October 10, 2020 • 46 mins
Product Managers are a key part of modern software companies all over the world, but very few people can tell you exactly what it is they do. Lucky for you, we've found a friendly PM who's willing to break it down. Jonathan Katahanas has been working in product management for SaaS applications at Atlassian for more than three years since graduating from Business/Commerce at UQ and he's dropped by to chat to Liv about his journey and how fulfilling acting as the bridge between users and developers (and working at Atlassian) can be.
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Intro/Outro Music: Awesome Call by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3399-awesome-call
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to the rata, the official podcast
of the UK competing society,where we explore the human side
of tech.
I'm your host, Olivia.
And on this week's episode,we'll be talking to John about
their experience at a lesson asa product manager.
(00:27):
Alright, so tell me a little bitabout yourself, Johnny.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Uh, so my name is Jonah.
I'm a product manager at Lassieand I've been at LaSeon for
about three and a bit years now.
Um, I moved to, I was originallyfrom Brisbane, so a UK student,
um, I move to Lausanne, stoppedworking in kind of early 2017.
(00:54):
And my current role is I PM.
Um, what's called the cloudeditor.
So we have building a editingcomponent that we are rolling
out across all of our cloudproducts over time.
Uh, the big consumers of it atthe moment, a conference in JIRA
(01:15):
and the kind of the underlyinggoal is to create this familiar
editing, like content creationand consumption experience
across, uh, across all of ourproducts.
So it's been a fun journey.
I took over the editor.
It was one team of about 12people early February, last year
(01:36):
or third March last year.
Uh, and we're now at 40 plusengineers.
There's four teams now, um, IPMtwo of them, and it's been
quite, quite a steep learningcurve of, uh, it's a insanely
technically complex componentwith just so many dependencies.
(01:59):
It's been a really fun journey.
Um, and yeah, it came from, Icame through their grad grad
program, which I can talk aboutlater if you want.
And then prior to that, I didn'tstudy a technical degree.
I kind of wish I did.
Um, but I didn't spend a lot oftime.
I studied business and commerce.
(02:21):
Joel didn't do a lot of work atuni, but spent a lot of time
working outside.
So I worked at companies likered hat and then my final year
at uni, I worked full time, uh,Microsoft running their
innovation center, where Ibasically looked after how
Microsoft engaged and supportedthe startup ecosystem in
(02:42):
Queensland, which is pretty funexperience.
That's my, uh, that's my TLD.
Uh, it's not too exciting.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I think, I think it's very cool.
I feel like you've, you'veworked at like in a lot of, um,
very like impactful roles.
I feel like throughout your timefrom, um, handling startups with
Microsoft and then like now likemanaging two teams that it
(03:10):
lasts.
I think it's very cool.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Oh, thank you
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Too short there.
Um, so I guess you, you startedstudying business in Comez.
How did you kind of switch overto the more, I guess, like to
work for more tech-relatedcompanies or what kind of
prompted you to do that as well?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Good question.
I actually wanted to do medicineinitially.
I have a, a lot of familymembers who like in the medical
industry.
Um, and I, I grew up, my dadused to spend most of the year
laying in a third world countrycalled Solomon Islands.
So I lived there for a bit andthey like health system.
(04:02):
I don't know if I'm meant toswear on this podcast, but it
was pretty fucked.
Uh, it's still pretty fucked.
Um, so that I was reallypassionate about wanting to go
into medicine and I got back onthe head, I got no P three,
which wasn't good enough to getintimate.
And I was really fortunate atthe time.
A lot of my friends who didn'tget into med kept going and
(04:24):
trying to go through the wholegrad process, uh, through uni.
Um, but like throughout my,throughout my childhood,
throughout my schooling years, Iwas just really interested in
technology.
I just thought it was supercool.
Um, and I decided to then pursuea, I started with a business and
(04:49):
law degree, cause I didn't wantto just do business.
Um, but never wanted to be alawyer.
I love my dad who is one.
I was like, that is not for me.
I switched courses a bunch oftimes.
Um, and yeah, like I said, Ididn't really spend a lot of
time at uni, but it was a goodfunction for me to be able to
(05:10):
discover the things that Iliked.
So I think that the best thingfor me and what, like what made
me realize I love tech was Ijust tried a heap of things.
When I was at uni, I worked abunch of different jobs.
I did things that were just funto me.
So I like what does a personaltrainer part time?
Cause it was good money.
And I like, I used to play a lotof competitive sport.
(05:34):
I worked at mellow, uh, likeselling coffee veins and then I
just did a heap of differentinternships.
So I was in at red hat.
I was more on the marketing sideand I found that really cool.
Uh, as an opensource softwarecompany, the people there were
just so passionate about thewhole, uh, reason an ethos
(05:55):
behind open source software.
And that really peaked myinterest because I hadn't ever
been exposed or even knew whatopen source software was before
that, um, all the way throughto, I ended up a very good
friend of mine from school.
Uh, he runs hardware teams overin mountain view for Google.
Uh, and we worked together on astartup with another person and
(06:19):
that was more on thetechnological side of things.
And I think it was just, I waskind of like fortunate exposure
to it.
And I got introduced.
I was fortunate to meet a bunchof people that had come through,
uh, the technology world workinghere and over in the States and
like looking back to when I talkabout my interest in inside
(06:41):
medicine and growing up, beingexposed to several countries, I
guess another big realization Ihad when I was quite young was
just like our infrastructure.
And, um, even though you couldargue a lot of government's
technology sucks, it's still alot better than other places.
And a lot of the things that wehave as a first world country
(07:04):
with technology that isaccessible really feeds into our
ability to live a prettypositive life, um, here.
So I started to realize thatthere was something there and
like the thing that I just foundcool to read about was actually
something that I could do as ajob.
Um, and just spent more and moretime in the technology space.
(07:26):
And I think it got to a pointwhere I didn't do it a technical
degree.
Um, so I wasn't totally surewhere I could go in the
technology space and I realized,and I don't know if you're going
to ask me where I moved to kindof the PM side of things, but I
realized as I was researchingdifferent places that I could do
(07:48):
internships that, um, when I waslooking at Alaska and a company
that I really admired, um, Ilooked through all of the
internships and there's thisthing called product management
was really the only thing thathad some level of business slant
to it.
And I was like, what sounds kindof cool.
So I applied to it and I'm like,I'm really glad I did because
(08:11):
it's been the perfect match ofbeing able to apply technology
and build solutions for peoplethat have some level of impact
in their life.
Like arguably building a issuetracker may not be as impactful
as like doing eye surgery.
Um, but I think it enablespeople to build the tools that
(08:33):
then allow people to do thatsort of stuff.
So in a button, uh, it does, it,it does have a huge impact on
society and yeah, just slowlymoved into, I was kind of
fortunate that I landed in arole that was this mishmash of
everything that I liked from allthe random internships I did and
(08:53):
not much other things I like,uh, and allowed me to, to work
on really cool technology withreally cool and smart,
interesting people.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
That's very cool.
I think it's, um, a very good,good journey because it is, you
don't have to basically study toactively involved in the tech
side of things.
And I feel like, um, you, like,you're a perfect example of like
how you can still, um, becomereally involved in tech if
you're, if you're interested init.
(09:25):
Uh, so I guess, like I kind ofaround your interest in tech,
what technology has like got youexcited for the future, or would
you be excited to work on?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
What's an interesting one.
I felt like it's a, to an extenttechnology, the technology is
exciting.
So things like if you can useand relate data in, in certain
(09:58):
ways as, as you know, there's ahuge amount of opportunity
there.
And like, I don't want to throwaround buzzwords like AI and ML,
but there is like data is themodern day gold.
It's just a matter of figuringout how to use it in a moral,
secure, private way that it cangreatly impact in a positive way
(10:23):
people's lives and how they dowork.
And just have I exist as a humanbeing on a day to day, but
equally like anything, it's a,it's a tool it's a resource and
people can use it in the wrongway, even if they don't mean to.
Um, so it's kind of this funbalancing act of finding out how
to take something that's sovaluable and turn it into
(10:43):
something that's equallyvaluable for the people that are
giving it to you.
Um, so that interests me when Isay like the biggest thing where
it find my interest intechnology is kind of where the
people come together with thetechnology.
Like, I'd say if I, if I thinkabout my day to day work and
what the future holds for me,the thing that excites me is I
(11:05):
have this amazing group ofpeople that are really
passionate about differentpieces of technology and
different problems to solve.
It's more the problems thatexcite me, that technology
enables.
Um, so yeah, I, I would take funof like, uh, I would potentially
not answer your question.
