 So glad to be here with you all today to talk about breaking into the product management field I guess wherever you guys are in your careers or maybe just starting out Kind of just giving an overview of what it means to be a PM and also Transitioning from kind of a non-traditional Tech background Yeah, I just want to thank all of you for coming out. It's cool today. A lot of you probably Didn't want to make it out here after leaving work. I'm like, I don't want to go like I'll go So it's it's good to see that you guys have this drive I think that's kind of the first step is like to know that you want to be a PM So I'm just gonna go a little bit about myself. I was born and raised in Queens I went to st. John's University and I graduated with a finance degree Then I worked in risk consulting at KPMG post grad and I found my way to AmEx Through you know a little bit of networking and coming to product tool events and going online reading as much as I could about what it means to be a PM and then kind of Incorporating things I learned on my own into my job when I was a consultant So that transition took like say six to eight months But go over that a little bit So on the mobile app team at AmEx I Kind of work on the membership features So I want to give you a little bit overview of what the AmEx mobile app looks like so there's 2.5 million daily active users 80 million monthly logins. It's available in 22 markets across the globe So two years ago. We actually consolidated into a single code base Whereas before it was like different Literally different apps that we have to launch in each market. So that was kind of a big moment for the app and We have a 4.9 star rating on the app store, which I think it's pretty cool for a financial company and Some notable features There's this native dining reservations experience for our premium card members So if you have a platinum or gold card you we just launched this in December there's a lounge finder So if you're a platinum or centurion card member you'll have access to Centurion lounges as well as other airport lounges So this allows you to check into your two lounges on the app allows you to view when they're open as well as any amenities and Also like guest policy and things like that Split it. This is a relatively new feature as well allows people allows card members to go in and Split their charges. So let's say you go to a restaurant and you put down your your annex card and you know You want to split the bill with your friends? So you can integrate that with Venmo. So it's like natively in the app You can just charge your friends and you'll get your your money back and also your points Pretty nice and then benefits. So this is something I personally worked on majority of last year I launched this native list view of Card benefits. So originally we didn't really have something that could be viewed in a very Beautiful way in the app. It had to like go out to a web view which Obviously when something like that happens a lot of users drop off. So the introduction of this really drove engagement and it's it's a pretty cool feature that I will actually show you guys so here's the membership tab and This is the entry point to benefits So here's the list that we built and you'll see that it includes all the benefits as well as the category filters on top and This took about eight months like end-to-end from research to design like designing iterations To actually like build and then QA and release so that that was pretty lengthy process But that was like the full end-to-end Like life cycle of you know building a digital product like this or feature rather All right, this is what you're here for Transitioning PM rolls from like non-tech background. So it's just to get up show of hands How many of you are currently in the tech or tech adjacent background? All right, that's a good number of you and I'm assuming the rest of you are not yeah All right. Cool. So the people who just raised their hands. It's a lot I guess a lot easier for you to make that that transition But for me as and everybody else who did not raise their hands. I came from a non-tech Background I was doing you know consulting work and really in the finance and insurance industry So for me, I kind of had a moment where I realized I hated what I was doing I wasn't really learning too much. I was also thinking about like how I could have more meaningful work, so I Knew I wanted to go to a tech company. I just didn't know exactly what I wanted to do so I just went around talking with different people and Realized that being a PM was kind of similar to what I was doing in terms of I was managing different projects managing Client relationships and also going to different teams and interviewing people to find a solution For whatever it is that they needed make a list of the things you enjoy from your current role Like what you wish you had more of in your day-to-day and what you're doing outside of work Because that matters too like what you enjoy doing outside of work kind of plays into what kind of company and what kind of team You want to be part of because product spans really wide Gamut right like you could you could be a product manager for a back-end system or a product manager for like a Front-end thing like like a mobile app. So it's important to know like Exactly what you're looking for as like a baseline and this also may help you realize that PM is not the thing you're looking for you could Be more interested in like data analytics. I had somebody I spoke to recently who After speaking with me about what I do on the mobile app team She was she said actually like I'd rather get you know deep into the data Analyze that put reports out