3 things I learned as working with the PMs at Autodesk
What factors aspire a rookie in tech to determine to be a PM
2 years ago, I joined Autodesk as a web producer in an e-commerce department of Autodesk.
My team is focusing on a knowledge repository of over 1 million collections contributed by our partners, consumers and employees, which is called AKN, Autodesk Knowledge Network. At first, from a rookie’s perspective, I thought that AKN is just a normal website. I could not understand why it requires so many talented persons, such as veterans working in tech for 20+ years and geniuses graduated from Stanford or Berkeley, to put their effort in, what I thought at that time, just a “website”? I realize that I didn’t see the full picture: it is not just a website, or just a product, it is a platform that aligns all the efforts together to make a seamless customer experience and so can have a big impact on the company, or even the industry. Below are 3 lessons that totally refreshed my mind from these 2 years after working with so many fabulous colleagues in the company.
1.Passion is the sharpest weapon to conquer every obstacle you meet at work
You would ask why passion matters most? Shouldn’t it be profession, experience or even a degree from Ivy College? (To be honest, I’ve never been working with such a number of colleagues graduated from top universities before joining Autodesk). Well, I totally agree they all matter. However, I would still insist that passion is the foundation of all mentioned above. Without passion, it is hard to achieve any profession, gain experience and graduate from an Ivy college. For example, I have a colleague who has 20+ years ‘experience in the industry. Once we worked together on a project to deal with some trivial staff. He could have assigned these trivia to me but instead, he worked with me together to examine the process step by step and polish it if he thought the result on production would not make a seamless customer experience. I know he intended to mentor me and give me a valued lesson that it is passion that push you going for an extra mile. Never settle for one way of doing things but always explore alternatives.
2. Use communication to build relationship and finally to achieve empathy
When I was back in China, I always heard that Americans value freedom as the top priority and sometimes even do not hesitate to be “selfish” to insist their own needs and do not care what others think about them. I would say this is a huge misunderstanding. Since I’ve joined Autodesk, I realize that everyone here values building a good relationship with each other. Rather than only thinking about themselves, they will not hesitate to express recognition, gratefulness and encouragement for others’ excellent work. For example, I still clearly remember the first time I was recognized by a job I did by my manager two years ago, like it was just happened yesterday. That was the first time I dealt with a task without my manager’s guidance and to make sure I meet the expectation I also worked a little bit late to 11 pm on that day. Checking the time log in our system, my manager found that I burned the night oil to get things done. He sent me a slack message saying that I really did a nice work. I felt so happy and excited that I even felt a little dizzy!
3. Product management? No, it is People Management
If you ask me what I value most along the 2-years journey at Autodesk, I will tell you it is the people I work with. To make your product work better, try to create a comfortable environment for your people first. I can firmly state that there are no hassles or dramas coming from my job, not even one. There are all nice people making nice things happen every day. I remember when the pandemic hit us and the lockdown began in March 2020, everyone in the company was standing together with each other, no matter you are the CEO, a director and a team member, with countless emails and slack messages providing support, carefulness and resilience. I remember the day when an important project was launched, everyone is cheering and feeling the excitement even though we can’t see each other. I remember every team event after each milestone achieved, which is so much fun and leaves me a lot of precious memories.
In a nutshell, there are the 3 lessons I learned working with Autodesk’s PMs and would like to share with you:
· Passion is the foundation to sustain a great job.
· Never be reluctant to communicate.
· The product is important but it is the people that matters.