Nikita Jagadeesh

1. Bring structured thinking to your communication and approach: Become effective at breaking down problems using structured thinking. For Behavioral questions, look into the STAR method. For other product sense questions, look at case study books such as Case in Point and PM interview practice. This is a critical skill set that will serve you well as you take on different types of PM challenges on the job - from developing a new PRD, doing a competitor analysis, to building an execution plan. 2. Have a good pulse on market, products, & design trends in the industries you are passionate about: Read, observe, podcast, leverage Gemini & ChatGPT to constantly stay up to date on trends in your relevant markets. Bonus if you can keep trying new products in your space and be able to articulate the user journeys and pain points. 3. Showcase your leadership in various aspects of your personal and professional; journey: Whether it was leading an effort in a nonprofit group, or in an extracurricular, or work - reflect on leadership journey and be able to articulate how you would bring that to the organization you are interviewing for. 4. Demonstrate your passion to learn & be open to feedback: With the fast changing technology and world landscape, hiring managers want candidates who will go above and beyond to learn. Demonstrate your approach to learning new skills and how you would continue incorporating learning in your day to day. 5. Get effective at using data & metrics: Critical in today’s PM role is leveraging data to augment key decisions. Be able to illustrate how you leveraged data in your past roles / projects. Think of building your data skillset just as you would build your technical and domain skill set - learn different tools for data analysis, dashboards, and best practices for metrics that matter in your domain.

There is a a shift from from execution to influence & strategy. Earlier in your career you are often helping drive the product to launch and collaborating with a large group of stakeholders to make it happen. As you become more senior, your role shifts to influencing product strategy based on your experiences from the market, competitors, and customers. In this phase you have to be effective at defining and articulating the strategy, then influencing across the organization to adopt, and then leading various cross-functional teams to drive execution, metrics, and long term success. Additionally as you get more senior you have to be looking ahead 18-36 months to really set your product vision up for long term differentiation. 

Develop a product mindset: For early career PMs from a skillset perspective, choose whether consumer, enterprise, or developer products appeal to you the most. Do a side project and build your own! Pick a few products with that persona (e.g, pick three of your favorite consumer tech products) and understand how users interact with the product, the pain points they face, what could be improved, industry trends driving that product. Your goal is to start developing some understanding on market trends and how user experiences could be improved. Look for established PM programs: For early career PMs from a recruitment perspective, look for established PM or APM programs with good career development programs & mentors. PM can be different in every company you go to and learning the art of PM at a larger company first and then applying it at earlier stage companies later in your career can serve you well. From an interview perspective, great resources exist online for PM interviews, developing a PM oriented mindset etc. I personally feel product management is a better suited career after a few years of experience in a domain building role (e.g, software engineer, PMM etc). As a PM if you can bring a point of view on the domain you will be operating in and some experience of the market, user, tools and GTM motion it will enable you to be a more empowered PM.

Great question. In my personal career journey as well as several hires I’ve made I’ve always found it helpful to try the new role before you go all in. When I was at a startup where we didn’t have well defined programs like Google’s 20% program or PM rotations, I asked to work with the PM team for 6 months on the side where I took on some of the PM responsibilities for a non-critical product. By doing so, I personally got conviction if the role was right for me and the PM team also got to see me in action. This made my transition much easier and also helped me come in at a more senior role. Similarly I’ve made hires who had a similar path - they often either did a 20% project or a full time rotation - and this helped make a case for their PM transition. If your organization doesn’t have formal programs to try the PM career path I’d encourage you to network with PM leads you are close to and see if such a project could be developed.

When you receive critical feedback that you don't fully agree with or don't know how to act on, it can be challenging and discouraging. For feedback to be effective, I find it needs to be timely and based on examples. It can be helpful to have a conversation with your boss about working styles and preferences around giving and receiving feedback. You might suggest: * Timely feedback: Requesting that feedback be given closer to the event (e.g., after a meeting or presentation) so you can act on it more effectively. * Concrete examples: Asking for specific examples of where you could improve, especially when themes or patterns emerge in the feedback. This helps ensure the feedback is actionable. * Written feedback plan: Suggesting a written development plan to ensure both of you are clear on what needs to be addressed and how you’ll work on it. * Requesting positive & improvement feedback: Important in feedback is to have a kind and respectful relationship. Often it is good to call out to your manager how positive feedback helps you do your job better and this can also help provide a more balanced view. This can help you and your boss understand each other’s communication style better and make the feedback process more productive. It also gives you a chance to reflect on whether the feedback is valid or if you need to discuss your perspective more clearly. If you still don’t agree with the feedback you can push back with examples of why you see things differently. The book Radical Candor has some great tips on this topic.

Love this question. User research is critical to incorporate throughout the funnel journey for a PM - from awareness, to consideration, to decision. * Awareness: During this phase we want to understand how prospects are learning about your product. For example, do they resonate with the messaging and positioning on your website, do they understand the market you play in, do they understand the problem you are looking to solve? This type of research can be conducted often at trade shows, through surveys, anonymous interviews, new generative AI tools to look at user review, and other marketing driven & community events. In the case of PLG products - data can play a critical role. For example what was the click through journey of your prospect, which pages did they spend the most time on etc. * Consideration: During this phase we want to understand what type of buying decisions a prospect is considering in the purchase of your product or new feature. This is often the most difficult to do direct research on as it can be hard to identify when a prospect is in this phase. I find secondary proxies here who are interacting with your prospects in this phase extremely valuable - for example the sales & sales engineering teams, & channel partners. * Retention: Once a prospect has purchased a product, this research helps us understand what will help a customer retain usage and expand footprint. Example forums for this type of user research include small customer advisory boards, private preview feature feedback, UX design sessions, customer success & support manager feedback, user questions & trends on online support communities. 

I currently work in the intersection of enterprise security & AI and it is incredible to see the use cases that have emerged for AI in this space. * User research: As I mentioned in one of the earlier questions, AI tools can be a fantastic source to understand user trends, market, and competitive trends. For example, you can take a look at online user reviews for your product to understand key functionalities and usability gaps. * Product functionality: Within security SaaS we often use the framework of detect, investigate, and resolve. AI is changing each of these experiences from a product development perspective. For example within ‘detect’ AI is enabling us to develop product experiences which help organizations more proactively understand attacks their orgs are more vulnerable to. Leveraging machine learning and external data sources we can provide scores to attacks to help understand how significant a vulnerability truly is. Within remediation AI helps to develop automated playbooks based on other similar playbooks that can help users more quickly resolve issues and get external data about how other orgs are resolving the issue. * AI experiences: In addition to augmenting the security workflow to make it more productive and effective, gen AI is also enabling us to create net new experiences for prospects and customers. For example if an organization doesn’t have the security skillset to complete one of the tasks across detect/investigate/resolve - what is the role AI could play here in filling the gap? How can AI be leveraged to empower shift left security in an organization so that developers are encouraged to incorporate security from the get go in their designs? There is so much potential for how AI can fundamentally change the product development process and excited to see all the innovation organizations bring to their products over the next two years.