“There’s nothing better than working on something that excites you. Throughout my career, my excitement for each role has been the compass guiding my decisions. Starting each day with a sense of enthusiasm for the work and its impact is essential. … I advocate trying things that make you a little uncomfortable. Controlled change, even when slightly uncomfortable, can be immensely beneficial.”
Raghu Thricovil, a Ross MBA graduate of 2011, currently works as a Product Lead at Google’s Cloud Business Platform team based out of Sunnyvale, California. Before joining Google, Raghu had a diverse career journey. He started as a Software Quality Engineer at Adobe in Bangalore after graduating with a degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology in India. In 2007, driven by his passion for understanding user needs, he transitioned to a Product Evangelist role. After four years at Adobe, Raghu pursued an MBA at the Ross School of Business to gain a deeper understanding of business aspects in product development. He then returned to Adobe as a Product Manager in the Bay Area. During his thirteen-year tenure at Adobe, Raghu was involved in various web design products, Adobe XD, and Creative Cloud Growth. In 2020, he joined Google as a Product Lead in the Google Cloud Business Platform team.
1 What was your career plan in college?
After finishing my undergrad, my career didn’t go exactly as I had planned. I originally planned to get a master’s degree in robotics and work as a robotics engineer. But instead, I took a job as a quality engineer (QE) for a year or two to save money for graduate school.
During that time, a few unexpected events happened that shaped my career. I started my career as a White Box QE which was very hands-on, focused on code and testing within the product’s center. I learned a lot about the product’s features. During that time, several Adobe customers asked for someone from our team to train them on using our technology. Most engineers didn’t see this as a great opportunity, so they suggested sending me, the youngest member of the team. I was excited about this opportunity. It allowed me to interact more with customers, and I realized I really liked it. After a few weeks, I talked to my manager and told her I wanted to make this my full-time job.
Thus my role changed from pure engineering, to working with customers and introducing them to our products. The role was called a Product Evangelist and is similar to what technical pre-sales or developer advocates do today. As I met with customers, I realized our product did not meet their needs. I would go back to my office, study use cases, and talk to our teams to find solutions. During this process, I learned about the role and power of product managers.
By this time, I was enjoying the software world so much that I redirected my aspirations from building robots to building products. So I decided to take a break from work and pursue an MBA so that I could gain some business acumen to go with my customer focus and kick-start a career in Product Management.
2 Can you offer some advice to students who are figuring out their career passions?
There’s nothing better than working on something that excites you. Throughout my career, my excitement for each role has been the compass guiding my decisions. Starting each day with a sense of enthusiasm for the work and its impact is essential.
Second, I advocate trying things that make you a little uncomfortable. Controlled change, even when slightly uncomfortable, can be immensely beneficial. When I came to Ross, I intentionally decided not to recruit for big name tech companies where I’ve spent my whole career at. I joined Ecolab, an industrial chemicals company, as a marketing manager for soaps and sanitizers for my summer internship. This experience, distinct from my tech-oriented background, broadened my perspective on product marketing and customer experience.
Third, I think reflecting on personal strengths and figuring out how to bring that to value in your career can be a huge advantage. One example of this was with a friend who was looking to transition from strategy consulting to a product role in tech. He asked me “How can I transition into tech roles without a technical background? I am having lots of trouble recruiting for the PM position and crafting my story.” So I asked him, “What are your hobbies? What did you enjoy during weekends?” He said he was really into photography. He eventually realized being a semi-pro photographer gave him immense insights into the problems those users have with design tools like Photoshop. He ended up getting a job as PM for Adobe Lightroom which is essentially for photographers. If you’re passionate about photography, design software might be a great product area for you. If you used to be a real estate agent, maybe focus on recruiting for real estate tech companies like Zillow or Redfin. Show how you can bring the customer perspective to unearth key problems and translate that to a solution.
To stand out in an industry, it’s essential to recognize and embrace your unique qualities. When searching for a job, emphasize what makes you different from other candidates that uniquely suits you to the job. Avoid being just another resume in the pile. Otherwise in tech, folks with a general tech background will usually have an advantage.
