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Sidhharth Surana | Ninjacart
Hello everyone, my name is Siddharth Surana and today, I am going to tell you guys more about Product Management - the selection criterion and day-to-day life in a PM/ APM’s role. I did my summer internship in the PM profile at Ninjacart.
Why Product Management?
Deciding what your career will be is almost as challenging as the question, "Tell me something about yourself." That is unless you are into core chemical - but I’ve been through this phase, done that.
First of all, Product Management, in general, is a fascinating field that is still in its growing stage. Many companies also refer to their PMs as Mini CEOs or Product Owners. Someone good at problem-solving with the right mix of good analytical and observational skills would find the stream or branch an exciting choice for their career. Important to note:
there are no predefined tasks or work opportunities in product management; it changes on a company-to-company basis. Each has a different concept of product management, and you need to fit in the designed mold.
Interview Prep
Before going on with the tasks and daily schedule, I would like to tell you about the interview process and how you can prepare well for the same. Any product hiring process is briefly an assignment consisting of a deck/ case study, followed by two interview rounds. These rounds are held mainly by other PMs and senior-level Product employees, such as the AVP or VP Products. The second interviewer could potentially be the founder, depending upon whether it's a company or a startup. A word of advice: try to get clarity on the roles in the interview round, as these are very variable, and ask questions specifically related to their application or product role.
Ninjacart Internship
Ninjacart is a company looking to transition from service-based to product-based, in the agriculture sector. It is a relatively new company in the product space, following one thought rigorously: "You fail, but you fail fast." We all know that startups have neither more time nor money. You need to adjust to the work culture - believe me, it's fast. You don't get a resting period, like the first week of joining. You are expected to get on with the allotted work from the 2nd day onwards; in my case, this was the scene.
Collaborating in the Office
On a day-to-day basis, my interaction would be with the three departments: Business, Data Analytics, and App Development. For any given feature, we work with our Product Data Team to provide all the relevant data to validate the feature market requirement and its success rate in competitor companies. In coordination with the Business Team, we get the user feedback for the given feature. Lastly, the App Development Team will implement the feature in the app. Apart from these, PRD and Market Fit Analysis were also included in my tasks at regular times.
To be a good PM, you should be good at these things apart from problem-solving and observational skills:
Communication and ability to get your work done. There are different stakeholders and you must ensure the hard deadlines are met.
Multi-tasking. There will be times when you will be asked to work on different tasks with equal importance.
PS: Ye saara gyaan about good PM is strictly from my experience. As I mentioned, the sell of prod management is its uniqueness, it can vary from case to case. I hope I was able to give you clarity on product management as a career. If you still have questions, I will be happy to connect with you!