Our guest this week is Kalpana Sundar — Director of Product Management, Pricing at PayPal —who lives in San Jose. Kalpana’s career trajectory is phenomenal, so are the lessons she’s picked up along the last decade. I am excited I discovered her and can’t wait to share her thoughts.More
Charting Her Own Course in Software with a Knack for Extreme Empathy
I caught up with Sushma Padmanabhan — a Senior Product Manager at Intuit — for profiling her trail-blazing career. A native of Mumbai, she explored the nine yards of finance for a decade — from stockbroking, banking, insurance to taxes, before moving to Bengaluru for opportunities in FinTech. In 2008, Sushma joined Intuit as a US Tax Analyst. More
How This Military Veteran Switched Gears To Tech And Set Her Career On Autopilot
An abrupt end to her career in military was the start of her fast-paced journey in product management. Brittany credits her mother’s lessons on building relationships and finding a partner who supports her line of work. More
The Tsunami Crashed Her Dreams. Now She is Breaking The Glass Ceiling as a Tech Leader
I wrote to Silva Thom on the possibility of profiling her. We spent the next few weekends discussing her intensely unconventional journey into software and product management.More
Your career is a team sport — you won’t get there alone.
Got the chance to have a tete-a-tete with product management leader Jill Solley. Read what she has to say about her early experiences in tech and her advice for young women.More
All you have to do is ask
I talk to Rekha— a veteran Product leader based out of San Francisco about her journey into tech, transition into product management and mentoring women. More
5 Seats of Power
Sometimes, we all tend to feel like we don’t have permission to tell our colleagues what’s not working well. But three Saturdays ago, Apoorva and Partha from Quinnergy changed all that for me and a room full of people.More
My Jugaad Approach to Learn System Design Thinking
I love writing a startling heading. Jugaad is the gutsy art of overcoming harsh constraints to solve a problem using limited resources.– Harvard Business Review My constraints are a lack of a formal degree in Computer Science. My most limited resource is time. My problem is a bunch of unknown unknowns in software. I’ve been…More
Reality as a Matryoshka Doll
I’ve come to a grand conclusion that there is exactly one ongoing debate in the world. Don’t ask me what I’ve been smoking. This debate gets reframed to suit different contexts. The ebullient young students debate on “Determinism vs Free Will“. The mature social scientists and academics call it “Nature vs Nurture“. If neither rings…More
On Dealing with Conflicts for Better Collaboration
I think I’m most qualified to talk about two things on my blog: Risk and Conflicts. In this post, I dive deep into the types of conflicts and how to tackle those for better collaboration. More
Observation Book 