So what excites me are, uh, theability for us to continue
(11:29):
solving problems in new and funways.
And if I was to give an answerabout what technology is
interesting to me, uh, I woulddefinitely say understanding how
to use data in a moral way todeliver value to people.
It's kind of cool to me.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
For sure.
So I'm kind of looking, lookingback then.
What, what, what have you beenreally passionate to work on?
What have been your pastprojects that you've really
enjoyed?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Um, so I can give you kind of a journey of said last.
And when I came in, I startedworking on, I was like a road
mapping tool, um, which hasturned into our like premium
offering for JIRA.
So it basically allows teams tobuild out ride maps.
(12:25):
And that was like, what Ienjoyed about that was the
people listening, maybe theproblem space.
And I'm sorry to, to my managerat the time, but I really
enjoyed the people.
I was most passionate about whatwe were shipping at the time,
even now looking back now, it'sreally fucking cool.
Um, then I moved briefly intothe mobile space, which I found
(12:45):
really interesting.
Um, I worked on IPM, the JIRAmobile apps across Android and
iOS.
Um, again, that was, I thinkwhat I found super interesting
when I look back at my I'mstill, in my early years, it was
more the linings that I washaving versus the actual work I
was doing.
(13:06):
Um, but I really loved beingable to work on mobile.
It's such a like important pieceof how people go about their day
to day life.
Um, I think about the thing I'mmost passionate about is what
I'm on now.
Um, I get really excited aboutstuff that I can like for me to
understand impact.
I think I, to an extent have touse it.
(13:26):
And the editor, like the waythat you create conference, uh,
content in confluence, the waythat you read content, uh, in
JIRA, et cetera, like issomething that I used on a day
to day basis.
We were rolling out a new, thisnew experience and it was
probably a little bit painfuland had a bit to read quite a
lot of improvement that wasrequired.
(13:48):
Um, so I felt a bunch of thatpain when I was in other teams
and I was like, I want to beother side of that.
And it was super exciting for meto go in and work with people to
solve some pretty gnarlyproblems.
And then specifically, likefeature-wise thing, that's been
super exciting.
We have this concept ofSmartLinks and basically it's,
(14:09):
there's a problem out therewhere like today there is an
explosion of SAS apps, but sohistorically they would be like
people would buy kind of quite a, uh, contained suite of tools.
So they would buy like sayMicrosoft tools and then use
Excel for a heap of differentthings.
(14:30):
They use it for charting.
They'd use it for analytics, I'duse it for reporting, like all
these different things.
And now we're in a world wherethere was so many specialists,
SAS apps.
So all of those things that hasmentioned that Excel could do
like kind of, well, there areapps that just specialize on one
part of that.
So like amplitude is a tool thatjust does analytics and
(14:53):
reporting really, really well.
And because of that, like thebenefit is we now have these
amazing specialized tools to dospecific parts of the journey of
the work that we have to do, butit also creates a heap of
context switching.
So no longer are we in one ortwo apps to do all that work
we're in 10 20, 30 apps.
(15:15):
Um, and this just requires us tomove between them.
So smiling's basically is tryingto, we're trying to solve the
problem of how do we reduce theneed to context switch.
And the first part of that hasbeen, we've created, we've built
like services and common UI thatenable us to pull in URL back
(15:36):
data from various providersaround the web, um, like get hub
like Dropbox, like Google andthen show, show them in our
products in rich, contextualways, everywhere from like a
very small there's like inlineview, which is simply like we
pull in favicon and, um, thetitle metadata, and then
(16:00):
automatically resolve that forpeople all the way down to a
user can choose to like switchthat view to a full embed, to
make an embedded design orembedded amplitude charts.
So people don't have to clickout of a conference page to go
do that.
And that whole process has been,we've kind of gotten to this
(16:20):
pretty amazing site recentlywhere we invested a lot in
building out the underlyingarchitecture and services that
power, this thing it's nowgotten to a point where like one
dev can spend half a day andbuild a new integration that
then immediately works acrossconfluence, JIRA, Trello,
(16:41):
Bitbucket for like millions andmillions of users.
So as an example, we spent aweek with seven devs three weeks
ago, and we built 11 newintegrations for fall.
So we have, we added likesupport for Salesforce and
Intercom and a lot of bigproviders that immediately
(17:03):
worked across four of ourproducts.
Um, and it took almost no timejust because of the, the way
that we architected it underthe, under the covers.
And then that problem kind ofextends to, um, when you think
about context switching, thewhole idea of showing rich
previews is interesting forconsumers of the content.
So as arena means you don't haveto then move outside of your
(17:25):
context outside of a conferencepage.
Um, but as a creator of thatcontent, there's still this
problem of trying to bringcontent into a page or into a
JIRA ticket from a third party.
So we've been looking into, um,and spiking, which I don't know
if you know the concept ofspiking, it's basically writing
(17:45):
some hacky spaghetti code tofigure out if something is, uh,
is viable.
We'll have, we could build it intesting like technical
assumptions.
We've made working on trying tounderstand how we can create in
product search that allows youto search across all the
products you interface with,whether they're inside of LaSeon
tools or saying Google.
(18:06):
So what's an example of a userin a conference page.
Who'd be like, I need to bringin a Google drive file and
really easily just search it inconfluence and pull that in
without having to leave thepage.
So that whole, that whole areaof there's a shitload of apps
now that people use in a cloudfirst world, and we need to
(18:27):
address the need to context,which is definitely the thing
that is by far the most excitingfor me at the moment that was a
massive brain dump.
So I apologize.
I hope you followed that.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah, that was good.
Um, it's, it's very interestingto hear about how the, how old
they integrations kind of workbecause I like, I use confluence
a little bit, um, uh, at my workand, um, they do have a lot of
integrations that's for sure.
I think you can pretty much addanything to it, which is very
(18:59):
cool.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah.
This takes like a slightlydifferent slant on that, which I
want to go into, but I'm happyto discuss this at another time.
Yeah.
Kind of trying to build thenative phages versus things that
you have to go.
And there's also a lot offriction and users having to
find apps they want to thenintegrate with it last in, we
(19:23):
kind of build under the four DSintegration.
So it just feels like thiscommon native experience within
our products.
And you will start if you'reusing cloud, you'll start to see
these roll out over time.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Very cool.
Um, so I guess like, um, kind ofa different, a different topic,
more focusing on like, cause youworked a lot during university.
Um, how did you find, I guessyour university preparing you
for work or did you find that itwas more like the experience
(19:57):
that you got while you were atuniversity, like for external
things that really helped you?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Maybe if I did a different degree, like COMSOL
have a different answer for you,but I would say I found the
content of my calls prettypointless.
Like you learn some like coreconcepts that are definitely
valuable at the end of the day,it was like a piece of paper
that helped me get a job.
What was valuable was theability for over an extended
(20:26):
period of time with the, likethe student label on me, I was
able to get a lot of experienceand was allowed, allowed me to
get the jobs that I have today.
Like not if I hadn't have goneto uni, I wouldn't know as much
in terms of content that Ilearned at uni, but I probably
(20:48):
wouldn't be that bad off.
Um, but the difference is I justwouldn't have had the time and
the ability to go and learnthings outside of uni.
Um, so my, I, I definitelylearned by doing in my, the
things that I find the mostvaluable, uh, have really been
things that I've learned outsidethe uni space.
When I got really good, I'vebeen very fortunate to have some
(21:11):
awesome mentors over the years.
And, uh, a lot of the ones thatI had in the very early days, he
sits on boards of companies overin the Valley in us.
And he was like, then so manypeople, especially students, I
look up like mom's talking bugand bill Gates.
(21:32):
And they're like, well, theydropped out at uni and then just
created these amazing techempires.
But they're like be very, very,very, very, very minute, few.
And it's not to say that you'renot going to get there, but, um,
especially in the tech industrynowadays, there's just so much
competition for jobs.
(21:53):
And when he was in seniorpositions in, in large
corporations and he was like thefirst thing that a lot of the
time they do, and this was anumber of years ago.
So it may change.
It probably changes to an extenttoday, but they'll basically
just look at the ones that havea degree and look at the ones
that done.
And that's their first, theirfirst cut of continue looking at
(22:18):
for jobs and her did not workout.
So they just stick the ones thatdon't have a degree in a pile on
the side and kind of forgetabout them, say, Hey, it was
like, kind of sucks.
But if anything, having thatpiece of paper helps.
Um, and I'd say that like, thatstill exists today, at least in
that last scene.
So I'm one of the leads for ourassociate product management
program, which is like our twoyear rotational PM, um, program.
