Hey everyone, my name is Laura and this week
on 16 Weeks of Internships I'll be taking you through what it's like to be a product
management intern at MongoDB in New York City. I typically start my day off sometime between
7 and 8 a.m, some days even 6:30 if i feel like waking up earlier to go for a run. At around
8. I'll get ready for work and I live on the upper west side of Manhattan which is a
very nice area near Columbia university. So from there I just hop on the subway
and I have a 20 minute commute to work. Usually, I'll come into the
office at either 9 or 10 a.m. We're only expected to come in three
days a week so some days if I have an early morning call I might take that one
at home and come in later during the day. Once i get to the office I'll head down to the
kitchen on the 37th floor to start my day off with some hibiscus berry tea. I'm not much of a
breakfast person but sometimes I'll grab a snack then I head over to my desk which
has a great view of the Hudson. Before we jump into what my day looks like let
me tell you a bit more about MongoDB and my role. MongoDB is a database company that uses the
document model. It is a non-relational database which is unstructured, distributed, and has a
dynamic schema compared to relational databases. We store data into documents which
are then grouped into collections and each document can be different. This model stores data efficiently, makes data
easier to understand for developers working with it, and the data structure is easier to change
over time. Mongo also provides additional tools to help users manage and work with their data such
as charts for data visualization. Additionally, Mongo is strongly focused on the developer
experience so there are many resources available to immediately get started with MongoDB whether
that be for experienced developers or students new to databases. I'm currently a product
manager within the security org which is a really interesting role because I get to interact
with both the cloud and server teams at Mongo. The role of a product manager is to be the
voice of the customer. It's your responsibility to determine what needs to be built next and why
based on your users needs. The role is commonly described as lying at the intersection of business,
tech, and design which is accurate because you'll be interacting with stakeholders across all
of these domains. The amount of time you spend in each domain will vary based on the type of
product you're working on and the company you're working for since product management tends to be
defined differently across different organizations. Another large component of product management is
product execution so after you've determined what to build next and why and you've rallied your
team around this idea it's your responsibility to really drive that product or feature forward
all the way to launch. In the morning I write out a to-do list in the notes application on my laptop to track the goals i want to accomplish which i'll refer back to throughout the day. I
also take the time to schedule any potential meetings that may be needed and follow up
on any emails or slack messages I may have. At around noon most interns have lunch so i'll
often go out and grab some takeout near the office. Some days we also have either team lunches
or intern events happening at that time and all the interns typically bring back food
to the office and we'll have a lunch together with whoever is in that day. After I wrap up
lunch I will take meetings in the afternoon, although my schedule can vary day to day.
For my meetings I'll grab a conference or phone room. There are also these really cool
small phone booths in the hallway designed to allow people just to hop in for a quick call. I
have meetings with my manager at least twice a week as well as weekly team planning sessions for
product and additional security triage meetings. Then i will also have calls with
stakeholders for projects i'm working on. Since Mongo has offered a flexible working
schedule, meetings can be virtual or in person and if you're in office you can grab a conference room
and just throw all the participants on the big screen. Here we're having a chat to catch up with
the Canadian interns. Another important meeting that all interns have bi-monthly is with our
campus recruiters to catch up on how everything is going both inside and outside of work to ensure
that you're having the best experience possible. Then, at the end of the day, there are
a lot of activities around the office so we'll often scoot around or play some pool
on the 38th floor. Outside of the day-to-day, the internship program at Mongo is amazing. Our
coordinators put in a ton of effort from weekly speaker series with C-level execs to intern events
like outings to Central Park or talent shows. They work extremely hard to ensure
that it is a phenomenal experience. There are a lot of affinity groups you can
join at Mongo. I'm part of the underrepresented genders in tech so there were a lot of women
in tech events during the summer. Throughout my internship there were three other APM interns in
my cohort and we met weekly with the full-time APMs who provided invaluable feedback to
help guide us throughout our experience. Mongo also offers an amazing work life balance.
We had some time off during our internship which some interns have used to explore the
city. I personally use those days to attend a security conference in Denver, Colorado and got
to explore Red Rocks Park there with some friends. Outside of work, there's plenty to do in New York.
I typically spend my evenings and weekends hanging with friends and exploring new parts of the city.
