“Even if you don’t have all the answers, it’s crucial to explore possibilities and try new things. Reflecting on my past decisions, I recognized that while I may not have been mature enough right out of college, I developed an awareness of the direction I needed to pursue. This parallels the journey of a Product Manager (PM). Beyond being a role, I see PM as a set of widely applicable skill sets – communication, stakeholder management, and adaptability – that transcend company types and positions.”
Dennis Lu (BSE, MSE ‘06, MBA ‘14) is a Product Manager at Google. Dennis finished his Bachelor and Master degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Michigan in 2006. He joined AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) as a Senior Design Engineer right out of college and had been in hardware engineering until May 2011. He then spent a year in Soft Machines as a Staff Engineer until August 2012 before returning to University of Michigan for MBA. Dennis learned about the PM position during his MBA study and interned at Google during the summer of 2013. He decided to join VMware after graduating from MBA to further pursue his PM career, mainly leading cloud platform products for four years until September 2018. He moved to Petuum as a Lead PM after VMware and had been there until April 2020. With extensive experience in enterprise facing products, he had been in Atlassian until November 2022 before joining Google at the end of 2022.
1 What was your career plan in college?
As an undergrad, I truly had no plan for my career. I was simply taking classes in engineering school because of my proficiency in math and my interest in engineering. My mindset was that whatever job this path led to, it would likely pay well. I didn’t have a specific plan regarding companies or industries. Eventually, I secured a job offer in my field of study, which was a significant achievement. However, in retrospect, I realize that my oversight was not considering what I truly enjoyed. While I appreciate engineering and mathematics, I discovered that I did not enjoy sitting in front of a computer and programming. I found the projects enjoyable, but the day to day work was boring and I had the sense I didn’t want to pursue that for the rest of my life. After five or six years in engineering, I made the decision to return to Business School, with an aim to reassess my career path. I definitely had become more mature at that point (laughter) that I could reflect and acknowledge my lack of clarity during my college. Looking back, it’s part of the learning journey – nobody is entirely mature enough to make life-altering decisions at such a young age. My time at Ross taught me that although I valued the social aspect of my job, I initially regarded the work itself as a paycheck, rather than a source of accomplishment and satisfaction. This realization came later than I would have preferred, as some of our friends had already pursued Business School after three or four years, having identified their dissatisfaction with their current roles. In hindsight, I wish I had made the shift earlier, but everything worked out, and I can’t complain.
During Business School, having more work experience proved advantageous and contributed to a positive competitive edge. However, there were individuals with even greater experience in different industries. The diversity in backgrounds among MBA students, with varying interests and experiences, made the cohort diverse. Returning to school after five years, I wasn’t entirely clear about my post-Business School goals at first.
2 How did you learn about the PM position and decided to pursue this career track?
Initially, my focus was on consumer electronics. I even expressed my desire to contribute to cutting-edge developments, envisioning myself working on the next-generation phone or innovative home automation devices in my MBA essay. Given my background in hardware and personal interest in the field, these seemed like natural choices. I hadn’t considered becoming a product manager until midway through my first year in MBA. It was my wife who brought up this choice, “You want to be a product manager, you know that, right? That’s the job you’re truly looking for.” I was like, “I did not know what PM is. Tell me more.” She was right of course. She was always right (laughter).
As a PM I get to think about problems that are close to technology and I talk to my colleagues everyday regarding the advancing solutions. All of these are super cool parts of my job. I can still work with the technologies I like without working on the coding aspects day-to-day.
3 How could you piece together your non-PM experience to persuade the next company that I’ll be capable of being a PM even though I had never done this before?
