Career advice from Cathy Zhang, Product Lead at Carta & community organizer of AAPI Women in Tech Slack

Cathy is the Product Lead at Carta and community organizer of a growing AAPI Women in Tech Slack. She’s led platform integrations at Spring, relaunched SELF and Allure at Condé, and worked on Birchbox’s allocation rules engine. In her free time, she mentors junior product managers and coaches people through interviews over lots of caffeine. She’s also a native New Yorker, foodie, and martial artist.

Tech Ladies recently hosted an #AskMeAnything with Cathy. We discussed finding mentors and sponsors, managing (and managing up), evaluating equity, and more. Below are some of our favorite Q&As. Head over to the community for the full #AskMeAnything (you’ll have to join the group if you’re not currently a member).

Q: What’s the difference between mentorship vs. sponsorship — and how we can seek out mentors and sponsors?

Cathy: A couple of thoughts about mentors vs. sponsors:

• Mentors are valuable — let’s acknowledge that. They are often more impactful tactically vs. your long-term strategy at a particular company. They will tell you when you’re wrong, offer advice when you need it, and generally be a good sounding board.
• Sponsors are mentors in their own right, but they may not necessarily be the people you talk with most. These people need to be in positions of real power in an org — or have a lot of social capital. The key difference here is that they are willing to boost your career attached to their own. As in, they think you have high potential, so they will go to bat for you. They will mention your name in meetings. They will give you shout-outs, even if you’re not in the room. These are the people that can make your career or help you “skip” rungs on the ladder.

Seeking out sponsors requires some patience. Asking someone for their time can be daunting — and the more junior you are, the harder this is. But sponsors can be born from mentors, in many cases. A combination of rapport and your own great execution at work will increase chances of a mentor or sponsor saying yes. People are busy, so if you have no historical evidence of being high performing, this threshold is higher.

Q: How do you manage up, especially with regards to giving feedback to your manager?

Cathy: I think managing “up” is something that took me many years to fully grasp because of the anxiety around feedback. A couple of things I do now:

1. Always establish an understanding of how your manager is going to measure you. ALWAYS DO THIS. The more metrics driven or measurable this goal is, the better, because it can help remove bias. I do this in my first 1:1s with a new manager, essentially saying: “Hey, this is what I think is important for me to achieve in order to reach X goal. Do you agree? How can we work together to do this?” Without this, your feedback can seem baseless or “personal.” This is especially true in toxic organizations.

2. After a foundation is set, then your feedback should be centered around how your manager is doing to UNBLOCK YOU. You don’t have clarity? That’s your manager’s job to inform you. You’re missing resources? Your manager should know so they can plan around it or help you get headcount. In essence, feedback “up” should be through the lens of “Was my manager helpful? Why? Why not?”

3. Ideally, you and your manager should be on the same page about how to communicate. That’s not always the case, but if I’m giving critical feedback to someone, I tend to defer to what makes them more comfortable. Tactically, it’s about timing. Feedback should be timely and respectful, which means don’t wait a month or two. Your manager has likely forgotten it or came to the conclusion everything is fine, so waiting can be seen as “out of left field.”

Lots of people have written about how to do this well in the actual feedback session. I’d gravitate towards radical candor myself, but it deeply requires trust in your manager, which not everyone has. I’d gauge how transparent you want to be.

Q: How do you manage your time and how you interact with your phone? Do you have any rules or guidelines about how to not be “always on?”

Cathy: I’ll answer this in two lenses, one as an individual contributor and one as a manager.

• As an IC product manager: Under normal circumstances, I leave my phone ON during working hours but I have a strict rule around NOT using it or bringing it to important meetings. Meetings in which I need to be fully present (like 1:1s) obviously calls for no distractions. It’s just basic courtesy. People will ping you regardless but if it’s truly urgent, they will come *find* you.
• As a manager: As a rule, I don’t subscribe to the “always be available on your phone just in case” philosophy. People have lives and after a certain hour I will literally not respond to emails, slacks, or texts — and I encourage people to do the same. The silent mode on my iPhone is integral in this as I won’t see notifications (which removes psychological triggers to respond or be “always on”). Again, if it’s truly urgent there are processes in place to reach me.

Someone who’s always working burns out faster. You won’t be a great coworker or leader when you’re exhausted 24.7 Your personal time is important.

Thanks to Cathy for her time and wisdom! If you have an inspiring woman or non-binary person to nominate for an #AskMeAnything in Tech Ladies, shoot me an email: hannah[at]hiretechladies.com.

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