A Day In The Life Of A Senior Product Manager At Amazon
A senior product manager's day at Amazon involves many meetings with "engineering teams, design teams, data teams, and everybody else," balancing collaborative efforts like gathering market research and assessing feasibility with independent work such as "research about new technology" and documenting findings in "product requirement documents." The role heavily emphasizes both collaboration and individual contribution.
Project Management, Data Analysis, Communication, Teamwork, Technology
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Hema Chalamalasetty
Senior Product Manager
Amazon
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
UCLA Anderson, MBA
Engineering - Chemical
Technology
Product / Service / Software Development and Management
International Student, Immigrant, Worked 20+ Hours in School, First Generation College Student
Video Highlights
1. A Senior Product Manager at Amazon spends their day collaborating with multiple teams, including engineering, data engineering, and design teams.
2. A significant portion of the day involves research, including market research, customer research, and internal document review to inform product development decisions.
3. Strong writing and documentation skills are essential for creating product requirement documents, documenting lessons learned, and managing the product roadmap.
Transcript
What does the day in the life of a senior product manager look like?
I think it depends on the kind of product you're working on. When I was working on one, I had to draft the PR/FAQ in the initial stage of the concept.
I'd set up meetings with different teams to get data on market and customer research. Then, I would work with data engineering teams to understand the potential impact of feature changes or launches and how to monitor them.
I also met with engineering teams to check feasibility. So, in a day, I would speak to at least two or three teams.
The rest of my time was spent researching new technology for the future, reading internal Amazon documents about previous work in similar spaces, and figuring out how to leverage existing resources. I'd also assess the feasibility of making changes of that size and scale.
Eventually, I would spend an hour or two drafting lessons learned and documenting everything into the final deliverable. This is primarily for an intern.
For a full-time employee, as I've seen it, it's primarily a lot of meetings. I've seen my manager do this; their calendar is pretty much busy with meetings with engineering, design, and data teams, among others.
Then, you have some dedicated time to work on your own documents, like product requirement documents, or review designs. You also plan your day by booking meetings, following up on certain things, and managing the product roadmap.
So, whatever you want, it's primarily a lot of meetings, and then a lot of research and writing.