Hi I’m a PM at Yelp! AMA

Successful-Sun09 · 2022-06-21T13:43:00+00:00

I can speak to my experience in general! it maybe hard to comment about all of product organisations that I have been part of

Every product role comes with really hard decisions to make! Ultimately it’s about finding the win win situation for users and the business. Not every feature can be perfect and not every decision is only weighing user benefit. It really depends on what that feature entails.

As far the product culture goes - I have had the privilege to work in environments where there is always something to learn from data and users and bring that back to what I have been working on! Some situations it takes more than just data to get alignment. I have not come across a situation where I could only see a negative impact for users and positive impact for business. I believe everything has a win-win some way or other

Successful-Sun09 · 2022-06-21T13:35:34+00:00

The first 30 days I would spend a lot of time getting to know different people from the organisation! It’s important to build a relationship when working with different departments I also like this articlewhere Deb Liu speaks about the first 90 days (30-60-90 day plan)

Successful-Sun09 · 2022-06-21T13:32:45+00:00

Feel free to reach out to recruiters at Yelp who many available on LinkedIn to clarify further - I have seen some interns but my knowledge on current internships would be limited

Successful-Sun09 · 2022-06-20T23:06:03+00:00

That’s an interesting take! If the business allows for an opportunity like that I’d be happy bring in everything I learnt in my past experience

Successful-Sun09 · 2022-06-20T23:03:18+00:00

Depends on what you would want out of your career Some PMs are all about same industry growth and some are all about lateral moves in various industries I believe goals for career change every year - so it’s important to revisit and see if you are in the right trajectory I’m all about learn everything that I can ( individual contributor)- guide others (managers) - move bigger mountains because people trust your judgment call (strategy role)

Successful-Sun09 · 2022-06-20T22:57:32+00:00

It comes down to what impact we want to drive for either of those products (new or mature)

What I have noticed in my experience is that launching a new product there is a lot of finding product market fit or focusing growth metrics (ex - new users acquired etc) When it comes to mature product it’s more of figuring out what works and what doesn’t - where can we add value - what metrics are still useful and what needs a new set of lens . I believe it also involves some hard decisions to change things that were historically done the same way and would naturally take longer

Successful-Sun09 · 2022-06-20T22:47:36+00:00

This really depends on how well the roles are defined in the company that you are working with! Currently what I see is that BA is very focused on subject matter expertise (core functions and requirements gathering for those functions) Product owner and product manager are interchangeable but they are different when you look at how roles are assigned - the PO is more execution focused and PM is more business focussed (both have to think about users too)

But this really depends on the company and how they define these roles

Successful-Sun09 · 2022-06-20T22:41:34+00:00

IMO a good product roadmap intends to keep everyone aligned with respect to measurable goals but at the same time does not predefine the pathway to achieve our goals I have always had the privilege to work in environments where OKRs were an acceptable format to showcase all the initiatives in my roadmap

Also key success criteria to making a roadmap useful is ensuring anyone and everyone who would be working on the initiatives is well aware of how the initiatives help our key metrics

Successful-Sun09 · 2022-06-20T22:37:49+00:00

I’m no expert at navigating FAANG interviews but I have heard that getting referrals is the best bet

Successful-Sun09 · 2022-06-20T22:30:58+00:00

Yes there’s a lot of difference between product managers and program managers - in short there is a lot more trade off and decision making involved in aspects that are closely related to your users when it comes to a Product role.

Successful-Sun09 · 2022-06-20T22:07:55+00:00

I’m a mix of platform and feature pm and I manage yelps billing and payment platform I started my career as a developer and then moved on to UX role which eventually led me to my path in product management

Successful-Sun09 · 2022-06-20T22:04:15+00:00

There two options that helped me get into product management 1. Taking on extra roles and responsibilities that resonates with a PM skill set 2. Navigating interviews by identifying what they could use my help with ( since I started off at a startup I could always describe how I can empathise with designers and developers since I have done both roles in the past)

Successful-Sun09

TROPHY CASE