(22:43):
And I've just been through thehiring process.
I'm currently placing insideteams in it last year, uh,
interns and grads that we've,that we find.
Um, and throughout that process,we definitely look for ones that
has degrees.
So I think most around that out,it really comes down to, uh, it
(23:05):
sucks, but I don't think theworld yet is at a place where,
uh, unless you start somethingyourself, as you're looking for
a job at a company like lastyear and Google, et cetera,
we're in a smaller place havingsomething behind you, a piece of
paper behind you, so that you'vecommitted to university is
pretty crucial.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Yeah, for sure.
I guess like, um, on, on thetopic of like, uh, like you
said, you received likementorship while you at
university, and that was likereally valuable.
How did you actually find thosementors or how you create those
connections
Speaker 2 (23:46):
With people that supported you and you'll like
learning and all of that stuff.
That's a good question.
Um, thanks, firstly.
I was like lucky to beintroduced to people by people.
I knew that I think that was abit of coincidence there.
Second part is I'm probably abit of a, a Dick.
(24:11):
I, I, uh, I have no issues.
Like I don't really seehierarchy or have issues just
going up to someone and askingthem something.
So I would, if I found someoneinteresting that heard talk or
(24:33):
even found some interestingonline, like I would literally
just call email, um, called, uh,message them on LinkedIn.
And I think the thing that Ilearned that helped me the most
is the fact that you're astudent, like people, no matter
how senior they are, how busythey are, if you play the
student card and you word arequest in the right way.
(24:58):
A lot of the time in likesurprisingly surprisingly lodged
hit right of people will, willagree to have a chat to you.
Um, and like generally I have, Iliterally had like a templated
email where I would say like,hello, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah.
I'd find out something aboutthem and tell them that I was
(25:21):
like super interested in whatthey were doing.
And, um, I talk about likesomething along the lines of how
basically I'm kinda new to thewhole world and I don't really
know that much.
And I'm really looking to, um,learn from people that, uh,
leaders in the field and havebeen there, done that.
Um, and I asked them for, I havelike a really specific ask of
(25:44):
like, would you be, I knowyou're super busy, but would you
be willing to have a quick 30minute chat?
So I can ask you some questionsabout blah, blah, blah.
And then I always would say, Ialways try to offer them.
I always show that I want tooffer them something, but I
don't really have anything tooffer in return.
So I generally have a line thatwas like, I not really sure what
(26:06):
I can provide in return, but Ihope that like what you teach
me, I'll be able to pass on tosomeone in the future and then
I'll close it out.
But yeah, if you really hit thethings that I found more
successful, a play the studentcard really hard, um, be really
humble about, you know, no shitand, uh, and really drive home
(26:30):
the point that you want to learnfrom them.
Because if you tell someone yourespect them and you wanna learn
from them, that usually givesthem the warm fuzzies, um, and
then B and you have to begenuine about it that you want
to offer them something inreturn, but you really can't.
You don't know what you canoffer, but you'll pass it on to
other people.
And I'd say like a lot of thepeople that have seen around the
(26:52):
world have had help in the pastand the people you want advice
for people that are arrogantassholes, and generally those
sort of people will give uptheir time to have a chat to
you.
So that was, I think it wasaround out that question in my
early morning, Friday ramblingways was I was fortunate in that
(27:16):
I knew people, uh, thatintroduced me to people when I
was very, like, never be afraidto ask, but I knew someone that
knew someone.
I would just say, if you'recomfortable, please introduce
me.
And then I'd also cold emailpeople.
And that worked really well.
I've set up a speaker series atAlaska and now for our grads.
And we've had everyone in fromlike cofounders of LinkedIn to
(27:39):
heads of, like they say, GoogleVC, they're like part of their
venture capital arm.
Um, and it was really a mixtureof trying to find people that
they knew or literally just coldemailing them.
So never be afraid to do that.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah.
I feel like it's almost a littlebit similar with the podcast as
well.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah.
You're a great example of how todo this.
I'm just not very seniorexciting, but it's the same
concept.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Cool.
Um, yeah, I guess, I guess likebringing it back to the, the
work side of things.
Um, I think we'll move on alittle bit to talk a bit more
about like a lesson itself,cause I'm sure a lot of, uh,
listeners are pretty interestedin a bit more what it's like to
work at Alessia and what thekind of like the culture is and
(28:32):
from a firsthand employee.
Um, so I guess how would youdescribe like the culture in the
workplace at Alaskan
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Culture and just like the general day to day, this is
going to sound super cliche, butI would say that at last in,
I've worked at a lot of placesthat I'd love and I would
recommend people work for redhat at the drop of a hat.
Microsoft was amazing, but theywere, they were amazing and like
(29:08):
aquatic corporate way, like forbig, big enterprises, they were
just good people that we workedwith.
I'd say like Atlassian is quitedifferent in that the culture
and the values that you see.
Like we have values of like opencompany, no bullshit players, a
team, et cetera, like seek firstto understand all these things,
um, really is kind of lived byto the point where we have a
(29:37):
really strong, uh, blogging orjust like open collaboration
culture.
So you will write a page andpeople from everywhere would
start commenting on a likeproviding advice or feedback.
And then we have people willblog about every part of their
life from like having massivedepressive episodes to, um, um,
(30:05):
their experiences being trans tothey're having a baby to they're
taking time off for some reason,until like a big company
announcement and people are justsuper open and super supportive
of each other.
Um, and also happy to, like, youcan have like golden flame Wars,
(30:26):
you're going to have someserious flyballs on, on
confluence, which doesn't putyou at risk of getting, getting,
let go, or getting into trouble.
Um, but people really go at it.
And it's, it's awesome becauseit's quite a, a, a, I guess an
open, safe culture where you canjust say it, how you see it and
(30:51):
disagree with someone.
Um, and a blog.
A recent blog is actually areally good when we talk about
like kind of inclusiveness.
There's a blog that, um, oneabout LG BTI, que uh, members of
our, um, community shared aboutlike, this is the first job.
(31:12):
It, literally, I read ityesterday is the first job where
they felt comfortable, likecoming to work and being
themselves to the point wherelike one day they just rocked up
to work in these really quiteeccentric, tight, small pride
pants.
Um, and then he was in a liftwith Scott and Scott just to add
to him and was like, you lookfabulous.
(31:32):
Um, and I think that like kindof a Peter Mises, our culture of
you can be who you are.
You can say what you think.
And obviously like, there's aline there.
You don't want to be an awful,um, but it is a very open
culture of sharing.
I'd say the other thing thatlike, I really love is it's a
super flat hierarchy.
(31:52):
So like Microsoft, they're stillvery, there's a very obvious
hierarchy and there is anobvious hierarchy like Scott and
Mike bought a fan of this andthere's VPs, et cetera, but you
can talk to any of them, like asa grad, I was presenting and in
rooms with Scott and Mike andhaving like sparring, which is
kind of like our feedbacksessions with them.
(32:13):
So there's this super, like, youare just viewed as an employee,
like everyone else and show thatyou have a title, but you get
responsibility.
And I'm like, what you have tosay is important.
Um, so that was super, that's asuper cool part of it.
And then the last thing that Ithink, like I've been very
fortunate where the person thathired me to it and is one of my
best friends in Sydney now.
(32:35):
So my first team that I landedin, uh, uh, my closest friends
in Sydney, I lived with one ofthem for 18 months before I
moved in with my girlfriend, ourwhole team, that whole team,
like the OJ team just spent twoweeks working from Byron.
Literally we came back a weekago.
(32:55):
Um, so I'd say like theconnections that you build, and
I don't know how to articulatethis, but the friendships you
can organically build it at lastyear, just given the, uh, the
environment that it LaSeon seemsto create.
(33:15):
I don't know how it happens, butit just does, um, really leads
to like quite fruitfulrelationships.
Um, and then there's all theother things like they treat you
so well, you get compensatedexceedingly well.
Um, you get, and we're veryfortunate in that extent, you
(33:37):
get really great benefits.
Like when we were in the office,it was we'd get food, like
amazing parties, literally allthe time.
They would just go out of theirway to make our life amazing.
Um, but now that we're home,they've gone out of their way to
make it life amazing here.
They've given us like prettysignificant budgets to set up
our home.
(33:58):
Um, they're constantly, likewe're now allowed to work
anywhere in the world.
They just announced that movingforward, even after COVID, and
they've been very open about,like, they're trying to figure
out how to do this remote workanywhere in the world thing,
long term really well.
So like what benefits they giveus, um, how we actually do work,
like what devices they need togive us.
(34:19):
And they have an open page wherethey have like all the decisions
that haven't made.