for for the team be like here are the insights from the data that you guys can do and build like I'm just interested in finding these little bits of insight, you know Just know what you want and that's what you can do by just sitting down and asking yourself some of these questions And then I guess prior to has to keep on to your list, right? I keep those in mind as you set up coffee chats Redrop the script and learn about company cultures. I know this is like super cliche super basic but it's important to Have like goals and I'll talk to talk about this later but set up different points where you're like I need to have this many coffee chats or like this reach out to this many people because You're in your daily like lives whatever whatever job you're in Like you're gonna quickly get back into that rhythm And if you don't set these checkpoints up for yourself, you're gonna slow just not gonna do it communicate your interest That's this is the most important piece This is the piece that kind of solidified my transition and it's everybody tells you right? It's not it's not what you know, right? So it's it's who's gonna give you that chance to get in front of them to be like hey Like tell me your story because we all can say we know Jiro. We all can say we know Agile methodologies agile principles, whatever it is, right? What makes you stand out is who you are and if you don't get that chance to be in front of somebody you're never gonna It's well, it's not never but you're gonna have really difficult time making that transition So just like kind of big themes here. Yes, it's important to know yourself, right? You need to know the tech stack you need to know kind of basic Basic like how like an app like maybe for a specific app like where the apis what what data is where the data is coming from Kind of basic lingo that your engineers are just speak the language that engineers are speaking I guess familiarize yourself with the product development lifecycle things like that And database decision-making right so I talked a little bit about analytics before For a big company like annex we have our dedicated analytics teams So a lot of times we don't need to be the one actually pulling the data But for smaller companies you might need to know that right so you might need to know SQL I well it definitely doesn't hurt to know SQL to know to blow and other data visualization tools But regardless of where you get your data you need to use that to Support and justify your future decisions because if somebody asks you like why did we built this and you're just like oh It was because it feels like it was the right move or like our customers will be happier You need something more concrete and these numbers will help you tell that story and support your case So make sure like I guess in whatever role you are make sure data plays a More heavy role in like the way that you are executing whatever it is that you do one of the most important things finding ways include different views in meetings or when you're talking about discovering different features or Even if you're not you're not a PM role or not tech role like Finding other people to talk to about your ideas because as a PM like it's not just about You know your idea and a lot of times people tell you oh the PM is like the CEO of a Product or a CEO of a feature or you're like the middle person you make all the decisions It's true in a sense But at the same time you need to make sure that you have everybody else's buy-in Because that's what's going to make you a successful PM right like Can you imagine working with somebody like working with engineering and design and Everybody just knows you as the guy who just makes your own decisions and you don't really care about anybody other's opinions So it's super important to build these relationships with your partners with People that you work with on a daily basis, right? Like you're you're telling them requirements, but they're the ones executing so You got to make sure you have kind of the soft soft skills, right? You got to make sure you have their engagement their buy-in and just have like a Good working relationship with your your teams Should be a walking Wikipedia page for your future when somebody comes up to you and asks a question about The requirements for your future or who's who's it gonna impact? Or you know, how long is it gonna take? Who's I guess what other teams are involved like you better you better know it? and That's this doesn't I mean a lot of these things that I'm talking about are not just For pms. It's for anybody. It's for any role. Like you you should know exactly what you're working on and if you don't then Just like keep brushing up on it keep reading more about it and talk to different people and they they should be willing to Educate you or like help you get to that point where you know yourself. Yeah, I mean be a better person, right? Like just be nice be empathetic like these things are like, you know, oh my god, like yeah, but Being a PM. I think a vast majority of it is like if you're nice enough If you're if you're like going you you're nice Somebody will help you out no matter like what kind of situation you're in I found that just being nice like When I'm in a really difficult situation, let's say I need a like Like a patch or a point released for example like something a major bug happened And I need the engineering team to like really be on my side Being nice like throughout my relationship with them helps a lot and like just going over chatting with them When I have a free time building these relationships will help you get things done when you're in a pickle. So Definitely You know like Practicing I don't know how