What accomplishment in your product management career has brought you the highest level of satisfaction and joy? Can you narrate why?

1. Launching Gojek Internationally in Vietnam and Thailand, making the first foray of the Deca-corn outside South-east Asia. Thus positioning it as a viable competitor to Grab, one of the most well-funded startup in the World

2. Setting up the operational platforms (Order, Policy, Shopping Cart, etc.) for an USD 90Bn organization, Booking.com, from scratch

3. Managing and driving the Data Science & Machine Learning Platform ecosystem of Booking.com. Working with one of the biggest datasets in the ecosystem

What aspect of  product management did you struggle the most with? How did you overcome  it?

Having worked internationally from my first role in product management, bridging the cultural and language gap whilst influencing your stakeholders was a skill I most struggled with. Nuancing your communication, being well planned, and finding common ground with my stakeholders helped me overcome this.
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What's one common  myth about product management that you find common among aspiring PMs.

For a product manager, especially a Tech Product Manager, being intimately aware of your tech ecosystem as well as being cognizant of the tech decision tree is something I feel that most young PMs miss out on. The PM  is the owner of success of one's product, hence one cannot be devoid of tech details in this role.

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What are some common  pitfalls that product managers must be aware of?

Finding hate balance between being too hands-on and too hands-off is a constant battle the PM would struggle with. This is something a PM hones with experience.

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If not product  management, what career would you have picked? Are there any complimentary skillsets that you see between being a PM and your alternate choice?

If not PM, I would have continued on as a Hardware Engineer. Tech-excitement as well as driving success to business drove me from engineering to product.

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What is something  about product management that you wish you knew when you started out?

You learn as you go along in any role, and the PM role has been highly rewarding for me. Something I wish I had known earlier in my career is the importance of the right mentors and people who can guide you early on.