I need to everything from likehow they compensate us to blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah.
And as I make the decisions andlike they thinking I'm most
decisions, I just appear on thatpage and they're super open
about it.
So I'd say like, they really goout of their way unbelievably.
(34:39):
So to look after you, and thisteething problems is like, like
anything, especially where acompany that's just exploded and
continues to grow.
It just an absurd pace in termsof number of employees with
figuring out how to get biggeras a company while it's not
losing touch with our culture.
(35:01):
Um, so yeah, it's not likealways sunshine, like rainbows
and lollipops, but it's prettyfucking awesome.
And I'm the sort of person thatwill call it out and see it.
So I didn't think so.
You'd be the first to know, um,I it's, uh, I feel very
fortunate that I get to workhere.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, that definitely sounds pretty awesome.
Um, it like, yeah, it seems likea very like, uh, free and easy
environment.
And it's really good thatthey're looking to have it so
that you can work from anywherethe world and feature.
I think that'll be reallyenticing to a lot of students
who maybe want to try and livein another country or something
(35:45):
like that after they graduateand have like, completely have
the option to, um, I guess likewithin the freedom, there's
obviously like many, manydifferent roles at Alexian.
Uh, is it, is it like flex veryflexible to like move teams and
kind of look at, uh, work ondifferent projects?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Yeah.
Moving teams, definitely.
Um, I mean, there's like aninternal by law and to be fair,
we have to advertise any jobthat we have both externally and
internally, and you still haveto go through like a interview
process internally.
Um, but it honestly depends likejob to job, to like design and
(36:31):
engineering, hates people thathave moved a bunch of times
between different teams anddifferent projects.
And even within your team, youwill inherently move amongst
like teams of quiet.
When you think about a team,it's not just a team of 10 and,
you know, direct team of 10engineers, it's kind of the
broad old that you live in.
Um, so you can move around, uh,and that comes down to kind of
(36:53):
intricacies of like how you dohead count.
So like, you all will getfunding for someone so they can
kind of move quite easily inbetween, um, within their own.
Um, but as a PM, like we have adefined program, which is two
years where we rotate you, youdo two, one year placements, um,
(37:16):
and that's to get experienceacross multiple projects across
multiple teams.
So not Microsoft Google startedthis with Marissa Marsh.
She was the one that createdlike this concept of an APM
program.
And they, a lot of the ABMS noware like VPs.
(37:36):
Um, and then their program wasyou get mentorship, you get to,
I think they did one yearorientations.
I contact hardly remember it.
And then you do it like a twoweek research trip where you go
all around the world.
So Alex is like, basically thesame as that.
Um, well we have two, one yearrotations.
We'll give you mentors whenworking on really cool
(37:59):
traineeship for you.
So we had like the nationalacting Academy and the guy that
like trained huge Jacquelinecame in and did a, when I was
at, in the program, did a, acourse on like how to present
with impact.
Um, we do all kinds of differentthings.
Uh, we had a really Epic twoweek trip that was going to take
, uh, I was going to chaperone,but it was going to take out
(38:22):
kind of an IPMs.
We first, firstly, going to goto Vegas also, we're going to
LA.
And we had like lined uptogether to the spice X factory
and get a tour around there.
Cause they're a big customers ofours.
Um, basically all of our toolswe use to launch, uh, to do all
the recent launches with space X.
Then we were going out to likeglobal summit, our like yearly
(38:43):
conference in Vegas together.
Then we were flying across toEurope and we were going, uh,
wait a minute.
We going, we were goingsomewhere in Germany.
I think we were going to Berlinor Munich.
Then we were going across toParis.
And then we were going to acrossthe UK.
Um, we had lined up all of thesecustomer interviews and also
(39:09):
like culture trips, just tounderstand the culture of the
country we're in.
So doing fun things like cruisesdown the sand in Paris and like
Ghana laundries andunderstanding like the day to
day life there.
Um, so there's definitely a, uh,like I'm trying to sell a pain
(39:29):
program, to be honest.
Now that I think about what I'msaying, there's definitely
depends on what program you'rein, uh, and design have less
specific programs, but youdefinitely can move PM.
We have a specific program as agrad that you come into.
Well, I, part of it is you are ahundred percent, um, and teams,
(39:50):
uh, scrambling to get IPMs.
Like there's a really strongbrand as APM.
So it's like the future leaders.
So I've just put out an ask,we're trying to place interns,
which I've just done.
I put out an ask the people thatwanted it.
And I just got so many projects.
I have eight interns coming inand we got significantly more
(40:10):
asks for them.
Um, so we really provide likethe pick of the litter of
projects to put them in and they, they get some level of
preference that answered yourquestion in a very roundabout
way.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
And also, I guess, speak a little bit about the
graduate program too, which Ithink is quite good.
So the graduate program is likeyou have, you work on two
different projects for one yeareach, and then you have, um, a
bit of a, a two week trip at theend
Speaker 2 (40:44):
In the middle, which is very different now with
COVID.
And we're trying to understandwhat can we do a, there's going
to be all the ABMS from the U Sand Australia.
And we're like, can we do adomestic trip?
We're trying to figure out whatwe can do now so that people
don't lose that experience giventheir current scenario.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Yeah, it is a bit unfortunate, but also
unfortunately out of thecontrol.
So have you found, I guess theswitch to work from home?
All right.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Surprisingly, so like very much so I'm the sort of
person that works better bybeing with people and being able
to just drop by someone's deskand talk to them versus on like
Slack.
So when I had, we were working,I remember the day they were
like, we got an email beinglike, we have a suspected
contact in with a covert case init last year.
(41:43):
And like, literally just themiddle of the day, everyone was
like, get out of the office now.
So we like packed up and justnever went back.
When that happened.
I was like, fuck, this, this isthe worst thing ever.
And I have loved working athome.
I like totally go back on myword and my thoughts back in the
(42:06):
day, I am significantly moreproductive.
I can roll out of bed or go tothe gym and do exercise and like
be at my desk five minutes afterI wake up.
Like, I am ashamed to admit Idid this morning and I'm just
like a ton more productive athome.
(42:29):
I definitely miss theinteraction.
So when we, they do it in theoffices, I'll probably going for
like once a week or so, butthey've really provided us with
everything that we need to thepoint where we can now, like
they're trying to get us air onchairs to send out to our homes.
So it can be even morecomfortable.
(42:50):
I think everyone's adapted.
We were kind of already ahead ofthe curve in remote work and
like just working as distributedteams.
So to me, I honestly, haven'tlike, I'm fortunate in that.
Fortunately, I don't have a kid,but I'm in a fortunate position
where I don't have anything thatcan really distract me at home
versus I think it's probablytough, especially now that
(43:11):
schools are closed in certainareas for people that have kids,
I have like homeschool, they can, but when that's no longer the
case, I assume that theexperience will be very similar
to mine, which is a lot moreproductive, has not changed my
ability to interact or engage orfeel connected to my team.
So, yeah, I love it.
Is there any last thing you'dlike to add or any last advice
(43:37):
you should totally all come andwork with me?
No, I think my biggest advice,if I look back and they possibly
was give, is you in a reallyfortunate position students that
you can try a lot of things.
So literally try as many thingsas you possibly can as many jobs
(43:58):
as roles as you possibly can.
And the benefit of doing thatis, and the benefit that I found
was I found like the times whenI loved the internships I did,
although like random work that Idid, what was great, but the
most valuable, well, it was whenI found the things that I didn't
like, because that allowed mevery early on in my career to
(44:19):
kind of hone where I thought Iwanted to go.
And what I found was interestingto me, so be really open to
opportunities.
I a girlfriend's the completeopposite where she's very
focused on, like knows exactlywhere she wants to go.
I was like, I don't really knowwhat's going on.
I kind of directionally knewwhat I wanted to do and the
industry I wanted to be in, butI just took opportunities as
(44:40):
they came.
So I'd say, well, that'sdependent on who you are as a
person is potentially throughthe same thing.
You'll be surprised where itkind of cheap.
Um, and yeah, you're only astudent once like play that card
as much as possible.
People were always willing tohelp students.
(45:01):
And then again, come and look atit last year.
Love
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Good, fantastic sales pitch for a lesson,
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Specifically technical people.
We really like technical PMs areamazing.
I have a lot of devs thatinterviewed at last year and it
could have been devs in it lastyear.
And we were like, we also have areally amazing product mind.
Like you think strategically,you think about the cost of
welcome.
We'll be a PM.
And I decided to take a PM pathinstead.
