My Experience as a Program Manager Intern at Microsoft

Hello! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Dananjay Prabaharan (DJ) and I’m currently a Software Engineering student from McMaster University based out in Toronto. This summer, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work as a Program Manager (PM) Intern at Microsoft. Although the entire internship was virtual, it was still an extremely rewarding experience and I’ve definitely learned A LOT about how to be a successful PM in the workforce.

Before diving deep into the key lessons learned, I think it’s important that I first debrief on what exactly a “Program Manager” is…

What is a Program Manager (PM)?

To be honest, it’s still confusing for me on what exactly a Program Manager is (especially at Microsoft). The role is incredibly varied depending on the company/team you’re working with. But if there’s anything that’s consistent about the role, the overall goal of the PM is to constantly align internal teams on a product vision that best serves users.

Since this goal is extremely broad, there’s a variety of unique ways for a PM to tackle it:

• The PM could conduct user research and market/competitor analysis to best understand what’s in demand from the users for their product line.
• The PM could prioritize the sprint backlog on the features that are the most important for the users.
• The PM could launch an A/B test for their product to gather insightful data on the user behavior to make better informed product decisions.
• The PM could document the product requirements for the engineers/designers that includes improvements to be addressed based on the user pain points.
• The PM could directly interview a diverse set of users to understand their perspective on the product and how they interact with it.
• And many more…

As you can see, the general scope of the PM role is extremely varied and entirely dependent on what their team’s (or product’s) goals are. But the overall motivation is the same among the different responsibilities, where the PM must always act in terms of the best interests of users.

My Role at Microsoft

Within Microsoft, I had the opportunity to work as a Program Manager Intern with the Experimentation team for Azure.com (ACOM). The team’s overall goal is to launch impactful experiments (A/B tests) on ACOM to optimize the customer acquisition funnel and further grow revenue. Additionally, our team heavily collaborates cross-functionally with multiple external teams (engineering/design/marketing/editorial) to brainstorm, develop, and deliver the experiments.

The following outlines the diverse set of PM tasks I’ve completed throughout my internship while working with the Experimentation team:

• Leading the initiative to launch the revamped Azure.com (ACOM) Experimentation & Personalization documentation Wiki, eliminating team roadblocks when developing/launching experiments and ensuring effortless onboarding for new hires/teams.
• Initiating a project to enhance the estimated lift calculations through a data-centric approach to increase revenue generated from experiments and uphold integrity when making crucial decisions for quarterly planning.
• Driving processes within cross-functional teams to identify, implement and deliver multiple experiments (A/B tests) for ACOM, estimated to bring $350K+/month in additional revenue to Azure’s direct business.
• Executing other program-related critical tasks, including effectively communicating experiment statuses for the team, optimizing revenue impact during planning/prioritization processes, and preparing fiscal year experimentation reports for Marketing stakeholders.
• Exploring a variety of learning opportunities within the company to better learn how to foster relationships and grow into an effective PM in the workforce (ex: networking with PMs across the company, attending events with a focus on innovative technology, etc.).
• And many more…

What Did I Learn?

Although my internship was only for 12 weeks, I learned a lot of valuable lessons that I will cherish for the rest of my PM career. The following are the top 3 key takeaways I gained from my internship:

Communication is Key 🔊

Especially in a virtual environment, having clear communication is incredibly important as a PM as you coordinate with cross-functional teams and align them on a singular vision. I’ve always known communication was critical from my previous internships, but I didn’t realize the level of impact communication would have in improving the productivity of the team when you go above and beyond with it (ex: sending recap emails after meetings, drafting detailed step-by-step instructions when assigning tasks, addressing the clear WHAT/WHY/HOW when introducing a project, and etc.). My manager, Stephanie Morillo, has been an excellent example demonstrating these skills, and I’ve noticed a huge improvement in my performance once she clearly communicates the scope/requirements for my projects.

Impacts of Experimentation 🧪

I had never been exposed to the concepts of experimentation (A/B tests) and its impacts before, and it was truly a rewarding experience learning from a team that specializes in it. After preparing the experimentation fiscal year reports for the Marketing team, I was completely surprised to see how much additional revenue that was gained from the past experiments conducted. Even the experiments that seemed to have very little impact to the end user experience (ex: changing the text on a button) could potentially generate $1M+ in additional revenue. Through this experience and also developing many current experiments with the team, it definitely taught me the importance of optimization in a product and how even the smallest changes could lead to a massive impact to the users’ behavior. Especially dealing with a product at scale with a wide variety of user types, it’s critical to always use data to make better informed product decisions and avoid bias in the team.

Importance of Documentation 📝

Prior to my internship, I never really found documentation that special. I just thought it was an ordinary piece of article that a team would occasionally refer to, but never really had that much impact to the overall performance of the team/product. Well…I was wrong. During the first week of my internship, I had to familiarize myself with a TON of new experimentation concepts and team processes which was extremely daunting. If it weren’t for our internal documentation within ACOM, I don’t think I would have easily picked up to speed within my first week. It was only then I realized the importance of documentation and how it directly impacts the productivity of new hires/teams. I had the opportunity to completely revamp our team’s internal documentation to eliminate the pain points users were facing (ex: missing information, difficult to navigate, inconsistent formatting/content, etc.). After presenting the impacts of the final project to the upper management, an initiative was kickstarted to use our project as an example to remodel the internal documentation for all the ACOM teams. I was quite surprised. I never expected the amount of value the upper management has towards their team’s internal documentation. But it all makes sense. Internal documentation serves as the single source of truth for all the interacting teams, and it’s incredibly important in getting everyone aligned on the established team processes and goals.

Conclusion

Overall, my experience as a Program Manager Intern (PM) at Microsoft was definitely a valuable experience and I have to say a big thank you to my manager/team for being extremely supportive throughout the journey.

For anyone interested in applying for a Microsoft internship, I HIGHLY recommend reading the book “Cracking the PM Interview” and practicing mock interviews through the Exponent community. Both resources have been incredibly helpful for me, and I think it’s better for aspiring PMs to hear tips on landing the role from these experts rather than myself.

On a personal note, if you have any questions regarding my role at Microsoft, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and I’d be happy to chat 😊.