Meet the Expert: Microsoft Product Manager 2 Salman Chishti

Software engineering is far more difficult than you may expect. For instance, when it comes to developing a product and coding, there are many factors to take into consideration, not only the technical requirements but also the business requirements. In addition to this there are so many possible ways to develop one solution, there may be a better approach, a library that is not as feature rich as another but not as stable, so on and so forth... An engineer has to figure out what someone is doing on their phone, i.e., the state, to ensure that the user interface is nice, to test edge cases, and to think about the privacy of users, meet security requirements, amongst lots of other things.

Additionally, you need to remove bugs, maintain and upgrade the product after finishing the application. Even if you think you will not need to update the product in the future, there will be security updates and patches you need to worry about. When it comes to coding, there are a variety of aspects that people don’t really notice. It's a lengthy process that may require a significant amount of time and energy.

For product management, one challenging aspect of it is being well-rounded in so many different verticals, understanding the technical aspects of your products where you need to know each and every feature and capability of your product, knowing the future direction of the organization/business, putting yourself in the shoes of your questions, prioritizing the requests from your customers, understanding competitor products, understanding go-to-market strategy, and more.

Moreover, since you are doing a lot of communicating, you can often find yourself having to work with people in multiple time-zones which can mean working at more irregular hours than your co-workers. At the end of the day, I feel as a product manager that if a product fails, I am responsible, and that’s a huge load of weight to put on oneself, however it's a unique sense of ownership which also is fun and a great challenge to have. I do enjoy the job and as with any, there are trade-offs that you’ll have to consider. I, for one, do enjoy meeting with people and making a positive impact with them for a greater good, so it’s not historically been too different even in roles I've done in the past which don’t require this, as I’d find other things to do with teams in different regions regardless of my core priorities.

One thing I won’t compromise on is quality. People will form an impression of a product before they use it. I want to ensure that there is a standard of quality when it comes to the final product to prevent people from having the wrong impression. Hundreds of millions of people are able to use the Microsoft products that use our product/feature without bugs every single month, so if something goes wrong, it has a significant impact on a large number of people around the world. Compromising on quality is not a question. This differs though from prototypes, I do heavily believe that we should involve customers early on to try things out or get feedback early on, but for proper big releases to customers, there should be a high bar for quality.

When managing tasks, I believe it is crucial to break things down into manageable steps so you can better understand how to work toward the goals. Furthermore, to-do lists and calendars are useful for time management. I believe that making notes is also beneficial. For instance, if you frequently meet with clients, taking notes can help you prepare any questions to ask them during the next meeting and what must be followed up on. With meetings, I believe that sharing notes can really help customers and stakeholders, who will appreciate the additional effort, and if they cannot join the meeting, they will have a point of reference to catch up on. As a product manager, I find that To Do lists are more manageable than blocking out time in my calendar for specific tasks as my calendar gets quite busy and I need to be able to fit in so many different tasks in breaks which I can find. Having my tasks visible to other team members and being able to see what my engineering counterparts are working on also gives me a good overview on where we are all at as a product team.

I give my life a 92 out of 100. In the grand scheme of things, I am very grateful to be in the position I am in right now. There's always progress to be made, and there are many things I can do better. I aspire to be like a tree since trees keep growing throughout their entire lifespan. And because of that, I love learning in my spare time, trying to move forward to see how I can improve. Many people have helped me throughout my life, and I want to repay them by imparting knowledge to others who might benefit from it.

In the future, I hope to broaden the scope of the products I'm currently in charge of. I would like to start moving to a more senior position so I can coach others in their careers. A lot of my YouTube videos offer guidance and advice to viewers, so I think people management would be awesome. I want to be a good manager, because it’s important to have someone who guides you, has faith in you, and believes in you. At the same time, I may one day move back to do software engineering again, as I do love getting nitty gritty in the details of implementation. It all depends, and I will let the future present itself to me and be a leaf in the wind, but one thing is for sure, I want to keep learning.