that But on the other side if you see a large organization You will be a product manager But most likely the UX UI team you will not be doing that because Company have some money so they will go and hire people who can do that work And sales executives and under that group sales team and sales consultants Definitely you will not be demoing that you will not be called Late night and ask you to fly out, you know Thousands of miles to demo because that will never happen it might but most likely it will not happen because you have a sales team Dedicated sales team that is trained to do that Okay Now from an engineering point of view. Well, you will have quality development Organization who are you know all the software engineers and the DevOps maintaining all the servers and everything Again, you will also be you might be playing a quality role as well or quality engineer because you know the product Right again these was constraints So you might be playing that role of testing the product making sure that it is working from a functional point of Here because again, you're not having that much money to actually go and hire them And the interesting part is the customer support Most likely as I said earlier, you will have one person supporting the customer organization It is when I joined sky there was only one person and I'm the only PM So if there was anything coming through I had to stand right next to that person and explain What the product is going to do right? So you might be playing that role as well So if you look at the small organization, most likely you will be playing multiple roles If you go on to the larger organizations Consulting services, that's a big cash go for them. So they will have a different Department for that they will be trained for consulting purpose So they will go and you will have a team that it will be doing that You will not be they will not be relying upon you to support do anything like that Engineering side, of course again, you will have people who will be doing the quality Related functionality and also the development and UX and UI. So When you go to the larger organization, you as a product manager might not be playing all those roles But as a PM in a smaller company, you will be playing multiple roles for sure I like this picture because if you see on the Other side on the smaller organization Most likely the clock will be half and you'll be filling all the numbers as a product manager The reason for that is again. This is a product company. You're talking about a product company Product is the brilliant butter of that company and you will be the rock star. I Can guarantee that if not make sure that they are the rock star because everything has to deal with the product Everything stops with you and everything starts with you I know a lot of sales people talk about it saying that they have to sell the product Development feels that yes, I have to code it. Otherwise product cannot be sold But you are the brains behind that the product manager is the brain behind that So you have to fill all those gaps and make sure that the product is working properly In a larger organization, most likely you will have All those departments that we have mentioned earlier so that you know, you will get that support Again, the reason I'm highlighting all this is Not to say that small companies are good or large companies are good It is just what to expect as an individual if you are stepping into a larger organization And you want to be a product manager what to expect from a small company versus a large company? Getting into like what you typically do right in a small organization as a product manager Of course, you'll be writing all the BRDs and MRDs and other stuff again depending on What kind of product you will get into the details of that but typically people would as a product manager You're expected to do that You're going to work with the development team for sure You will have customer interaction and validation A lot of people have a notion that as I said earlier in the beginning as a If the product manager if you're working for a big company your expectation is that you will be talking to the customers day in day out Well, it might be happening, but it doesn't happen that often the reason for that is Because how you interact how the company is laid out how what can they share with the Customers what they cannot there will be a lot of these Regulations and all kind of things that will come into play whether you can share some information with your customer or not I'll just give you an insight information of Oracle if you are building a Functionality for a particular customer. You cannot tell that to that customer till the day before it gets released Because of all kind of rev regs and other stuff But as a small company you have that leeway, right? So you will have more interaction with the customers for sure You will be part of the sales demos You will be doing some kind of a short silly cycles because again, you are a small company And you want to have those functionalities come out quickly You might be playing that UX role and even a scrum master also quite possible because again resource constraints budgetary constraints you might be playing that role and you might also be implementing the product and Supporting your customer support. So you will be doing a lot of these things What you might not do is? Pricing the product the reason why I said specifically pricing the product is because In a smaller company you will have all your CEO and in all the VPs and other people who would be kind of Thinking about how to price the product. How do we want to give that to the customer? How do they want to kind of because it's a small company, right? They want to make sure that there is they make that number, right? You will definitely not have unlimited resources. You will have pretty limited resources You got to work with them. I Still remember there was no Right now we have Jira. I mean of course Jira is there for quite some time But when I started my product management career, there was nothing like Jira. There was nothing like a backlog Grooming or anything when we