many of you have ever taken improv classes or like are familiar with this yes and thing But we recently had an improv group come in and we practice just going like yes and to whatever the person was telling us and It turned out to be like, yeah, this would work really well during a meeting and you know, like you practice Agreeing with people to kind of get their view rather than just shutting them down because you're like, oh, that's never gonna work Like that's that's too crazy of an idea That'll help you become more innovative as a PM to and I think That's a really important thing right your PM. You're supposed to be driving the vision for a product or feature. So Being able to hear other ideas and kind of being like take a step back and go All right, does this person have a point or like maybe it's not the best idea But what other ideas can sprout from those ideas? It is super critical showing praise like When somebody does something Like say, thank you. Oh, right go up to them and be like, hey, I think you did a great job and not just like Thanks on Slack or like Skype or whatever you use honestly Sometimes after after project. I'll walk over to a designer to help me or you know engineer Research or whoever and I'll be like, hey, I think you did a really great job Here's why and honest give honest feedback and that also goes a long way, right? These are all relationship building things and Also own successes and failures like when something doesn't work and you're like, okay, like That was terrible. Like you got to own it and be like, hey, that was my like I let that one. I Kind of had these missteps or like I didn't see these things a clear Clearly as I should have But it's super important to make sure you own the failures as much as you embrace your successes Here's just some like materials that I thought would be helpful. So Obviously product school videos, right? Like that's what helped me a lot actually two years ago Or actually a year and a half ago. I was kind of like one of you guys I was sitting there and being like, alright, how do I like how do I talk to this person after and like also like get a job? But also How do I better myself? How do I learn these things? How do I do these things that these this guy's talking about? so product school videos, there's so many of them just like watch whatever and then I thought shoe dog by Phil Knight was really good because he talks a lot about how he developed the Nike brand and different products and I thought That was a really good way to see, you know, like the challenges the successes all these emotions that come in with building a product and building a brand And I think that relates a lot to You know what you will experience as a PM maybe not to that magnitude, but you kind of will experience some of these same things Inspired this is kind of a classic like product book that a lot of people tell you to read I thought it had a lot of good like Technical things technical terms like product terms, but a little bit dry and Tech logs, you know, just state folk stay current on what's happening in the tech world or I don't know sometimes there's You know PMs also work in non tech industries So it could be a physical product that you want to be going into to develop So I guess whatever industry that you plan and going into make sure you're up to date on that and This is one of my favorite books of all time It's how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie Great book and how to deal with people or in different tough situations I think this book is over a hundred years old, but it's still super relevant today And you're gonna learn a lot of things. I think just from reading this book and it's really quick read so definitely read that and Some action items like this is what I would do if I were you definitely set up like reach out to X amount of people every week Obviously find those connections, right? If it's like a secondary connection if it's a university alumni if it's an old co-worker or I don't know whoever those are obviously the easiest ways to you know get in front of somebody tell them your story and then Yeah continue attending events like this Super super helpful at least when I was searching for a PM role Just to hear people's stories or journeys and also kind of learn about the culture and different companies I was interested in right like you see all these big name Companies and it's like yeah, like sure Google sounds nicer, you know Spotify sounds nice But what is it really like to work at this company and specifically on a team? there could be like Just speaking from annex Like the mobile product team is very different than Like a platform team or a physical card product team So it's it's getting an idea of what it's like to work in these different environments And then seeing is this the right fit for me actually learn something from this one guy Who's like this Facebook recruiter who spoke here and he said when you're interviewing like it's not just them Interviewing you right you got your interviewing them at the same time to make sure you have that right fit because at the end Of the day you go to a company and you're just like it's a it's a product role, but I really don't like this team it's not going to set yourself up for success and that's just the bottom line and Learn how to operate in a product development environment. So Like if you're not already part of, you know product development life cycle Familiarize yourself with the different points, right and then try to fit that into your daily Your whatever your daily responsibilities are So yeah, like agile principles writing sample user stories like you can be like what's my favorite app? All right, what