AMA: BILL Sr. Staff Product Manager - Platform Intelligence (Data & AI), Aindra Misra on Product Management Skills

February 4, 2025 @ 10:00AM PT

What is the qualities of a Product Manager that impresses their Engineering counterparts and thereby allows the PM to build influence with the Eng team?

Aindra Misra

BILL Director, Product Management (Data, AI, DevEx, Identity) | Formerly Twitter/X • 1y

Engineering counterparts are not easy to influence as they come with some kind of bias that PMs are not there to help them but to add processes, hierarchy and more meetings to their day to day, without knowing their pain points and/or technical stuff. Based on my experience, here are some of the qualities you can develop to influence and impress your eng counterparts Get hands on wherever you can - In the age of AI, there are a lot of nocode tools to build prototypes etc (Cursor being one). If t ...Read More

1,892 Views

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What are mistakes product managers make when trying to get buy in for their roadmap that end up damaging stakeholder relationships?

Aindra Misra

BILL Director, Product Management (Data, AI, DevEx, Identity) | Formerly Twitter/X • 1y

I have noticed that PMs who do not have a solid proposal or data backed research, they try to push through their roadmap by backing it based on the buy in from upper management or who proposed it, instead of justifying and backing it up based on the impact of the outcome. If the stakeholders are not convinced of the impact of the outcome, and you are pushing it across then it will make them sulk. The best way to influence and convince your stakeholders on your roadmap is to use hard numbers for ...Read More

542 Views

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How would someone get into product management who is early in their career and has some project management skills?
Aindra Misra

BILL Director, Product Management (Data, AI, DevEx, Identity) | Formerly Twitter/X • 1y
Identify and decide on what kind of PM role you want to get into - Growth PM, Platform PM, Domain specific PM..

Understand the details and day to day of a PM role and get clarity on the hard and soft skills needed to be a good PM

Start building your hard skills and follow the right PM influencers on social media and consume their content

Build your resume based on what you learn from 1 to 3 above and start applying
599 Views
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How do product management skills change as you get more senior in the role?

I'm a technical product manager now and I find that the execution piece of my previous roles is not as desired in my current role and I am trying to balance what I deem as PM fundamentals with what my new role expectations should be.

Aindra Misra

BILL Director, Product Management (Data, AI, DevEx, Identity) | Formerly Twitter/X • 1y

As you progress through the PM ladder, the TL:DR is that you will be less in the weeds with the day to day functioning of your squads but rather be working on long term planning and strategy on a larger scope to deliver business goals. Some examples: PM 1,,2, Senior PM - Prioritization for 1+ squads, scrums, JIRA hygiene, align with team goals, quarterly planning Group PM - 1-3 year strategy, people management of PMs, larger scope with 2-3 products in the portfolio, ideation, opportunity sizing ...Read More

958 Views

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What hard skills are must haves to be a Product Management leader? What are nice to haves?

Aindra Misra

BILL Director, Product Management (Data, AI, DevEx, Identity) | Formerly Twitter/X • 1y

Skills for a PM leader are primarily categorized into two large buckets: Hard Technical/domain knowledge skills based on the product you support - eg:It can be understanding of MAU, DAUs, ad revenue etc for growth PMs or it can be AI, data and infra tools and technology for Platform PMs Inferring information from data - It's very critical for PMs to translate data into information which is valuable to them Soft Stakeholder management - As a PM, you need to manage a bunch of teams and people both ...Read More

2,168 Views

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What is the most underrated soft skill of a high performing PM?

Aindra Misra

BILL Director, Product Management (Data, AI, DevEx, Identity) | Formerly Twitter/X • 1y

Ability to tell the story and connect the dots. As a PM, if you are not able to tell your story in a crisp and clear manner with the right amount of details, and tailored to the audience - then how much good you are at your other PM skills, it will be difficult for you to get recognition. I feel that this skill is quite underrated and as you get into more technical PM roles, this becomes harder and harder as the business leaders and the non tech stakeholders are further away from your world, and ...Read More

610 Views

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When joining a new team, is it better to have the right soft skills and have to learn the hard skills of the job? Or vice versa?

Aindra Misra

BILL Director, Product Management (Data, AI, DevEx, Identity) | Formerly Twitter/X • 1y

It's vice versa. Soft skills are something which you learn on the job. Hard skills can be easily acquired now with all the AI resources and training materials available online. Soft skills like stakeholder management, sync and async communication, how to tell the story, influencing without authority etc.. Soft skills like these are hard to learn theoretically, and comes only through experience and on the job. Some of it also depends on your personality.

730 Views

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I get a lot of critical feedback from my boss and I don't always know what to do with it or how to improve. Sometimes I don't even agree with the feedback. What should I do when I don't think the feedback is correct?

Aindra Misra

BILL Director, Product Management (Data, AI, DevEx, Identity) | Formerly Twitter/X • 1y

As you are receiving critical feedback from your manager, ask them to follow the STAR format. Situation, Task, Action and Result. Make the manager accountable on what they want you to accomplish from this task. You can definitely provide proposals using the STAR format based on what you think. But ask the manager to align on those actions, and what you will chase and try to improve on. Ask them to share what they think you can do. Align with them on all the proposals and then start working towar ...Read More

854 Views

1 request

AMA: BILL Sr. Staff Product Manager - Platform Intelligence (Data & AI), Aindra Misra on Product Management Skills

View AMA Answers

What is the qualities of a Product Manager that impresses their Engineering counterparts and thereby allows the PM to build influence with the Eng team?

What are mistakes product managers make when trying to get buy in for their roadmap that end up damaging stakeholder relationships?

How would someone get into product management who is early in their career and has some project management skills?

How do product management skills change as you get more senior in the role?

What hard skills are must haves to be a Product Management leader? What are nice to haves?

What is the most underrated soft skill of a high performing PM?

When joining a new team, is it better to have the right soft skills and have to learn the hard skills of the job? Or vice versa?

I get a lot of critical feedback from my boss and I don't always know what to do with it or how to improve. Sometimes I don't even agree with the feedback. What should I do when I don't think the feedback is correct?