(45:29):
So like computing students compslash students, a hundred
percent who we're looking for asPMs, so apply.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
That's all we have for today.
Hope you learned a little bitmore about last season and the
side of technology that isproduct management.
Please join us again in twoweeks from now for our next
episode until then come join ourcommunity@selectougcs.org.
Hello, and welcome to the rata, the official podcast
of the UK competing society,where we explore the human side
of tech.
I'm your host, Olivia.
And on this week's episode,we'll be talking to John about
their experience at a lesson asa product manager.
(00:27):
Alright, so tell me a little bitabout yourself, Johnny.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Uh, so my name is Jonah.
I'm a product manager at Lassieand I've been at LaSeon for
about three and a bit years now.
Um, I moved to, I was originallyfrom Brisbane, so a UK student,
um, I move to Lausanne, stoppedworking in kind of early 2017.
(00:54):
And my current role is I PM.
Um, what's called the cloudeditor.
So we have building a editingcomponent that we are rolling
out across all of our cloudproducts over time.
Uh, the big consumers of it atthe moment, a conference in JIRA
(01:15):
and the kind of the underlyinggoal is to create this familiar
editing, like content creationand consumption experience
across, uh, across all of ourproducts.
So it's been a fun journey.
I took over the editor.
It was one team of about 12people early February, last year
(01:36):
or third March last year.
Uh, and we're now at 40 plusengineers.
There's four teams now, um, IPMtwo of them, and it's been
quite, quite a steep learningcurve of, uh, it's a insanely
technically complex componentwith just so many dependencies.
(01:59):
It's been a really fun journey.
Um, and yeah, it came from, Icame through their grad grad
program, which I can talk aboutlater if you want.
And then prior to that, I didn'tstudy a technical degree.
I kind of wish I did.
Um, but I didn't spend a lot oftime.
I studied business and commerce.
(02:21):
Joel didn't do a lot of work atuni, but spent a lot of time
working outside.
So I worked at companies likered hat and then my final year
at uni, I worked full time, uh,Microsoft running their
innovation center, where Ibasically looked after how
Microsoft engaged and supportedthe startup ecosystem in
(02:42):
Queensland, which is pretty funexperience.
That's my, uh, that's my TLD.
Uh, it's not too exciting.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I think, I think it's very cool.
I feel like you've, you'veworked at like in a lot of, um,
very like impactful roles.
I feel like throughout your timefrom, um, handling startups with
Microsoft and then like now likemanaging two teams that it
(03:10):
lasts.
I think it's very cool.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Oh, thank you
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Too short there.
Um, so I guess you, you startedstudying business in Comez.
How did you kind of switch overto the more, I guess, like to
work for more tech-relatedcompanies or what kind of
prompted you to do that as well?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Good question.
I actually wanted to do medicineinitially.
I have a, a lot of familymembers who like in the medical
industry.
Um, and I, I grew up, my dadused to spend most of the year
laying in a third world countrycalled Solomon Islands.
So I lived there for a bit andthey like health system.
(04:02):
I don't know if I'm meant toswear on this podcast, but it
was pretty fucked.
Uh, it's still pretty fucked.
Um, so that I was reallypassionate about wanting to go
into medicine and I got back onthe head, I got no P three,
which wasn't good enough to getintimate.
And I was really fortunate atthe time.
A lot of my friends who didn'tget into med kept going and
(04:24):
trying to go through the wholegrad process, uh, through uni.
Um, but like throughout my,throughout my childhood,
throughout my schooling years, Iwas just really interested in
technology.
I just thought it was supercool.
Um, and I decided to then pursuea, I started with a business and
(04:49):
law degree, cause I didn't wantto just do business.
Um, but never wanted to be alawyer.
I love my dad who is one.
I was like, that is not for me.
I switched courses a bunch oftimes.
Um, and yeah, like I said, Ididn't really spend a lot of
time at uni, but it was a goodfunction for me to be able to
(05:10):
discover the things that Iliked.
So I think that the best thingfor me and what, like what made
me realize I love tech was Ijust tried a heap of things.
When I was at uni, I worked abunch of different jobs.
I did things that were just funto me.
So I like what does a personaltrainer part time?
Cause it was good money.
And I like, I used to play a lotof competitive sport.
(05:34):
I worked at mellow, uh, likeselling coffee veins and then I
just did a heap of differentinternships.
So I was in at red hat.
I was more on the marketing sideand I found that really cool.
Uh, as an opensource softwarecompany, the people there were
just so passionate about thewhole, uh, reason an ethos
(05:55):
behind open source software.
And that really peaked myinterest because I hadn't ever
been exposed or even knew whatopen source software was before
that, um, all the way throughto, I ended up a very good
friend of mine from school.
Uh, he runs hardware teams overin mountain view for Google.
Uh, and we worked together on astartup with another person and
(06:19):
that was more on thetechnological side of things.
And I think it was just, I waskind of like fortunate exposure
to it.
And I got introduced.
I was fortunate to meet a bunchof people that had come through,
uh, the technology world workinghere and over in the States and
like looking back to when I talkabout my interest in inside
(06:41):
medicine and growing up, beingexposed to several countries, I
guess another big realization Ihad when I was quite young was
just like our infrastructure.
And, um, even though you couldargue a lot of government's
technology sucks, it's still alot better than other places.
And a lot of the things that wehave as a first world country
(07:04):
with technology that isaccessible really feeds into our
ability to live a prettypositive life, um, here.
So I started to realize thatthere was something there and
like the thing that I just foundcool to read about was actually
something that I could do as ajob.
Um, and just spent more and moretime in the technology space.
(07:26):
And I think it got to a pointwhere I didn't do it a technical
degree.
Um, so I wasn't totally surewhere I could go in the
technology space and I realized,and I don't know if you're going
to ask me where I moved to kindof the PM side of things, but I
realized as I was researchingdifferent places that I could do
(07:48):
internships that, um, when I waslooking at Alaska and a company
that I really admired, um, Ilooked through all of the
internships and there's thisthing called product management
was really the only thing thathad some level of business slant
to it.
And I was like, what sounds kindof cool.
So I applied to it and I'm like,I'm really glad I did because
(08:11):
it's been the perfect match ofbeing able to apply technology
and build solutions for peoplethat have some level of impact
in their life.
Like arguably building a issuetracker may not be as impactful
as like doing eye surgery.
Um, but I think it enablespeople to build the tools that
(08:33):
then allow people to do thatsort of stuff.
So in a button, uh, it does, it,it does have a huge impact on
society and yeah, just slowlymoved into, I was kind of
fortunate that I landed in arole that was this mishmash of
everything that I liked from allthe random internships I did and
(08:53):
not much other things I like,uh, and allowed me to, to work
on really cool technology withreally cool and smart,
interesting people.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
That's very cool.
I think it's, um, a very good,good journey because it is, you
don't have to basically study toactively involved in the tech
side of things.
And I feel like, um, you, like,you're a perfect example of like
how you can still, um, becomereally involved in tech if
you're, if you're interested init.
(09:25):
Uh, so I guess, like I kind ofaround your interest in tech,
what technology has like got youexcited for the future, or would
you be excited to work on?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
What's an interesting one.
I felt like it's a, to an extenttechnology, the technology is
exciting.
So things like if you can useand relate data in, in certain
(09:58):
ways as, as you know, there's ahuge amount of opportunity
there.
And like, I don't want to throwaround buzzwords like AI and ML,
but there is like data is themodern day gold.
It's just a matter of figuringout how to use it in a moral,
secure, private way that it cangreatly impact in a positive way
(10:23):
people's lives and how they dowork.
And just have I exist as a humanbeing on a day to day, but
equally like anything, it's a,it's a tool it's a resource and
people can use it in the wrongway, even if they don't mean to.
Um, so it's kind of this funbalancing act of finding out how
to take something that's sovaluable and turn it into
(10:43):
something that's equallyvaluable for the people that are
giving it to you.
Um, so that interests me when Isay like the biggest thing where
it find my interest intechnology is kind of where the
people come together with thetechnology.
Like, I'd say if I, if I thinkabout my day to day work and
what the future holds for me,the thing that excites me is I
(11:05):
have this amazing group ofpeople that are really
passionate about differentpieces of technology and
different problems to solve.
It's more the problems thatexcite me, that technology
enables.
Um, so yeah, I, I would take funof like, uh, I would potentially
not answer your question.
So what excites me are, uh, theability for us to continue
(11:29):
solving problems in new and funways.
And if I was to give an answerabout what technology is
interesting to me, uh, I woulddefinitely say understanding how
to use data in a moral way todeliver value to people.
It's kind of cool to me.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
For sure.