can I improve and the right requirements for that as like a sample or you're applying to a company? Facebook in some some or like let's say Instagram, right? And it's like Instagram stories All right, Instagram stories is the plate display a certain way I'm applying for his team. How am I gonna? Contribute as part of this team like all these hypotheticals and kind of envision yourself as part of it And the more you do it the better you're gonna be at it, right? Especially if you have no experience in product doing this will help you Kind of at least be familiar with you know, how the work how the working environment is And so when people are asking you during an interview, you're like, I know because I did this thing before so that's that's something you should do and Lead mock-up like mock stand-up and discover meetings So if you're a PM like You might not always lead it, but you should be a participant in daily weekly whatever stand-ups and If you're not part of that today, it's it's good to maybe go and go on YouTube look up Or talk to your friends who are doing these stand-ups and be like, how do you guys conduct it? You know, what are the best practices and also just like practice doing it yourself? Do it with like there are different product I guess groups Maybe maybe you'll find a community from product school, but get together with a few people and practice that. Oh Culture super important. So we have a lot of fun on a mobile team We went skiing hiking That's the design team, but they did some like time paintball paint bomb thing and yeah, so just Wherever you are you have to be the one creating a culture because as a PM You're gonna be you're gonna be that glue between these cross-functional teams, right? And you want to make sure that you're creating environment where everybody Is comfortable working with you is comfortable Telling you their concerns right the last thing you want is you're building a product with with teams And then they have all these concerns, but they're they don't really want to tell you because they're not comfortable with you so Make sure you have you know good relationships with everybody you're creating a good culture you're having fun and This will naturally set you up for you know solid career and solid like teams that you're working with Yeah, that's it Yeah Thanks for the claps Where is this? I don't know if Xavier okay Q&A Yes Yes, I'm generally oh Sure, so he's saying if you're not from a non-type background and You know your engineers or our engineers are mentioning all these different terms like graphql I close the other one Yeah, yeah, so like How do you get up to speed when you don't really know what they're talking about? so I'd say with your product or right usually it's not just you as a PM and it's just you Right. There's like other PMs that are on your team. So let's start there and be like hey like Can you get me up to speed right those those people are on your team? It's kind of like almost their obligation to to help you and then Ask for documentation right ask the engineer or actually ask product first because they're your team and then ask the engineer if they don't have it for documentation usually there's some kind of text-ac documentation or like What like what API is feed data into whatever you're building? But yeah, I definitely asked your immediate team first Yeah I Think it depends like where you are in your career right your fresh out of college. Yeah go for a product analyst so shit PM kind of rolls that are like, you know ground level if you're a few years out you have kind of bit of experience I I would try for I just go for PM roll It doesn't have I mean obviously When you're shooting for companies, you know like the fan companies, right? They're those are a little tougher. This competition is pretty tough, but if you go to smaller company or startup It's Yeah, I think there's a fair chance And I guess what you look for online. It's Yeah, I think it's pretty self-explanatory what they what's in the what's in a job description So if you're looking at job description of whatever company or whatever position you're looking for They'll tell you that the code the code words the the key words, right? like whatever they list it's it's what they're looking for and sometimes having like the Having the what's called the tools, right Jira Trello Rally these are these are some keywords that companies use. There's also Like if you're familiar with Certain programming languages that's helpful I've never been a recruiter, so I'm not really I'm just like talking but I Hope I think that's how it works. Yeah Go ahead Again, I think it's like all up to you in a sense Like it's like your network too, right? Like all of your skills are probably very transferable If you're a PM you kind of use the same tools across different roles so it's It's kind of up to you to find like to build that network to reach out to people and be like, hey like Or to reach out to them for for a chat, right? I want to learn more about your role because I'm in a role where I thought I like it or I didn't really Do as much do diligence is my first job or my first PM role or whatever it is and then now I'm looking for something You know that I'm more passionate about or like I want to work on this other thing because now I found out through Whatever experience you had that you actually want to work on this other Silo of being a product Yeah What skills do you have or we don't think you have the right skills Generally, I didn't get a lot of like you don't have the right skills. They're just just gonna be like Don't come back So it's no one's gonna tell you That like you're just you're not good enough because like if they