picked up agile back in 2007-2008 we had to use Excel So every single time we have to sort it we have to move that cut and paste and move it up Well, we can use the numbering and other stuff sorting, but There was no tool now. We can actually grab things up and down, right? I can see the burned-down charts and other stuff There was nothing like that before I'm not saying that you cannot afford or a small company cannot afford that right now But again, it will be limited Access to PM tools again those tools that you can use to analyze how many features that you're releasing how much Whether doing things like a B testing things like that, right? You will be pretty limited in from a small company part of you In a large organization, of course again starting with the design development You can definitely be part of that you will be working with the development team The third item is very important. You have to follow a lot of process and procedures again I'm not saying that it's bad. It is just how it is you have to follow them You have to follow again giving an example of all of them If a product has to be really released or a feature has to be released if it is getting out, let's say Take November 1st. It has to come out. Then the core freeze is on October 1st That's it. You cannot put any more features there. Well product managers. We tend to put more things And we like to put more things So we there was a incident where like you know in the skyer bag of the small companies to work We used to put in features like it's good and bad even a week before Because we had to push that out right because we have that customer commitment in larger organizations It's slightly different. So you've got to deal with those processes and procedures as a PM Standards and compliance Big thing right because again if you do not follow certain standards in the bigger organization You will be flagged and you will see that on the paper in the paper saying that So it's a company. Let's say Oracle does not follow these ADA compliance or whatever it is, right? You know this product doesn't follow so you've got to follow the standards and Compliance and company-wide standards for UI and all those kind of things So there will be a lot more things that you need to as a PM. You have to follow Access to PM tools. Absolutely. You will have all kind of things as a matter of fact You might have two or three. You got to pick which one is better for you and pricing Sometimes you might get involved in that because again, there will be a organizations where At least at Oracle we used to have a different Organization for pricing but as a PM you got to give your suggestions like you know How many people are going to be accessing it things like that? So they will come out with a pricing model so that you can see whether it makes sense for you or not So you might get involved somewhat into that pricing stuff Custom customer interaction and validation Most likely you will not be doing that Again as a PM you will be thinking like how can I build a feature without talking to a customer? Again, it depends on What kind of company it is? What is the culture of the company? Most likely you will not be because again all these rev rack issues and When you work for these bigger companies like Oracle like you want to go and talk to a customer You cannot just say I want to talk to the CU of that, you know company right or the VP of that company You want to talk to a person who is a product champion there? Guess what happens in a bigger organization, right? When a company is selling let's say a company like Oracle selling it to a other organization They want to sell it From top down typically that's what happened. So the CTO or whoever it is they will Approve that PO to actually buy the product and that's it. It's done. So you do not have a Relationship with the people who are actually using the product in a smaller company. It's other way around, right? You have to work with them. You've got to make sure that they are happy You will be working day in day out So if you want to talk to a customer about requirements in a smaller company You know exactly who to talk to for a larger company You've got to really dig into a lot of things to actually get to the person who is Responsible for managing the product on the other side. So it sometimes you won't get that information shorter release cycles again as I said if you're a delivery time of the product feature is going to be Requiring this one month of core freeze and testing and other stuff think about the short release cycle It'll be at least the release cycle will be at least four to five months getting that squeezed into one month or two months is Kind of again companies have done that like you know if you consider like work day or sales force They have done that but that's a cultural thing right it. It has to be done Internally right it cannot be just done overnight. So bigger companies if they want to get into those shorter cycles Similar to a small companies then it has to be a cultural thing Customer demos most likely product managers will not do it Lot of people talk about it But most likely because you have a sales team they are paid for that so they will be doing that and Implementation you will not be doing that The reason I'm talking about implementation is Because as a product manager when you design certain things when you go out The customer is actually are no the future is being used by the customer during that implementation phase And of course after they go live So if you are part of that you know exactly what worked and what did not because as a product manager It's key you need to know that you don't want to come to know about that later on when they file like Havidism bugs right so you want to know that up front or at least as part of the implementation how they are Configuring it. How are they using it? So if you are part of it, it's good, right? So again, I'm not saying that large companies are bad only go for the small companies. It is just how they are right, so The key takeaway From this old the entire my presentation is that again It's not like you know, you should work