What have you been up to lately? 

I've been working with Microsoft for the past three years now. 

I work as a product manager on the Create team, focusing on site UX, accessibility, content management systems, and AI. 

Tell us about your journey to Microsoft!

I was an undergraduate at Yale College Class of 2020 and did my degree  in Computing in the Arts, an interdisciplinary degree that married computer science with the fine arts. How that materialized for me was working in virtual reality and computer graphics. 

My passions have always been at this intersection of technology, art, and business.

So apart from my degree, I wanted to explore internships in business during my undergraduate years. And I ended up working 2 summer internships at JP Morgan Chase. 

The first internship was as a data analyst.

The second summer, I was a software engineer who worked on UX prototyping a mobile app, which was really cool.

Fast forward a couple months after that I began my MBA program at the Yale School of Management under what's called the Silver Scholars Program, which is this deferred program where you do your first year straight from an undergraduate program. Then after that first year you can find work experience for 1-5 years and return to your second year as a full-fledged MBA student. 

During my first job search after my first year at Yale School of Management, Microsoft stood out a lot to me because it had this strong mission statement of wanting to empower every person to achieve more. And thankfully Microsoft was willing to have me. 

What made you decide to pursue product management? 

During my college internships I actually found it most enjoyable to work with other stakeholders and talk about strategy. And so that was really what compelled me to look beyond just working and building solutions as an engineer. 

When I was looking at roles beyond software engineering senior year of college, I've heard people describe a product manager as a mini CEO of a product and that was really enticing to me as someone who's interested in business ownership in the future. 

What were the resources that helped you secure your PM job at Microsoft? 

For those who may be interested in PM, I highly recommend the book: Cracking the PM Interview. It’s a really great novel and primer on the role.

But the most important thing for me to do when I was going about it was talking to people who were product managers, especially alumni connections. The School of Management has this great student club geared towards just the technology industry. And so I also used that opportunity to speak with students who've been through the recruiting process. 

I would ask PMs (especially people who’ve just been through the interview process): 

• What does the role entail? 

• What are the hard skills or soft skills needed for the PM role? 

• What rounds did you go through for interviews and what kinds of questions did you have to tackle? 

• What are traits a technology company looks for in a product manager? 

What soft skills/hard skills helped you secure your PM role?

One core soft skill was being a strong communicator and presenter. As a product manager, you listen to feedback, speak on your vision, and speak up for your team. It's important to be able to present ideas in a clear, concise manner. 

I think for hard skills, being data-driven and customer-driven – having the ability to navigate the ambiguity in data and find insights to make decisions that have a quantifiable impact. Being data-driven is something I cultivated in my previous work experiences that I communicated in my interviews.

What were the challenges you faced becoming a PM? 

Just the small task of finding updated job postings is difficult because job posting sites like Linkedin are not always up to date. The best strategy is to look directly on companies’ websites.

One alternative I also found important is networking for positions that aren't open yet. Job openings come in waves in most large companies because of reorganizations. For example, my team at Microsoft had a hiring spree for engineers at a certain time but then other times, we’ve had sparse openings sprinkled in throughout the fiscal year. 

But if you’re networking with folks in organizations that you are interested in joining, even if they might not have open roles now, they might be able to forecast when open roles will come up in the future. That might be a way you can apply for a position before it’s even released to the public. 

How did you apply to Microsoft? 

So I went straight through the Microsoft site for my application process.

My strategy has always been to 1st go through what's on the site, but also work with the recruiter to bring that awareness that I've submitted this application to differentiate myself. 

Of course, having someone who can refer you is another plus. But the network you build with the recruiters and the hiring managers is incredibly important. 

In my case, I didn't directly know the hiring manager, but I worked closely with the Microsoft recruiter who was specifically designated for Yale, Harvard, and other universities.

If you don't know a recruiter in that space I think it's more important to network with folks who could put you in contact with the hiring manager

I have gone through several applications and a great number of them resulted in rejections. With each rejection I learned how to improve my interviews and I think that ultimately culminated in an offer from Microsoft. So I will just say it's definitely competitive and it's hard to break in, but I think persistence is key.