invited you to an interview they thought you were good enough, right? It's just Getting to that point is the hardest part Getting in front of somebody is the most difficult thing because being a PM you can learn You can learn how to write user stories. You can learn how to use Chira and all that stuff right learn the tech stack and that's unique to each team generally, right? so it's just a matter of how you communicate with people how you Build your build culture on your team how you're able to Rally all these different people to come together to this one goal of a feature or a bug improvement or just any type of enhancement to whatever you're working on I Just like about like what makes your resume look appealing to someone. I know you're not a recruiter, but like what kind of things could you Demonstrate just in a lot of paper on the paper This is who I am Yeah, absolutely, I mean I apply it. I mean I'm sure a lot of you can resonate with this experience right applying to Everything you're writing covers. Just like oh my god. I worked like half an hour on this cover Submit it don't even hear back or you get a rejection like an automated rejection email and Yeah, like I guess it's that's why it's so important to To actually have this human aspect of it, right like Getting in front of somebody telling them your story and then having them be like your champion, right? They're the ones giving you a shot so Get in front of somebody and If it doesn't just it's not just about getting a job, right? Like you should go out and meet people to learn about Product to learn about their teams not just all right. I want a job from you So I'm gonna be like yo, can we meet and like talk about positions on your team or whatever? It should just be about like I'm genuinely interested to learn right and then actually be genuinely interested and then Yeah, just just find out as much as you can and then Keep doing that until somebody's like oh actually have an open position like I love their chat I think you're a candidate boom. Yeah Let's get somebody's back What do you think? No, I did not I Didn't What am I saying? It's like you shouldn't it's just for me it happened it happened pretty I guess Quickly from the time that I was like I want to do product to when I actually got this shot So I'd say it was about like three months. I was considering signing up for product school That's why I came to some of these talks, but I actually landed the the role before I signed up for for a class or anything else but I Do think you know it depends right like is it is of course like you know helpful I think it depends on what kind of person you are like if you're somebody like me who's able to just Sit down and study some of this material and then make a plan for myself and incorporate it into my into my own role then Might not need it, but if you're somebody who's like I need somebody to like prod me to do things I need somebody to like keep me accountable Then maybe that would be the right move for you if you want to be a p.m Well No, not shameless Definitely remember the low lights Right, it's just Like I said before right you spend so much time researching a team company whatever Right in that cover letter tailoring the resume Finally, it's perfect. You submit it And a boom like two days later. They're like, yeah. Yeah. Well, sorry like we had other candidates or whatever is so Having like dozens of those like definitely was You know, it sucked but then you have those one or two breakthroughs where it's like, oh my god Like somebody wants to get on a call with me, right? Then you get that energy back it's just important to like not lose steam not lose hope that you're gonna get to where you want to be and Right, that's why I said before number one. It's like making sure you want product. It's not for everybody But that's the most important thing. It's like, all right. I want product. I'm gonna do it like and I'm set on that so Just get your head in the right place and you'll be fine. Yeah, no wasn't actually I talked to I was like Yeah, for me. I was just like I want to culture. That's fun. That was baseline to me. I was like, I want I want free snacks I want to bring your dog to work like all these things were like wow, that's fun. Like so I actually spoke to somebody who was working at jet and he was telling me Like oh, like yeah, like that's a fun place. You know, you should work here and then I was like, all right So like what does somebody like my background like what kind of roles are available and talked a little bit about analytics He talked about You know business analyst roles and then he was like Talk to me about his role, which is PM. I was like that sounds like fun like that sounds like something that I'll enjoy doing and I was like, oh, how do I get there and then like you kind of just Walk me through it a little bit and was like, all right, like this is the skills you need to have You know, you should He sent me a bunch of like websites and he was like, all right Like just go to product school Like try to try to go to these talks and just hear people talk about what they do as a PM to make sure that you want to be a PM and then after I had that After sure that I want to be a PM. It's like that whole journey of like, you know reaching out to people and stuff like that Yeah So there's a lot of different flavors of PM right So this role actually was specifically For the app so it wasn't just like a generalist thing where I got to decide afterwards It was straight up like posting said mobile app team. Sorry. I want to do that so Yeah, yeah Yeah, it was just like here's the role and it's like yeah, the interview was like you're gonna be part of this team You're