for a big company or a small company. It all depends on Who you are some people are very comfortable working for a small company. Some people are very comfortable working for a big company. I Started with a working for a big company as a programmer I did not like the wave product management group was working in that organization So I left I joined a small company. I was there for quite some time I like the way it was it worked out for me because I was I wanted to be a rockstar, right? So I kind of I was right in the center of action. I used to Stand up and whenever there was a release, of course, we all know that when there is a release There is no release without a bug right most likely So people used to call not that I want to do that every day But they used to call and figure out find out like no why it did not work So we had to stand up talk to them. So there was some sense of Responsibility and ownership again, you will have that in the larger company as well But that responsibility will be slightly different You might be thinking about much bigger things and because you have a lot of resources smaller companies every single thing matters so from My side the key takeovers are like work for any company is fine smaller big as long as You like it, right? What do you like? What is your style? Right before I'm not saying that you should do this right now But if you are planned to shift or if you are planned to think about you know going from the small to big or big To small make a checklist make a checklist and see what is your working style? Do you like and then check against that working style whether the bigger company is going to Give you that or a smaller company is going to give you that right and again if you're starting as your carrier as a p.m. I would suggest that work for a Large company the reason for that is you will have a lot of researches so you can learn certain things And then you can jump in a smaller company That is just my preference not that it has to be Done for everyone like that But if you want to start your care as a p.m. Then go for could a large company because small companies There will be a lot of things as I said you have to wear a lot of hats and if your style is not that if you are not like You know every day get up and you have to do that firefighting right so then it's not for you And that's what it's going to be in a small company every single day. It's like a rat race But if you are going for a bigger company even if you're starting your career Then it'll be you will get adjusted to that p.m. Type of work you know what to do from a design point of view and things like that So you will be able to get used to that lifestyle. I mean in a sense from a p.m. Point of view If you're transitioning from engineering to it then any company is fine I prefer a small company because I did that again that is because as an engineer The mindset might be slightly different because you know You have you know how the deadlines work and everything so getting into a smaller company You will be able to manage to some extent, but again, I would relate it back into the other Point number three, which is if you're starting a p.m. Role and again, you're moving from engineering side then again go to a larger company because that's where You you can learn a lot of things If you're planning to small a very good a small company then be ready to wear different hats every single day You are going to have new challenges new things coming at you new things been told at you and You will not even expect what those things are you don't even know what those things are But you got to be ready to pick them up and if you're working for a large company Be prepared to work with less information. The reason for that is you have so many departments Information is kind of segregated by different departments You might not even know if the product that you have designed being sold to some customer Maybe for like you know next month or two months because that's how things are that way too many people there So the information might not come to you immediately And the smaller company you will get that information right away because there'll be some celebration But in the small bigger companies you will not have that so be prepared for that information as well Okay Well, that's what I wanted to share with you guys my experience if you guys have any questions More than happy to take them. I I can't hear you properly. We are there's a lot of noise here All start-up environment working x y and z outside of the discipline that you originally went into How do you kind of hone in all those skills all the different things you've done and focus it back towards the job? Sorry came to the front now Talking about say newly I college in the start environment Came in for one idea of a role doing x y and z beyond that You find that folks So if you're starting in a startup company and if you're trying to learn I mean You will learn a lot of things from a different departments, right? But again, if you are jumping into a bigger organization after that Again, if you are trying to continue your product management career Then you have a lot more knowledge about how other departments are working So definitely you can leverage that in extending your you know reach into other Departments for example, like you can go to the sales team and talk about how do you? plan on you know Presenting the product right sales. Of course, they will Present it in a certain way, but how do you? Show that there is a value with this product So you can actually take that because you have played that role before you have done that before so you can Actually educate them from a product perspective What is the best way to sell it to the customers? How do you interact with the customers? I'm not saying that in the larger organization sales will not know how to do that, but The mindset that you will develop in a small organization is there's a lot more is a lot different You will have some kind of a Relationship with those customers. It's not just you sell it and you get your sales quota You are actually having some relation with the customers that