One of my favorite things to do in the mornings is go for a run. Fortunately, in NYC, there are many
parks to choose from like Central Park or routes on the Hudson River. On weekends I often go grocery
shopping to pick up some breakfast and lunch items. I'd say it's 50/50 in terms of cooking at
home and grabbing food from restaurants. There's a never-ending amount of food
to try throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan and I love going out with
friends to try new food places. With most of the interns in the office during
the summer, there was a lot to explore and it was a blast to catch up with friends I had worked
with remotely and meet new ones while in the city. Manhattan also has a lot of great places to
explore aside from the traditional tourist spots like Times Square and Staten Island. There
are many biking routes so I got to bike around various islands. I also did a top to
bottom of Manhattan hike with some friends. Some highlights of completing my internship
in September were definitely getting to see Billie Eilish perform in concert and
attending Hamilton on Broadway before i left. Overall, New York is an amazing city
with so many different things to do. Now let's hop into some Q&A. What program
are you in and what school do you go to? I'm currently studying biomedical engineering
with an option in software engineering at the University of Waterloo and one of the
really cool things about my program is that it's actually based off of systems design so we learn
how to engineer from a user's perspective and we always keep that in mind when designing different
products so that has been extremely beneficial in terms of gaining the skills required to be
a PM and it's really aided within the PM role. Why did you decide to intern at MongoDB? So MongoDB
was a technology that i was familiar with prior to applying. I had used it at hackathons, co-op
terms, and different personal projects as well. Also, I had been able to speak with recruiters at
different online events and online conferences as well as talk to some past interns who had gone
through the program and U had heard nothing but positive things about both the company and the
experience so that was definitely something that drove me to apply and after being at Mongo
for several weeks U can definitely attest to the culture it has which was something that
was evident during the recruiting process. How did you find your internship? I actually found
my internship through a recruiter posting on LinkedIn. Once I saw that, I messaged one of the
hiring managers who mentioned they were hiring PMs for their team and after that message I was
able to get started in the recruiting process. What skills and past experiences helped you get
the internship? So at the University of Waterloo we have co-op integrated into our program which means
we have six four-month work terms throughout our degree and I'm actually on my seventh right now
with MongoDB. Majority of my previous internships were actually within software engineering
primarily within full stack development and those were extremely beneficial in terms of being
able to build out those technical skills that have aided me throughout the PM roles in terms of being
able to better communicate with engineers and understand what they're going through as well
as having that technical background knowledge when approaching product development so you
understand what you're capable of building and prior to Mongo I was working at Tesla as
a software engineer on their data privacy team and then switched over to product management
on their fleet/digital experiences team and that was an amazing experience. I got to
work with a very great team and an awesome manager who taught me a lot of those fundamental
PM skills that I was then able to bring into this internship with Mongo. What is the most valuable
lesson you've learned from your internship? The most valuable lesson I've learned over the
course of my internship this summer is about effective storytelling which i really think is
a lifelong skill that we all need to work on and particularly as a PM it's very important
that you understand the audience you're speaking with since you'll be interacting
with many different clients and stakeholders so you need to understand what their motivations
are and what they're looking to gain from their conversation with you so being able to briefly
hit all the key points that they're looking for and explain to them why your product has value
and how you'll accomplish the goals you have set in terms of achieving the product vision or
the different methods you're executing on are very important skills to have whenever
you're interacting with these teammates. How does software engineering
compare to product management? This is a question I've definitely received a
lot given my software engineering background and my recent transition into product management.
Both software and product definitely do have their differences even though they work very
closely together. They are similar in some senses particularly within their career progression
but i can definitely dive into some of the aspects I thought were different. One of the
largest differences between the roles is that SWE is consistent across as most organizations
you'll be at so when I'm a full stAck developer at one company I can expect that my role would
be rather similar at other companies as well. However with PM, it can look very different at
every organization so the daily items you work on are also different. When I was a software engineer
my time was always optimized in terms of being able to increase the amount of time I have to
program so besides like sprint planning meetings I would have every week and then maybe some triage
meetings and some potential one-off meetings, I would really leave the rest of that time
to program whereas as a PM you might actually spend your entire day in meetings just due to the
nature of the role and the number of teammates you have to meet with so you really need to carve out
some focus time and get some heads down work done. How do you determine if product
management is a good fit for you? Like I mentioned previously the role of PM is
highly variable depending on the company you're at so whenever you're looking at doing PM at
a particular company it's important to do your research and understand what a day will look like
in that role for that organization specifically. So one useful thing I have found is reading up on
PM blogs in order to get a good understanding of both the culture of the company and the different
roles and processes that they follow but, if you're currently already interning somewhere and you're
curious about what a PM role would look like ask the PMs you're working with if you can shadow
them directly and learn more about their role and potentially pick up some projects that they're
working on. So product management has definitely very recently gained a lot of popularity and PMs
do come from a variety of different backgrounds so having a technical background definitely isn't
the only option however it is beneficial depending on which company you're going to since some do
require their PMs to be technical so if that's the case then you would likely have to make up for
that engineering knowledge or technical background knowledge on your own time and that's definitely
possible if you're proactive and looking for those opportunities. One of the best ways to determine
if product management is the right fit for you is definitely doing an internship within the
field if that's still an option available to you . I have friends who were in software before and then
tried out a product management internship and they found that they didn't enjoy it as much as
software so they went back. I've personally really enjoyed both my product management internships but
trying it out for yourself and seeing if it's a good fit for you is definitely the best way to go.
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