gonna be building features for the app and it wasn't like you're gonna be working Like here's different groups that you could choose. It's just straight up like app team. Do you want it or not? It's like cool. Yeah For Honestly, I was I was casting a wide net at first I was honestly interviewing for like hardware stuff too. So like, you know, Harry's the razor company Like I was interviewing for a PM rolls there and I was like cool I'll be working at factories like go in a different places and running through like I guess Packaging and stuff. It just seemed like seemed cool. So it's just like I had I had a wide net and it was like, all right, like and It's not to say that, you know, I wouldn't have enjoyed that role I think I just had this one first and also the people were amazing when interviewed. They're all super nice they're also like super friendly and I Got the sense that they're very they're a lot more eager to help me get to Competency as a PM then some of these other people I talked to yes over the life cycle Right Sure, so So kind of like was Determined from the top where it's like benefits should be a priority and I had the kind of the option of working on benefits or lounges on chose benefits and We started testing with users Right after we had our own workshops to create mock-ups for what this benefits feature would look like So we took it actually the Empire State Building where we have this, you know third-party do some of these user testing for us and we would sit in one room like we meaning product design Yeah, just product and design we'd sit in one room and watch a Card member go through the feature so we'd have you know basically it's a B testing right We had two different mock-ups and they'd go through it and use it and you know We would see Kind of what what design elements work and which didn't and then iterate on that so we I think we ran Total like two different sessions for that But yeah pretty early on where we're testing it with users and then once we have that design solidified then It just just went to development Yeah Yeah, and then a total of like 15 people. Yeah Yeah, and then obviously there's you know, there's QA work after development and then And then it's launched I Don't have to write any code, but do you have to Well have to read it, but like there's sometimes Like a back-end engineer would send over a response and I'd be all right Can I like I would ask can I see that response? I'll see it and go right here's you know the Title or like here's images and then kind of figure out Where each of that goes and then like if it's not optimized like where do I go to to get it? Things like that, but I'm never writing anything. I'm never coding. I'm just have to read it sometimes, but and what percentage of it did I know going in I'd say Like five to ten percent Right and everything else like my teammates like people who sat next to me taught me the engineers taught me Yeah And then you don't have anything Right so my resume actually never made it past HR system, right the key words just weren't there So it's that finding finding a person to be to trust that you know, you're I Guess we're all going to wherever that's taken up Yes finding somebody who's like I like this person right because majority of what You know as a PM will be taught to you like you can learn it From your teammates, so it's it's finding that person who's like I like I like how you work I like how you think And I'm gonna give you a shot like I'm gonna be interviewed or like Pass your resume to somebody who will interview Yeah, I Should but I Yeah, that's my goal Right, yeah, I mean I have like I could show some features, too It's just like I guess in your role if you touched different Projects that you they're not confidential. Yeah, like definitely have a website to display that but a lot of my work at KPMG was like stuff. I couldn't I couldn't display so yeah, it was a bit of a challenge But I think it depends on the company and I see it It's like your PM and then you become like a senior PM and then you like a lead PM and after that See your pets just like more and more Features or more and more responsibility, right? It's like you manage like more people or I think after a certain level you start you You're not really executing but you're more of the visioning so It's like Yeah, like at my level, it's it's all about Execution it's all about delivering features or enhancing features But once you reach like a level where you're managing a group of product managers You're driving that direction. You're you're saying here's here's our overall goal and strategy and then All my underlings will do it Yeah, all the way in the back. Yeah typical day, okay, so In the morning come in Check Slack messages that may have missed emails Response to any like pressing ones that need to be addressed and then Run a lot of it and it's like daily stand up. So tend that see what the engineering teams up to you After that, there's like random meeting sprinkled through the week. So it's like there's a There's like a release checkpoint. So we have our month our app releases Once a month. So we have different release checkpoint calls. So that happened and then Writing user stories filling a backlog, right a lot of the things I'm like a lot of times you're not really like Working with engineers to be like, oh, we're gonna do this thing, right? You're just writing requirements for features or you're preparing for future features or a future I Guess enhancements like that Yeah, so that's like average day a lot of meetings a lot of just talking with people bounce ideas around Yeah It's pretty chill Until it's not Well, thank you all for coming I really appreciate it