you build that in the small companies because that's you have to do that You have no choice So you can actually carry forward that information and kind of educate other people as well Same thing with development. You can actually work with the development Typically in the larger organization development kind of thinks about like you know much bigger stuff You know they might be thinking about let's do this revamp of all this stuff for next six months or one year or anything Or let's go into micro services of all our application. It'll take us another year to build the entire product Well, that might work for the company, but at the end of the day, you all got released certain features also So you can talk to the development team how quickly you can actually come out with certain features While not compromising on those, you know Microservices are greater things right so you can actually educate them so as a product measure you can carry forward those Small ideas that you have Developed or are there actually big ideas that you have developed in small companies and Carry forward that into the bigger companies as well So you can educate other people from other departments From job search perspective How do you position yourself differently as a small company versus a large company? What are the top qualities that hiring managers in large companies looking for as both small companies So typically when you are looking for a playing for a Job in a small company right and from a job description point of view They will not give you all these details. They will not ask you these questions Whether you can do this or not. They'll just ask you are you a product manager? Are you do you know how to design the products and other stuff? But as part of let's say interview process or anything right one thing that you want to show for a small company is that You are willing to go that extra mile When you're working for a small company because that's what is expected because every single day you will be as I mentioned earlier You will be working More than what is expected out of a product manager for a larger organization You don't have to do that because you actually have other departments So if you go for an interview and someone says The interviewer asks you as a in a small company Will you be okay demoing the product will you be okay standing in front of the customer and presenting it? And if you want to do that, then you should be saying yes, right? No, of course You're not afraid of that and you want to do that But in a large organization 99% they will not ask you that question because most likely that Opportunity might or might not even come so they will not even think from that angle They'll ask you more from how do you collaborate with your? Development team, how do you write your design documents? How do you kind of? Use these tools and other stuff. How do you follow the procedures and other stuff? It's not like you know wearing multiple hats So you got to be prepared for that in the job description. You might not have that absolutely only in the interview They'll definitely ask you that question. Yeah, so large companies as I said like they will be looking more from a Procedures point of view writing or did have you followed? a perfect agile methodology or a waterfall how did you gather the requirements from the customer? They'll ask you that but you might not be doing it, but So procedures kind of thing right and how do you kind of hand it over to the development team in small organizations? You might be sitting right next to them right for all practical purpose here It might be you are throwing it out to a different country and they'll be developing someone else So they'll be asking you how you interact from that angle Yeah, so if you do not have a software background you can definitely become a product manager There's there's no I won't say There is no barrier for that. I have seen over last 12 years I have seen people who have moved from customer support into product management Sales into product management As a matter of fact, we actually worked with some customers So our software that we were used to build was or rather we still build it is for the Construction industry so we built project management for construction industry and we have hired people from the client side They joined our product management department because they know the subject So it's not that you have to be a software engineer as long as you will be able to understand the business needs and Translate that into something which makes more sense from a product point of view you Product when I say product point of view you should be able to have that vision of Where the product has to go not every single detail? It doesn't need to be like every button and other stuff That's not the point the point is that if I laid down this product for next one year what are all the things that I should be able to add to this product and Incrementally so that it benefits the to the customer. So that's the key thing, right? so if you if you want to build like Perfect example is a playing with Legos, right? If I give you Legos and if you can if I say that okay This is the shape of the entire thing that you need to build like a car or something And if I give you all the pieces can you put that together without looking at a manual? Then you're a perfect product manager because and that can be anyone doesn't matter that can be a Customer support person a quality assurance person actually as a matter of fact, I hired a quality assurance person from Quality department into product management Because they showed that inclination that they can think about the product they can think like now How do I how can I design this feature so that it is useful for the customer? So it doesn't need to be a software engineer software engineer gives you a little more advantage, but it is also disadvantage because When you turn from a software engineer to a product manager at least I did that I took a oath that I will not talk About software because if you go to engineer and talk about oh your code is not good Then they'll come back and you say that you are a product