3 How did you transition into PM? Have you ever encountered a challenging time in your PM career and how did you navigate through that?
In my case, the move to product management was a natural progression. My past roles in engineering and product evangelism eased this move. However, just six months into my PM role at Adobe, I faced an unexpected turn—the product I was working on was discontinued.
While this was a challenging time, I realized that the skills of a PM are transferable across different products. The key lies in understanding customers, defining their success, and effectively communicating this information to the engineering team. This realization shifted my focus from relying heavily on past experiences to becoming a more adaptable and versatile PM. When faced with unexpected changes, there are two main types of factors to consider: those you can control and those you cannot. It’s best to focus on controllable factors, actively participating in steering how those factors play out, rather than dwelling on things you have no control on.
My philosophy is that when I need to make a decision, I take the time to seek out information – data, opinions, etc and consider all the factors involved to make a decision. Once I’ve made a decision, I don’t dwell on it. Second-guessing won’t change the outcome. We can only make the best decision with the information we have at the time. This applies to career decisions, product decisions, and all other types of decisions. Things change over time, and it’s easy to look back and wonder if we made the right choice. But the important thing is to make the best decision with the information we have at hand at that time. Ask yourself – “If you had to make the same decision, with the same information, would you have done anything differently?”. If the answer is no, don’t sweat it. If the answer is yes, then it’s something to learn from.
Additionally, I think it’s critical to be actively involved in navigating your direction rather than letting the current take you wherever, especially in turbulent times. For instance, when our team recently went through a big strategy change and reorg, I wrote up a proposal for my new manager. It outlined the team’s strengths, took a hard look at our portfolio in the light of a new direction and suggested how I can help them make changes for significant impact. By doing that, I influenced the outcome for me and the team.
4 What are the skill sets you find critical in the PM career?
A Product manager operates in two distinct spaces: the problem space and the solution space. As you start in the PM discipline, you are focused on delivering solutions for a defined problem space. As you grow, the attention shifts towards the problem space, where there is more ambiguity in what even the problem is that we should be focused on. The goal shifts effectively to taming ambiguity and defining the problem space and a vision.
As a new Product Manager, it’s crucial to master three skills. Firstly, cultivate user empathy by deeply understanding their problems and acting as their representative during internal discussions. Secondly, lead solutioning by guiding a cross-functional team from various departments, such as engineering, user experience, and marketing, to develop solutions that solve user problems while generating business value. Finally, hone your execution skills by effectively prioritizing features, collaborating with engineering, and ensuring on-time implementation with the right quality. At this stage, it’s your role to provide the team with a clear goal, navigate unexpected challenges, and ensure that the final product aligns perfectly with user needs. Establishing precise success metrics is also vital, ensuring that the end result meets user expectations.
As you advance as a PM, you need to develop more leadership and management skills. The team will look to you to identify key challenges to focus on and explain the why. Furthermore, you must also coach and motivate the team as they define and execute the roadmap. A pivotal skill at this stage is recognizing team members’ capabilities, assigning appropriate levels of ambiguity based on their strengths, and coaching them to progress in their problem-solving abilities. Additionally, you will need to manage upward, and ensure that the work aligns with the organization’s success and customer satisfaction.
5 Tell us something that is not on your LinkedIn/resume
As a new Electronics engineering graduate, I wanted to be a Robotics engineer and build robots. My career took me in a different direction but my undergraduate project holds a special place in my memory. It involved creating a robot, capable of lifting and rotating a satellite in various directions, allowing for simulated testing in space. It was a unique project for a twenty-something robotics aspirant – a great mix of mechanical, electrical, electronics systems and software. We added some fun to it and created an interface to drive the robot with a gaming joystick (laughs).
Fast forward to today, my interest today lies more in reading about and thinking about the broader impact of robotics. For instance, now that I’m part of Google, I would love to work on projects like Waymo – combining my love for robotics and my skills as a Product Manager.
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