mid-year update
on life in seattle + differences between big tech & startups, entering my hosting era, and turning 22.
i've been in Seattle for about two and a half months now, and it feels like the right time for a reflective mid-year life update to cover experiences and learnings across living in a new city, work, and everything in between.
beyond becoming a devoted corner user, i've experienced tremendous growth both personally and professionally. the city can be fairly moody, ranging from sunny and warm one day, to gloomy and rainy the next. i've greatly enjoyed meeting other interns through the traditional summer internship, which i missed when i interned off-cycle previously. seattle is also an expensive city with doordash and uber prices going through the roof (which has been positive in the sense of encouraging me to step out and walk or take public transit more frequently). there's a big farmers market culture with pike place, fremont, and ballard markets being absolute gems that are worth exploring.
i've also been touching a lot of grass this summer, having completed three hikes so far and planning trips to olympic and mt. rainier national parks, plus the oregon coast over the coming weeks. between planning these adventures, commitments to my internship and friends, and mapping out my career, i've had little time for myself. this is something i crave after having so much of it earlier this year as it allows space to reflect on my life and progress more consistently. that being said, i have about five more weeks left here, and i would love to make the most out of it and hold off the alone time for later!
what i've been up to at Microsoft + big tech vs. startup life from a pm's perspective
i've been working as an ai pm at Microsoft within the Security organization, specifically for an identity enterprise product called Entra. my role as a product manager here has been quite different from other product internships, as i embody more of the "customer-obsessed" principle.
in my org, there are two types of PMs: CAT and Feature. traditionally, i would work as a Feature PM, exercising less creativity while sticking to business priorities and collaborating with engineers and designers to build features. as a CAT PM, however, i've gotten to shadow various customer calls with enterprises to understand their pain points within the Entra product. through this, i identified a gap in end users (our customers' customers) being able to leverage the MyPortal or MyAccount capabilities. this gap is currently driving up support ticket volumes for IT admins significantly.
i've had the opportunity to prototype an agent independently for the first two months of my internship, taking ownership of the scoping, design, and engineering aspects. i'll spend the remainder of my internship iterating based on feedback from customers and Feature PMs, with hopes of making this agent open source by the end of my term.
when considering my next career move, i've noticed several key differences between big tech and startup environments:
— bureaucracy and speed: this is commonly known, but big tech involves significantly more bureaucracy and stakeholders, leading to longer approval times and difficulty shipping fast to learn fast. with startups, rapid shipping can prove either fruitful or disastrous.
— community and support: startups can feel isolating compared to big tech. at big tech, you can approach PMs with years of experience to validate ideas and coffee chat with anyone you want to learn from, with 1000s of people in your network. this highlights the importance of intentionality when choosing to work within a smaller startup environment where you have ensure you truly "click" with the team and can approach them in a similar manner.
— autonomy vs. structure: at startups, you have the autonomy to branch out and run experiments, while big tech offers more structure and defined commitments. this translates into work-life balance considerations: most people at big tech enjoy the commitment to one domain, whereas startup life allows you to extend yourself as far as you want. however, with layoffs and reorgs at microsoft, i have to say that it is becoming easier to lose structure even in big tech.
— vision and flexibility: at a startup, you need to find yourself aligned and committed to one vision and product suite, while at big tech you can jump between teams, which can prove to be a great benefit if you're early in your career and haven't found a specific area of interest.
however, even during my time at microsoft, i've found that "side project" culture has become increasingly common to combat the race against ai. this wasn't anticipated but has proven beneficial as i've learned from others on my team exploring various tools and methods to create ai-native products.
choosing which environment to build a career in is ultimately an individual preference, and now that i've seen both sides, i can confidently say there's tremendous learning potential regardless of the path you take.
disclaimer: working across teams in big tech can foster vastly different experiences, but most of these points generally hold true, based on conversations i’ve had with peers.
a new interest: community building and hosting
on july 11th, in partnership with Afore, i converted my rooftop into a matcha cafe, hosting over 60 ambitious students in seattle who are actively building and/or interested in startups.
the positive sentiment and strong turnout confirmed my hypothesis that seattle's community was underserved this summer. i was one of those people initially, but as they say, you need to be the change you wish to see. countless people told me they were glad to see this being hosted, and i made incredible friends throughout. which is exactly why i do it! :)
community building has always been a passion of mine. it started as matchmaking and watching my friends thrive together, but has evolved into making introductions for interesting people looking for co-founders or teammates. i want to continue growing this skill when i return to waterloo because i've firsthand experienced getting absorbed in my own projects and then struggling to find community when i finally have the time.
speaking of community, i also recently hit 500 followers on x, which is kind of crazy to me given i've only been actively posting since the beginning of the year. i used to be someone who shied away from social media, but now i can't help but see the benefits of maintaining a presence, whether that's getting the word out for events like this or just learning about things i wouldn't otherwise discover!
22 is a battle between knowing and becoming
it's officially been one week since i turned 22, which feels surreal to digest. it's been different than i anticipated and bittersweet to say the least. recently, i've been pondering what constitutes real wins in life and have settled on a handful for myself:
being a person with strong character, morals, and self-image
having strong, close relationships
finding my passion
getting exceptionally good at something and building a lucrative career from it
the inspiration for brainstorming these came from realizing that i am now everything i wanted to be when i was 16 (independent, good internship etc.) but still unhappy occassionally. i had gotten wrapped up in achievements to the point where i forgot to foster things that really mattered. i've also been grappling with some deeper realizations: constant happiness is unrealistic and it's important to feel different emotions. i'm learning to be absolutely chalant about everything unlike how society is programmed nowadays, which is to suppress and digest more than our brains can handle.
something i never expected to encounter in my journey was feeling excessive nostalgia about my childhood and growing up away from india and my extended family. especially now that i've been completing internships far from my immediate family, there's guilt about leaving family behind, recognizing that being hyper-independent isn't really a flex, and working through "good girl syndrome" by allowing myself to make mistakes.
while getting older feels scary, i'm grateful to be surrounded by the array of opportunities that being in your early 20s possesses. the next year or so is fairly uncertain at this point and instead of dreading making choices, i love to reframe it as a privilege to be able to choose.
thank you for letting me ramble today and i hope you’re all having a great summer, whether that’s with crushing it at your internship or taking time off. until next time!
Great post! When you say, "side project culture", do you mean employees experimenting with AI tools after work so they don't fall behind or within Microsoft internally to enhance products with AI?