Mrunmayi Parker

I started out as a Research Engineer working on Team WhatsApp. During this time, Swapneel presented us with an opportunity to create an actual product that can help people. The idea was a platform, where young girls and women in remote areas, where menstrual hygiene is considered taboo, can ask questions about menstruation freely. This led to the creation of our WhatsApp based chatbot named Sakhi.

The highlight of this process was learning from Swapneel and Raghav, who were always there for us whenever we encountered any problem. Sharing a personal experience as an intern – you should never shy away from asking for help from your seniors. There might be solutions and approaches that we wouldn't even have thought about!

When we were in the final stages of launching the MVP, the team grew and I started to take more responsibilities from the management side and later on, I became the Team Lead. This was also the first time when I actually realized I love the tech management side of the role a lot! Right from assigning tasks to building the product timelines and budgeting the expenses and talking to the clients, I was learning to do it all! It was also my first time leading a team to create a product. Delegating tasks to team members based on their interest and expertise, tracking those tasks on our work dashboard, resolving blockers and doing daily check-ins helped me build an instinct and improved my problem solving skills. These qualities proved to be extremely valuable to me for all of my interviews.

At SimPPL, even as an intern, I got the experience of talking to the clients and presenting the updates. Building tech, talking to clients and the team and improving my people skills was all a part of this internship. I used to be very nervous about presenting in front of the clients but I overcame my fear by just going with the flow and always asking for improvements in the debrief meetings. When I pitched Sakhi the first time, I was very nervous and I over committed a little. Later, during the debrief, I asked Swapneel for feedback and he gave me advice on how to tackle such situations. From the next meetings, I was more mindful about balancing expectations and distinguishing what we can deliver on time.

Working as a Team Lead and managing a team really boosted my interest to seek a tech product management career. I started to research different roles in tech product management and what companies are offering such roles (This is when I saw the APM and TPM intern roles at Google!). This was back in 2023. I approached Swapneel for a meeting and mentioned my interest in these roles. He suggested I should first understand the work tech PMs do, the demand in the job market and the sustainability of this career in future. I did my research and found that many people in working tech management roles in the United States have had some experience working as a Product manager before. I said this to Swapneel and asked how I can get relevant experience if I want to pursue a career in this role. He said that I should just start doing PM work at SimPPL itself with the management team! This was the perfect segway for me to start working as a PM! I got hands-on work experience working with the management team, understanding their insights and working on tasks that make the other teams' lives easy at SimPPL. Understanding how an organization functions smoothly is something that was very intriguing for me. As a Team Lead, I was only managing one team, but as a Program Manager, I was communicating with multiple teams. This helped to gain perspective of the bigger picture and how you think of outcomes that will benefit the overall growth of the organization.