Road to Product Manager with Amazon PMs

A conversation with Quang Do and Thuy Do (PMs at Amazon)

Seattle Vietnamese Professionals and Students member Hieu Le spoke with Amazon Product Manager Quang Do and Sr. Product Manager Tansy Thuy Do over their journey to the Product Manager (PM) roles and their advice on getting into this field.

Speaker profiles:

1. Ms. Tansy Thuy Do
   MBA Graduate from Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones School of Business.
   Extensive experiences in startups and corporations in both Vietnam and the US across multiple industries, from financial services, hospitality, retail and technology.
   Started as Product Marketing Manager then transited career to Product Manager. Have been at Amazon for 4 years and currently working in the Alexa for kids team.
   Past: Ebay, Club JW Marriot, Hoa Sao Group

2. Mr. Quang Do
   Class of 2016 at Duke University
   Former Global Procurement Analyst under Leadership Rotational Program for new grad at Nike
   Former Category Analyst at Amazon
   Currently Product Manager at Amazon Web Services
   Author of Trường làng vẫn ra thế giới book

Interview

This transcript has been condensed, translated and edited for clarity. Full interview can be found here.

Hieu Le: What is a Product Manager?

PM Quang Do: In a product manager role, you will own a product, taking responsibility of how the product comes to ideation and finishes. You have to justify the idea and the benefits of this product. In this role, PM also needs to design and scope the product with other stakeholders (for example, the software developers and marketing team) and make sure everyone understands the requirements.

Hieu Le: How does one prepare for a career in PM?

PM Thuy Do: It really depends on your existing skillset and the job description. For example, I have accounting background and an internship with a tech company (eBay); luckily Amazon loves that. Now, I know that Amazon (and other companies) loves people who have engineering background going into PM roles. That said, if you don’t have strong engineering background, you can still apply to PM if the product focuses more on managing stakeholders. In either case, analytical skills are definitely a must. One advice that I would give to those looking into PM roles: find a job that fits with your strong suit.

PM Quang Do: I definitely agree with a lot of things Thuy has said. PM roles need strong business background with understanding tech. I think studying CS in college will have a big advantage; it will help PM understand the requirements of a feature and work with software developers better. Because of this requirement, most job description for PMs will likely require Business (MBA) or Computer Science degrees. That said, if you don’t have the degree, that’s totally fine. You can totally compensate with the skills that you have at your current job and align those skills with PM roles.

Hieu Le: Thank you both for your great answers. Do you guys have any tips to make yourself stand out and network in this field: 38:10

PM Quang Do: I would highly recommend building the skills that PM requires from the start; the best way to know which skills to learn is to look through JDs and look for keywords. For new grads, you can join some associate/rotational programs offered by big companies (unfortunately, Amazon does not offer any PM program for new grads). Some programs that I know include the Associate PM at Google, or the Rotational Product Manager role at Facebook. There are also online bootcamps that teaches you PM but I don’t have first-hand experience with them so I can’t fully recommend.

Hieu Le: Thank you for your answer. This question is for Ms. Thuy Do: what are the challenges you faced when you switched from accounting/marketing to product manager? If you could return to MBA, what other things do you wish you had learned?

PM Thuy Do: When I was doing MBA, I was studying accounting and never wanted to go into tech. When I was interviewing with eBay, the recruiter loved my accounting background so I decided to accept the accounting internship with them. Granted, at the time I found accounting to be a bit boring but as an international student, I accepted anything offered my way, especially from a big name company like eBay. When my internship started, however, there was a new manager that focuses entirely on strategy and I ended up not doing any accounting during that internship, so I learned a thing or two about PM. As I was interviewing for Amazon, my hiring manager loved my business educational background and my experience working for a tech company, so that’s how I ended up at Amazon as a Product manager. There was not much of a career switch; somehow my experiences built up to the right job (laughs).

Full interview can be found here.