S3E2: Remote Realities: Product Management in a Hybrid World with Flora Taagen

In this insightful episode, Karl Abbott sits down with Flora Taagen, a product manager on the Azure Linux team at Microsoft. Flora shares her unconventional journey into product management, the lessons she’s learned along the way, and her perspective on the evolving nature of work and technology in 2025.

Topics Covered

• Flora’s Path to Product Management
• Transferable Skills from Unexpected Places
• Advice for Aspiring PMs
• Remote Work vs. Distributed Teams
• AI’s Impact on Product Management
• Looking Ahead

Key Quotes

• “I think that empathy and creative problem solving and satisfying customer needs are all deeply transferable skills.”
• “I found it very valuable to spend the first few minutes of my one-on-ones with my fully remote colleagues, just chatting and catching up and not jumping straight into work.”
• “Even if some team members are physically in person in a conference room together, I really appreciate when everyone still joins the Teams call individually and turns on their camera.”

Resources Mentioned

• Cracking the PM Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell & Jackie Bavaro
• Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) for open source contributions
• Microsoft Teams, GitHub Copilot, and other AI productivity tools

Connect with Flora

LinkedIn – Flora Taagen -- https://www.linkedin.com/in/florataagen/