So I'm kind of looking, lookingback then.
What, what, what have you beenreally passionate to work on?
What have been your pastprojects that you've really
enjoyed?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Um, so I can give you kind of a journey of said last.
And when I came in, I startedworking on, I was like a road
mapping tool, um, which hasturned into our like premium
offering for JIRA.
So it basically allows teams tobuild out ride maps.
(12:25):
And that was like, what Ienjoyed about that was the
people listening, maybe theproblem space.
And I'm sorry to, to my managerat the time, but I really
enjoyed the people.
I was most passionate about whatwe were shipping at the time,
even now looking back now, it'sreally fucking cool.
Um, then I moved briefly intothe mobile space, which I found
(12:45):
really interesting.
Um, I worked on IPM, the JIRAmobile apps across Android and
iOS.
Um, again, that was, I thinkwhat I found super interesting
when I look back at my I'mstill, in my early years, it was
more the linings that I washaving versus the actual work I
was doing.
(13:06):
Um, but I really loved beingable to work on mobile.
It's such a like important pieceof how people go about their day
to day life.
Um, I think about the thing I'mmost passionate about is what
I'm on now.
Um, I get really excited aboutstuff that I can like for me to
understand impact.
I think I, to an extent have touse it.
(13:26):
And the editor, like the waythat you create conference, uh,
content in confluence, the waythat you read content, uh, in
JIRA, et cetera, like issomething that I used on a day
to day basis.
We were rolling out a new, thisnew experience and it was
probably a little bit painfuland had a bit to read quite a
lot of improvement that wasrequired.
(13:48):
Um, so I felt a bunch of thatpain when I was in other teams
and I was like, I want to beother side of that.
And it was super exciting for meto go in and work with people to
solve some pretty gnarlyproblems.
And then specifically, likefeature-wise thing, that's been
super exciting.
We have this concept ofSmartLinks and basically it's,
(14:09):
there's a problem out therewhere like today there is an
explosion of SAS apps, but sohistorically they would be like
people would buy kind of quite a, uh, contained suite of tools.
So they would buy like sayMicrosoft tools and then use
Excel for a heap of differentthings.
(14:30):
They use it for charting.
They'd use it for analytics, I'duse it for reporting, like all
these different things.
And now we're in a world wherethere was so many specialists,
SAS apps.
So all of those things that hasmentioned that Excel could do
like kind of, well, there areapps that just specialize on one
part of that.
So like amplitude is a tool thatjust does analytics and
(14:53):
reporting really, really well.
And because of that, like thebenefit is we now have these
amazing specialized tools to dospecific parts of the journey of
the work that we have to do, butit also creates a heap of
context switching.
So no longer are we in one ortwo apps to do all that work
we're in 10 20, 30 apps.
(15:15):
Um, and this just requires us tomove between them.
So smiling's basically is tryingto, we're trying to solve the
problem of how do we reduce theneed to context switch.
And the first part of that hasbeen, we've created, we've built
like services and common UI thatenable us to pull in URL back
(15:36):
data from various providersaround the web, um, like get hub
like Dropbox, like Google andthen show, show them in our
products in rich, contextualways, everywhere from like a
very small there's like inlineview, which is simply like we
pull in favicon and, um, thetitle metadata, and then
(16:00):
automatically resolve that forpeople all the way down to a
user can choose to like switchthat view to a full embed, to
make an embedded design orembedded amplitude charts.
So people don't have to clickout of a conference page to go
do that.
And that whole process has been,we've kind of gotten to this
(16:20):
pretty amazing site recentlywhere we invested a lot in
building out the underlyingarchitecture and services that
power, this thing it's nowgotten to a point where like one
dev can spend half a day andbuild a new integration that
then immediately works acrossconfluence, JIRA, Trello,
(16:41):
Bitbucket for like millions andmillions of users.
So as an example, we spent aweek with seven devs three weeks
ago, and we built 11 newintegrations for fall.
So we have, we added likesupport for Salesforce and
Intercom and a lot of bigproviders that immediately
(17:03):
worked across four of ourproducts.
Um, and it took almost no timejust because of the, the way
that we architected it underthe, under the covers.
And then that problem kind ofextends to, um, when you think
about context switching, thewhole idea of showing rich
previews is interesting forconsumers of the content.
So as arena means you don't haveto then move outside of your
(17:25):
context outside of a conferencepage.
Um, but as a creator of thatcontent, there's still this
problem of trying to bringcontent into a page or into a
JIRA ticket from a third party.
So we've been looking into, um,and spiking, which I don't know
if you know the concept ofspiking, it's basically writing
(17:45):
some hacky spaghetti code tofigure out if something is, uh,
is viable.
We'll have, we could build it intesting like technical
assumptions.
We've made working on trying tounderstand how we can create in
product search that allows youto search across all the
products you interface with,whether they're inside of LaSeon
tools or saying Google.
(18:06):
So what's an example of a userin a conference page.
Who'd be like, I need to bringin a Google drive file and
really easily just search it inconfluence and pull that in
without having to leave thepage.
So that whole, that whole areaof there's a shitload of apps
now that people use in a cloudfirst world, and we need to
(18:27):
address the need to context,which is definitely the thing
that is by far the most excitingfor me at the moment that was a
massive brain dump.
So I apologize.
I hope you followed that.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah, that was good.
Um, it's, it's very interestingto hear about how the, how old
they integrations kind of workbecause I like, I use confluence
a little bit, um, uh, at my workand, um, they do have a lot of
integrations that's for sure.
I think you can pretty much addanything to it, which is very
(18:59):
cool.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah.
This takes like a slightlydifferent slant on that, which I
want to go into, but I'm happyto discuss this at another time.
Yeah.
Kind of trying to build thenative phages versus things that
you have to go.
And there's also a lot offriction and users having to
find apps they want to thenintegrate with it last in, we
(19:23):
kind of build under the four DSintegration.
So it just feels like thiscommon native experience within
our products.
And you will start if you'reusing cloud, you'll start to see
these roll out over time.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Very cool.
Um, so I guess like, um, kind ofa different, a different topic,
more focusing on like, cause youworked a lot during university.
Um, how did you find, I guessyour university preparing you
for work or did you find that itwas more like the experience
(19:57):
that you got while you were atuniversity, like for external
things that really helped you?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Maybe if I did a different degree, like COMSOL
have a different answer for you,but I would say I found the
content of my calls prettypointless.
Like you learn some like coreconcepts that are definitely
valuable at the end of the day,it was like a piece of paper
that helped me get a job.
What was valuable was theability for over an extended
(20:26):
period of time with the, likethe student label on me, I was
able to get a lot of experienceand was allowed, allowed me to
get the jobs that I have today.
Like not if I hadn't have goneto uni, I wouldn't know as much
in terms of content that Ilearned at uni, but I probably
(20:48):
wouldn't be that bad off.
Um, but the difference is I justwouldn't have had the time and
the ability to go and learnthings outside of uni.
Um, so my, I, I definitelylearned by doing in my, the
things that I find the mostvaluable, uh, have really been
things that I've learned outsidethe uni space.
When I got really good, I'vebeen very fortunate to have some
(21:11):
awesome mentors over the years.
And, uh, a lot of the ones thatI had in the very early days, he
sits on boards of companies overin the Valley in us.
And he was like, then so manypeople, especially students, I
look up like mom's talking bugand bill Gates.
(21:32):
And they're like, well, theydropped out at uni and then just
created these amazing techempires.
But they're like be very, very,very, very, very minute, few.
And it's not to say that you'renot going to get there, but, um,
especially in the tech industrynowadays, there's just so much
competition for jobs.
(21:53):
And when he was in seniorpositions in, in large
corporations and he was like thefirst thing that a lot of the
time they do, and this was anumber of years ago.
So it may change.
It probably changes to an extenttoday, but they'll basically
just look at the ones that havea degree and look at the ones
that done.
And that's their first, theirfirst cut of continue looking at
(22:18):
for jobs and her did not workout.
So they just stick the ones thatdon't have a degree in a pile on
the side and kind of forgetabout them, say, Hey, it was
like, kind of sucks.
But if anything, having thatpiece of paper helps.
Um, and I'd say that like, thatstill exists today, at least in
that last scene.
So I'm one of the leads for ourassociate product management
program, which is like our twoyear rotational PM, um, program.
(22:43):
And I've just been through thehiring process.
I'm currently placing insideteams in it last year, uh,
interns and grads that we've,that we find.
Um, and throughout that process,we definitely look for ones that
has degrees.