There’s a common joke in the world of product management – all PM positions require Product management experience. It sounds a bit cynical but we can see most PM job listings specify it requires one to five years of experience. The best choice of transitioning to PM is rejoining the new grad hiring group. Companies tend to be more open to taking risks with recent graduates, assuming they lack experience but are trainable. And it also highly depends on companies’ expectations. For example, Google has a longstanding tradition of seeking PMs with technical expertise, a prerequisite you must convincingly demonstrate. Conversely, companies like Atlassian place little emphasis on a technology or engineering background. During my journey at VMware, a similar trend persisted that they are leaning to candidates with technical background, given the nature of the product. It’s partially about how you frame what you’ve done and more about which of these PM positions is a better fit for what your background already is. It’s very hard to change your background as a Business School student who already has years of work experience in a specific field. Your best chance is to get a PM position related to your pre-business school experience. Embracing smaller shifts, such as transitioning from CPG to a familiar territory like CPG for platform management, can facilitate a smoother journey into product management.
I’ve been fortunate to start early in the tech sector, which has been a sustainably popular and flourishing field in the past decade. I believe it’s essential not to chase the latest or recent popular industry or trends. If you go into a field that fits what you like most as well as your background, you’ll be much more stable and have better opportunities. Once you’ve gained valuable experience, you have a much better foundation to explore riskier ventures, perhaps delving into the startups in the latest hot field. Everyone has their own risk appetite though, so if the startup scene is hot and you’re able to take the risk, go for it!
4 Even if you said you were not mature enough to figure out a career decision in college, I can see you intentionally taking steps forward to explore your career. What are your suggestions for students to figure out strengths and natural super powers?
When I first moved out of Ann Arbor after undergrad, I came with my then-girlfriend, now-wife. We lived together for a while. But when I returned to Business School, I came back to Ann Arbor myself. Suddenly I had lots of my own space as I was living alone here. With minimal work or overwhelming school homework, I had ample time to introspect. When I was 22, I wasn’t mature enough to utilize this time for self-reflection. However, coming back to Ann Arbor by the age of 28, having worked long enough, I realized the importance of delving into what I wanted in life. The two years of my MBA became a journey of self-discovery – identifying my strengths, understanding my desires, and acknowledging tasks I might not enjoy but were essential for my goals. It raised questions about priorities – was money or prestige more crucial? I ended up joining VMware, a company not widely known outside the tech circle. But it turned out to be a rewarding personal choice. Even if you don’t have all the answers, it’s crucial to explore possibilities and try new things. Reflecting on my past decisions, I recognized that while I may not have been mature enough right out of college, I developed an awareness of the direction I needed to pursue. This parallels the journey of a Product Manager (PM). Beyond being a role, I see PM as a set of widely applicable skill sets – communication, stakeholder management, and adaptability – that transcend company types and positions.
I’m now reaching a quite advanced point in my career. I’ve been working as a PM longer than I was an engineer. As one advances in their career, there should be a point or a vision when you will be happy with your level or scope. While there’s a prevailing joke about every PM wanting to be a CEO, the reality is that there are far fewer CEO positions than aspiring candidates. It’s essential to set personal goals and define one’s level of contentment. We all only have 24 hours a day, so climbing the corporate ladder often means sacrificing personal life, a realization I consciously navigate. For younger individuals, it’s crucial to bear in mind that this isn’t something to overemphasize, but rather a wall they’ll eventually encounter. The blueprint for life involves contemplating where one wants to go, whether they aspire to be a CEO or find fulfillment at a different level. “Do I really want to be a CEO or am I happy just having autonomy to a certain level?” This decision-making process intertwines life and career, highlighting the importance of finding contentment and balancing creativity within one’s chosen role.
5 What are the critical skill sets for a PM?
There are distinct requirements between entry-level and advancing PM roles. I remember when I was in entry-level positions, my then manager and VP said: “We are mainly looking for two skills in you”. The first is often termed general cognitive ability or intelligence, which can be hard to judge and assess. However, there are lots of ways to demonstrate this ability, such as thoughtful responses to questions, understanding concepts, and conveying a basic understanding of the company’s product. Fast forward several years later, when I’m hiring an entry-level PM, I’m genuinely interested in learning why they want to be a PM. This entails exploring their motivation, whether it’s a genuine interest in interacting with people, a desire for decision-making responsibility, or a passion for the role. While the motivations can vary case by case, a fundamental willingness to engage with people is non-negotiable for a PM. A great PM can never just sit there and talk to no one.
