Three years ago, I asked myself and several of my mentors within and outside of Microsoft - "What's the closest thing to entrepreneurship at Microsoft?" The unanimous answer was - "Become a Program Manager on a product that's about to grow/explode!!" I took the leap of faith and it worked. I've enjoyed every bit of it and would recommend it to anyone, who's passionate about technology, entrepreneurship and design.
Several folks have asked me a gamut of questions aboutthe role of a program manager, but the most common threads of conversations have been around "becoming a program manager at Microsoft."
While the role is called Program Manager, it is similar to the role of a product manager at most other companies including Google, Facebook, startups, etc. At Microsoft, Product Manager is a marketing role. Much has been written about the role by my mentors and people who are much more experienced, so I won't delve into it. I recently wrote two posts on the topic on my official/personal blog:
Part 1: http://www.kintya.com/blog/2008/08/how-to-become-a.html
Part 2: http://www.kintya.com/blog/2008/08/how-to-become-1.html
Let's create great things!
-Kintan