manager You're not supposed to talk about the code that my job your job is to give me the designs. So there'll be some Confusion there Absolutely it will help you definitely and again it depends on the product if you are talking about a product which is based on let's say AI or not all the Nlps and the new stuff going on right then absolutely having that idea makes perfect sense but if you are designing a product which is does not involve all that stuff if we're designing something like Take an example cards.com right simple example Something else, then you don't have to get into the details of How the architecture is being done? I'm using web logic server or am I using starts or I'm using something else Doesn't really matter as long as it is scale You need to trust your engineering department at that point of time. So it all depends on what you're trying to build You mentioned about So what are the qualities? Small companies are looking at which actually improved that you can do the Design also like you're not really done the actual designs to use the US tools, but you understand how the Interface works and things like that. So how do you deal with that? So a part of it is because you have no choice a small company because Company do not have enough funding to actually hire someone right I Would recommend that As I mentioned like I quit Oracle and we are starting a new product company The first thing that I'm trying to hire is a well actually I'm there part of that company But first thing is we want to get a UX person. I Don't want to design it I know how to design it, but I don't want at least the wireframes and other stuff. I don't want that I want them to do that, but if you join a company and the company Depends on the resource constraints and budgetary constraints, then you will be playing that role Do you have that skill set to do that that's what I understand your question is You might not have it but you might have to acquire But at the same time you're not expected to use all kind of sketch and other tools Oksure and other stuff to actually lead on all the graphics and other stuff. It's you're not expected to do that You are kind of filling that gap to make sure that again all those things that I mentioned It has a quality assurance engineer or a support engineer. You are playing that role That's not your job day-to-day job, but you will be doing that day in day out because of whatever constraints, right? so Of course company has to realize that you are not Meant for that your role is not that and you they have to invest in those people to actually You know get those people so that they can help you out with but I'm not saying that that should be the case for every single company But be prepared for that Oracle It's it's actually it's good, but it is painful too because The cultural difference is there. There's a very cultural difference. I'll just give you a short story how it kind of Played out last eight nine years then you kind of understand how the culture kind of affects that So we got bought over in 2012 Four years before there was and their company. It was not a startup company is a sensible company and That was bought over by Oracle in 2008. The company name is Primera. They're in Philadelphia It's all scheduling software and other stuff So if you're into that scheduling and construction industry, you would know that that's a defective standard Well, that was a small company the culture of that company was pretty much like you know I would compare to skyer. It is that's what I heard When they got acquired in 2008 and by the time we got acquired 2012 and I got into like in 2013 and knowing all the people their culture has changed completely so at point in 2008 if Whatever they were feeling that you know what we got into this big organization. How do I adjust into this? We had the same feeling in 2013 But with these people who actually got acquired in 2008 so You will change in the bigger organization and if you change and if you want to live with it You will live with that for a lifelong unlike me who will second round quit from Oracle and do something else but definitely but There are a lot of people who like that thing as well that security and that kind of you know Atmosphere because it's slightly different right in bigger corporations. It's completely different. It's not like small company where It's like you know living in a Downton versus a small community right, you know every other person Downton you might not know who it is right, so it is a different cultural thing, but it is good and bad mixed feelings Lot of people left or remain like changed from a Few people definitely left because they could not just take it that was like you know year year and a half Lot of people left just because again cultural wise you do not know What's happening right? That's just because they cannot they do not see themselves in that organization because again in a small company For us Particularly we were all in Menlo Park, so we were all in one building So we were right next to each other at Oracle people are like everywhere you can work from home You are like you know some other country and some of the place So people might not have that interaction with other people anymore, right? So they don't feel that comfort and they left People left in a year two years three years depending on their What they felt is right During a larger company, but the transmission is happening is They are employing the the lowest Level of people to write the decision-making upwards So it is actually they will see the whole navigation as the dishes are coming from bottom Because they're applying the advice to decide and then recommend it upwards so that they just simply sign tougher design I Agree with you, but also I think it all depends on the company again company culture, right? if the companies are The people who are in that company if they bring that kind of culture from ground up or They adopt that over a period of time and Kind of nurtured that culture absolutely At least I did not see that at organ. Hopefully it will happen, but it is just mixed by it depends Which is yeah, which is which