As one progresses in their career, the dynamics of the role shift. Beyond the initial skills, the focus turns to the art of “making friends and influencing people.” However, I view it more as understanding stakeholders, their motivations, and finding compromises. Contrary to common perception, I think a PM is not the ultimate expert in the product. There are often others who possess more in-depth knowledge. Your role as a PM becomes more about facilitating the product’s forward movement, understanding trade-offs, and aligning solutions with needs.
As one climbs the career ladder, you will need to take up more side responsibilities. For instance, at certain points, a PM might find themselves taking on some technical lead responsibilities, especially in companies with limited program management resources. This could involve tasks such as scrum and backlog grooming. These additional responsibilities may vary across companies and are contingent on the company’s staffing structure. And generally I, as a hiring manager, will not want to assign these responsibilities to a new hire, but rather to those PMs who have been in the company for some time that are familiar with the system.
Upon entering the management layer, the focus shifts to mentoring younger PMs. This transition can be both challenging and rewarding. Based on my personal experience, the younger PMs always “terrify” me with the amount of energy they bring into work (laughter). They always bring in so much drive that it makes me feel I’m not doing my job well enough. So what a more advanced PM has to do is harness that ability and help guide them in the right direction that it’s better for their growth. As an older person, you will be the mentor to help them use that bundle of energy in the right spot.
6 How can people in the product manager role know if they are on the right track and making progress in their career?
When it comes to “being on the right track”, I think there are three categories of tracks as a PM or aspiring PM. The first involves enhancing interview skills to secure a job, a crucial step that significantly impacts one’s career trajectory. The second category focuses on on-the-job strategies, exploring how to excel in daily tasks and measure success by positively impacting the product or meeting customer needs. The third category addresses the path to promotion, which can sometimes deviate from the actions taken to improve the product or satisfy customers.
While all three categories are essential, the second one might be more closely related to the skill sets involved in PM responsibilities. Lots of people might feel the second and third category have no difference, but I’ve seen and finally learned the difference after years in my PM career. One of my previous managers explicitly told me that ideally, what’s required to enhance the product and serve customers effectively aligns with what your company looks for in promotions. But if the company incentives are not aligned with promotion requirements (which is almost always the case), there should be no guilt in focusing on actions that lead to promotion. This realization, although somewhat disheartening, underlines the need to understand and navigate the dynamics between career growth and product improvement.
I firmly believe a fundamental skill of assessing a Product Manager is prioritization. It’s about confidently making decisions, especially when faced with diverse data points and requests from various teams. Stakeholders come to you with the data and you’ll need to make the decision on the spot. This skill is crucial in ensuring a smooth decision-making process, fostering team satisfaction, and navigating complex scenarios. Oftentimes a B+ prioritization made decisively is better than the perfect decision made eventually.
7 Tell us something that is not on your LinkedIn/resume
One of the initiatives I enjoy implementing at companies is creating spaces for people to engage in conversations beyond the realm of work. I first did this at Atlassian, and has proven to be particularly beneficial for remote work environments. At my previous workplace, I established a group dedicated to discussing TV shows and movies. Upon joining Google, I initiated a similar space that aligns with my primary hobby in TV and movies.
I’ve observed positive outcomes not only for myself but also in terms of enhancing overall employee happiness, which can boost productivity. This approach fosters a sense of connection, especially in a large international company where some may work remotely, or many team members may not see each other every day. This contributes to a more content and consequently more productive workforce. It doesn’t require the establishment of a formal employee resource group – in my case, just a simple chat or Slack channel dedicated to topics like TV and movies can work well. The latest movie I watched in the theater was “Creator”. It is not my favorite movie, but I’d highly recommend it for the stunning visuals alone. The latest movie I watched at home was “Suzume”, an anime from last year that explores magical doors and intriguing themes, also good.
Do you have any questions about product management that you would love us to cover in the coming episodes? Tell us here.