So I think most around that out,it really comes down to, uh, it
(23:05):
sucks, but I don't think theworld yet is at a place where,
uh, unless you start somethingyourself, as you're looking for
a job at a company like lastyear and Google, et cetera,
we're in a smaller place havingsomething behind you, a piece of
paper behind you, so that you'vecommitted to university is
pretty crucial.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Yeah, for sure.
I guess like, um, on, on thetopic of like, uh, like you
said, you received likementorship while you at
university, and that was likereally valuable.
How did you actually find thosementors or how you create those
connections
Speaker 2 (23:46):
With people that supported you and you'll like
learning and all of that stuff.
That's a good question.
Um, thanks, firstly.
I was like lucky to beintroduced to people by people.
I knew that I think that was abit of coincidence there.
Second part is I'm probably abit of a, a Dick.
(24:11):
I, I, uh, I have no issues.
Like I don't really seehierarchy or have issues just
going up to someone and askingthem something.
So I would, if I found someoneinteresting that heard talk or
(24:33):
even found some interestingonline, like I would literally
just call email, um, called, uh,message them on LinkedIn.
And I think the thing that Ilearned that helped me the most
is the fact that you're astudent, like people, no matter
how senior they are, how busythey are, if you play the
student card and you word arequest in the right way.
(24:58):
A lot of the time in likesurprisingly surprisingly lodged
hit right of people will, willagree to have a chat to you.
Um, and like generally I have, Iliterally had like a templated
email where I would say like,hello, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah.
I'd find out something aboutthem and tell them that I was
(25:21):
like super interested in whatthey were doing.
And, um, I talk about likesomething along the lines of how
basically I'm kinda new to thewhole world and I don't really
know that much.
And I'm really looking to, um,learn from people that, uh,
leaders in the field and havebeen there, done that.
Um, and I asked them for, I havelike a really specific ask of
(25:44):
like, would you be, I knowyou're super busy, but would you
be willing to have a quick 30minute chat?
So I can ask you some questionsabout blah, blah, blah.
And then I always would say, Ialways try to offer them.
I always show that I want tooffer them something, but I
don't really have anything tooffer in return.
So I generally have a line thatwas like, I not really sure what
(26:06):
I can provide in return, but Ihope that like what you teach
me, I'll be able to pass on tosomeone in the future and then
I'll close it out.
But yeah, if you really hit thethings that I found more
successful, a play the studentcard really hard, um, be really
humble about, you know, no shitand, uh, and really drive home
(26:30):
the point that you want to learnfrom them.
Because if you tell someone yourespect them and you wanna learn
from them, that usually givesthem the warm fuzzies, um, and
then B and you have to begenuine about it that you want
to offer them something inreturn, but you really can't.
You don't know what you canoffer, but you'll pass it on to
other people.
And I'd say like a lot of thepeople that have seen around the
(26:52):
world have had help in the pastand the people you want advice
for people that are arrogantassholes, and generally those
sort of people will give uptheir time to have a chat to
you.
So that was, I think it wasaround out that question in my
early morning, Friday ramblingways was I was fortunate in that
(27:16):
I knew people, uh, thatintroduced me to people when I
was very, like, never be afraidto ask, but I knew someone that
knew someone.
I would just say, if you'recomfortable, please introduce
me.
And then I'd also cold emailpeople.
And that worked really well.
I've set up a speaker series atAlaska and now for our grads.
And we've had everyone in fromlike cofounders of LinkedIn to
(27:39):
heads of, like they say, GoogleVC, they're like part of their
venture capital arm.
Um, and it was really a mixtureof trying to find people that
they knew or literally just coldemailing them.
So never be afraid to do that.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah.
I feel like it's almost a littlebit similar with the podcast as
well.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah.
You're a great example of how todo this.
I'm just not very seniorexciting, but it's the same
concept.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Cool.
Um, yeah, I guess, I guess likebringing it back to the, the
work side of things.
Um, I think we'll move on alittle bit to talk a bit more
about like a lesson itself,cause I'm sure a lot of, uh,
listeners are pretty interestedin a bit more what it's like to
work at Alessia and what thekind of like the culture is and
(28:32):
from a firsthand employee.
Um, so I guess how would youdescribe like the culture in the
workplace at Alaskan
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Culture and just like the general day to day, this is
going to sound super cliche, butI would say that at last in,
I've worked at a lot of placesthat I'd love and I would
recommend people work for redhat at the drop of a hat.
Microsoft was amazing, but theywere, they were amazing and like
(29:08):
aquatic corporate way, like forbig, big enterprises, they were
just good people that we workedwith.
I'd say like Atlassian is quitedifferent in that the culture
and the values that you see.
Like we have values of like opencompany, no bullshit players, a
team, et cetera, like seek firstto understand all these things,
um, really is kind of lived byto the point where we have a
(29:37):
really strong, uh, blogging orjust like open collaboration
culture.
So you will write a page andpeople from everywhere would
start commenting on a likeproviding advice or feedback.
And then we have people willblog about every part of their
life from like having massivedepressive episodes to, um, um,
(30:05):
their experiences being trans tothey're having a baby to they're
taking time off for some reason,until like a big company
announcement and people are justsuper open and super supportive
of each other.
Um, and also happy to, like, youcan have like golden flame Wars,
(30:26):
you're going to have someserious flyballs on, on
confluence, which doesn't putyou at risk of getting, getting,
let go, or getting into trouble.
Um, but people really go at it.
And it's, it's awesome becauseit's quite a, a, a, I guess an
open, safe culture where you canjust say it, how you see it and
(30:51):
disagree with someone.
Um, and a blog.
A recent blog is actually areally good when we talk about
like kind of inclusiveness.
There's a blog that, um, oneabout LG BTI, que uh, members of
our, um, community shared aboutlike, this is the first job.
(31:12):
It, literally, I read ityesterday is the first job where
they felt comfortable, likecoming to work and being
themselves to the point wherelike one day they just rocked up
to work in these really quiteeccentric, tight, small pride
pants.
Um, and then he was in a liftwith Scott and Scott just to add
to him and was like, you lookfabulous.
(31:32):
Um, and I think that like kindof a Peter Mises, our culture of
you can be who you are.
You can say what you think.
And obviously like, there's aline there.
You don't want to be an awful,um, but it is a very open
culture of sharing.
I'd say the other thing thatlike, I really love is it's a
super flat hierarchy.
(31:52):
So like Microsoft, they're stillvery, there's a very obvious
hierarchy and there is anobvious hierarchy like Scott and
Mike bought a fan of this andthere's VPs, et cetera, but you
can talk to any of them, like asa grad, I was presenting and in
rooms with Scott and Mike andhaving like sparring, which is
kind of like our feedbacksessions with them.
(32:13):
So there's this super, like, youare just viewed as an employee,
like everyone else and show thatyou have a title, but you get
responsibility.
And I'm like, what you have tosay is important.
Um, so that was super, that's asuper cool part of it.
And then the last thing that Ithink, like I've been very
fortunate where the person thathired me to it and is one of my
best friends in Sydney now.
(32:35):
So my first team that I landedin, uh, uh, my closest friends
in Sydney, I lived with one ofthem for 18 months before I
moved in with my girlfriend, ourwhole team, that whole team,
like the OJ team just spent twoweeks working from Byron.
Literally we came back a weekago.
(32:55):
Um, so I'd say like theconnections that you build, and
I don't know how to articulatethis, but the friendships you
can organically build it at lastyear, just given the, uh, the
environment that it LaSeon seemsto create.
(33:15):
I don't know how it happens, butit just does, um, really leads
to like quite fruitfulrelationships.
Um, and then there's all theother things like they treat you
so well, you get compensatedexceedingly well.
Um, you get, and we're veryfortunate in that extent, you
(33:37):
get really great benefits.
Like when we were in the office,it was we'd get food, like
amazing parties, literally allthe time.
They would just go out of theirway to make our life amazing.
Um, but now that we're home,they've gone out of their way to
make it life amazing here.
They've given us like prettysignificant budgets to set up
our home.
(33:58):
Um, they're constantly, likewe're now allowed to work
anywhere in the world.
They just announced that movingforward, even after COVID, and
they've been very open about,like, they're trying to figure
out how to do this remote workanywhere in the world thing,
long term really well.
So like what benefits they giveus, um, how we actually do work,
like what devices they need togive us.
(34:19):
And they have an open page wherethey have like all the decisions
that haven't made.
I need to everything from likehow they compensate us to blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah.
And as I make the decisions andlike they thinking I'm most
decisions, I just appear on thatpage and they're super open
about it.
So I'd say like, they really goout of their way unbelievably.