is good to see. I hope that Goes forward and we will see that everywhere absolutely so I have a question about you know the product managers like sometimes some people say that It's better for them not to know anything about development engineering The father they are the better the partitioning is They can focus on stories and what user needs are and sometimes Some people say that no you have to be aware of technology So there is that that you know You you find those two schools of thoughts right now Startups versus large companies. How does this play out? At least I'll just go by my experience. I feel that product managers should know enough about What is going on in engineering site again as earlier I was saying that depends on the product, right? For example, the products that we were building at Oracle, which was pretty much similar to what we did at the start-up There were things that we're getting built up from a product manager Things that we're getting built up from a product feature point of view. So for example, we are supposed to build a portfolio optimization Right for all these companies where they need to pick which projects that they need to do That's a portfolio management kind of functionality Development would think about that using some kind of you know optimization engines and other stuff but as product managers we were able to Reach out to bigger oracle like in other resources and figure out that there was some kind of a Linear programming software that was available in Oracle, which we can leverage to actually optimize that That is just purely because of we were doing some research on certain things now You can suggest that to development or you can be quiet and they can figure it out It depends on how you want to get involved But again, you're not telling development that you pick that or you are not saying that Just coded this way. You are actually saying that my requirement is this this might solve it or you bring an alternative for that So it depends on how you kind of interact with them. Yeah, start up absolutely So in startup you will be literally sitting with them and saying that okay use this because That makes sense because you are actually looking from a price point of view licensing another step as well Not that everything will be falling into your bucket Development will be looking into how do you get the license and other stuff for that? But absolutely for bigger organizations. It's slightly different Small you will be involved in completely So So you said you are in the engineering right now engineering and weighing those multiple hats so if you want to transition into Bigger company absolutely because you know you can start being a product manager in the bigger company itself You don't have to be in the smaller company, but the structure wise of course You are trying to put all the things around Into one basket which makes more sense from a product management point of view Not from a coding perspective But how you are kind of solving the business need in your role right now if you can translate that When you're talking to you know bigger companies, right then it'll be easy for them to relate that okay You can be a product manager, right? again Market is changing and industry is changing where they are not saying that you are engineer I cannot get you hire you because you are engineer. We need a product managers. There's nothing like that Things have changed a lot. So you can definitely you might not be like a Senior product manager, but definitely you can be able to get into product management field by showing that you have that Understanding of the business side Doesn't need to be your own product just in general right so you will be able to kind of relate to that Not just from bits and bytes, but more from a use case point of view How can you relate to that? How can you solve a customer need right over all solutions and other stuff? So that's what people are looking for alright That's what I'm looking for or anyone as a product manager who's trying to hire another product manager Whether you have that vision of like, you know, can I connect all these things from a solution point of view sell it or at least you know kind of Solve a use case right so that's what we are looking for Yes But yes absolutely I totally agree with you They will ask you about the processes you have no choice but as a coming from a smaller company you can always explain that these are the processes that you have followed From a whatever is possible, right? You know, I'm sure you would have followed some process like some kind of a design document or something It's not going to be like a something written on a napkin, right? It'll be there is some document So you can actually talk about that process itself Of course bigger organizations follow much on a larger scale not more things They cannot expect that you are following all those things in a small organization because you got to be nimble, right? So you can always talk about this So While still keeping the focus on your products Smaller company if you definitely need to understand what are the other things that are in play right from a Product perspective if it is only one product then it is It's one-to-one so it's okay But if you have multiple products then I would definitely say that as part of your job Is to kind of understand how your product plays along with the other products? But is quickly because that is critical. What are the decisions you make is go to affect that and Again in larger organizations you have someone else to kind of play that role and kind of you know guide you that Here you have to step forward Whoever it is whoever has that information you need to reach out and get all that information if you are the first or second p.m. Then Who or is the person who is like being? Leading that product so far right that it is a co-founder or a founder or an engineer VP or who it is Right sit with them sit with your support organization to get to that knowledge so that you have that information so that the decisions you are making kind of Trans or does not affect that particular part right so that's a key definitely