(34:39):
So to look after you, and thisteething problems is like, like
anything, especially where acompany that's just exploded and
continues to grow.
It just an absurd pace in termsof number of employees with
figuring out how to get biggeras a company while it's not
losing touch with our culture.
(35:01):
Um, so yeah, it's not likealways sunshine, like rainbows
and lollipops, but it's prettyfucking awesome.
And I'm the sort of person thatwill call it out and see it.
So I didn't think so.
You'd be the first to know, um,I it's, uh, I feel very
fortunate that I get to workhere.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, that definitely sounds pretty awesome.
Um, it like, yeah, it seems likea very like, uh, free and easy
environment.
And it's really good thatthey're looking to have it so
that you can work from anywherethe world and feature.
I think that'll be reallyenticing to a lot of students
who maybe want to try and livein another country or something
(35:45):
like that after they graduateand have like, completely have
the option to, um, I guess likewithin the freedom, there's
obviously like many, manydifferent roles at Alexian.
Uh, is it, is it like flex veryflexible to like move teams and
kind of look at, uh, work ondifferent projects?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Yeah.
Moving teams, definitely.
Um, I mean, there's like aninternal by law and to be fair,
we have to advertise any jobthat we have both externally and
internally, and you still haveto go through like a interview
process internally.
Um, but it honestly depends likejob to job, to like design and
(36:31):
engineering, hates people thathave moved a bunch of times
between different teams anddifferent projects.
And even within your team, youwill inherently move amongst
like teams of quiet.
When you think about a team,it's not just a team of 10 and,
you know, direct team of 10engineers, it's kind of the
broad old that you live in.
Um, so you can move around, uh,and that comes down to kind of
(36:53):
intricacies of like how you dohead count.
So like, you all will getfunding for someone so they can
kind of move quite easily inbetween, um, within their own.
Um, but as a PM, like we have adefined program, which is two
years where we rotate you, youdo two, one year placements, um,
(37:16):
and that's to get experienceacross multiple projects across
multiple teams.
So not Microsoft Google startedthis with Marissa Marsh.
She was the one that createdlike this concept of an APM
program.
And they, a lot of the ABMS noware like VPs.
(37:36):
Um, and then their program wasyou get mentorship, you get to,
I think they did one yearorientations.
I contact hardly remember it.
And then you do it like a twoweek research trip where you go
all around the world.
So Alex is like, basically thesame as that.
Um, well we have two, one yearrotations.
We'll give you mentors whenworking on really cool
(37:59):
traineeship for you.
So we had like the nationalacting Academy and the guy that
like trained huge Jacquelinecame in and did a, when I was
at, in the program, did a, acourse on like how to present
with impact.
Um, we do all kinds of differentthings.
Uh, we had a really Epic twoweek trip that was going to take
, uh, I was going to chaperone,but it was going to take out
(38:22):
kind of an IPMs.
We first, firstly, going to goto Vegas also, we're going to
LA.
And we had like lined uptogether to the spice X factory
and get a tour around there.
Cause they're a big customers ofours.
Um, basically all of our toolswe use to launch, uh, to do all
the recent launches with space X.
Then we were going out to likeglobal summit, our like yearly
(38:43):
conference in Vegas together.
Then we were flying across toEurope and we were going, uh,
wait a minute.
We going, we were goingsomewhere in Germany.
I think we were going to Berlinor Munich.
Then we were going across toParis.
And then we were going to acrossthe UK.
Um, we had lined up all of thesecustomer interviews and also
(39:09):
like culture trips, just tounderstand the culture of the
country we're in.
So doing fun things like cruisesdown the sand in Paris and like
Ghana laundries andunderstanding like the day to
day life there.
Um, so there's definitely a, uh,like I'm trying to sell a pain
(39:29):
program, to be honest.
Now that I think about what I'msaying, there's definitely
depends on what program you'rein, uh, and design have less
specific programs, but youdefinitely can move PM.
We have a specific program as agrad that you come into.
Well, I, part of it is you are ahundred percent, um, and teams,
(39:50):
uh, scrambling to get IPMs.
Like there's a really strongbrand as APM.
So it's like the future leaders.
So I've just put out an ask,we're trying to place interns,
which I've just done.
I put out an ask the people thatwanted it.
And I just got so many projects.
I have eight interns coming inand we got significantly more
(40:10):
asks for them.
Um, so we really provide likethe pick of the litter of
projects to put them in and they, they get some level of
preference that answered yourquestion in a very roundabout
way.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
And also, I guess, speak a little bit about the
graduate program too, which Ithink is quite good.
So the graduate program is likeyou have, you work on two
different projects for one yeareach, and then you have, um, a
bit of a, a two week trip at theend
Speaker 2 (40:44):
In the middle, which is very different now with
COVID.
And we're trying to understandwhat can we do a, there's going
to be all the ABMS from the U Sand Australia.
And we're like, can we do adomestic trip?
We're trying to figure out whatwe can do now so that people
don't lose that experience giventheir current scenario.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Yeah, it is a bit unfortunate, but also
unfortunately out of thecontrol.
So have you found, I guess theswitch to work from home?
All right.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Surprisingly, so like very much so I'm the sort of
person that works better bybeing with people and being able
to just drop by someone's deskand talk to them versus on like
Slack.
So when I had, we were working,I remember the day they were
like, we got an email beinglike, we have a suspected
contact in with a covert case init last year.
(41:43):
And like, literally just themiddle of the day, everyone was
like, get out of the office now.
So we like packed up and justnever went back.
When that happened.
I was like, fuck, this, this isthe worst thing ever.
And I have loved working athome.
I like totally go back on myword and my thoughts back in the
(42:06):
day, I am significantly moreproductive.
I can roll out of bed or go tothe gym and do exercise and like
be at my desk five minutes afterI wake up.
Like, I am ashamed to admit Idid this morning and I'm just
like a ton more productive athome.
(42:29):
I definitely miss theinteraction.
So when we, they do it in theoffices, I'll probably going for
like once a week or so, butthey've really provided us with
everything that we need to thepoint where we can now, like
they're trying to get us air onchairs to send out to our homes.
So it can be even morecomfortable.
(42:50):
I think everyone's adapted.
We were kind of already ahead ofthe curve in remote work and
like just working as distributedteams.
So to me, I honestly, haven'tlike, I'm fortunate in that.
Fortunately, I don't have a kid,but I'm in a fortunate position
where I don't have anything thatcan really distract me at home
versus I think it's probablytough, especially now that
(43:11):
schools are closed in certainareas for people that have kids,
I have like homeschool, they can, but when that's no longer the
case, I assume that theexperience will be very similar
to mine, which is a lot moreproductive, has not changed my
ability to interact or engage orfeel connected to my team.
So, yeah, I love it.
Is there any last thing you'dlike to add or any last advice
(43:37):
you should totally all come andwork with me?
No, I think my biggest advice,if I look back and they possibly
was give, is you in a reallyfortunate position students that
you can try a lot of things.
So literally try as many thingsas you possibly can as many jobs
(43:58):
as roles as you possibly can.
And the benefit of doing thatis, and the benefit that I found
was I found like the times whenI loved the internships I did,
although like random work that Idid, what was great, but the
most valuable, well, it was whenI found the things that I didn't
like, because that allowed mevery early on in my career to
(44:19):
kind of hone where I thought Iwanted to go.
And what I found was interestingto me, so be really open to
opportunities.
I a girlfriend's the completeopposite where she's very
focused on, like knows exactlywhere she wants to go.
I was like, I don't really knowwhat's going on.
I kind of directionally knewwhat I wanted to do and the
industry I wanted to be in, butI just took opportunities as
(44:40):
they came.
So I'd say, well, that'sdependent on who you are as a
person is potentially throughthe same thing.
You'll be surprised where itkind of cheap.
Um, and yeah, you're only astudent once like play that card
as much as possible.
People were always willing tohelp students.
(45:01):
And then again, come and look atit last year.
Love
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Good, fantastic sales pitch for a lesson,
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Specifically technical people.
We really like technical PMs areamazing.
I have a lot of devs thatinterviewed at last year and it
could have been devs in it lastyear.
And we were like, we also have areally amazing product mind.
Like you think strategically,you think about the cost of
welcome.
We'll be a PM.
And I decided to take a PM pathinstead.
(45:29):
So like computing students compslash students, a hundred
percent who we're looking for asPMs, so apply.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
That's all we have for today.
Hope you learned a little bitmore about last season and the
side of technology that isproduct management.
Please join us again in twoweeks from now for our next
episode until then come join ourcommunity@selectougcs.org.
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