This document summarizes a presentation given by Michael Magan, a Product Manager at Indeed. The presentation focuses on how to be an effective product manager by motivating teams, building products to last, and simplifying requirements. It provides examples of how Magan motivates his team by clearly defining success metrics and sharing data on product impact. It also emphasizes the importance of identifying high impact features and validating ideas with data before building them. The presentation encourages product managers to simplify requirements by prioritizing work based on its impact and difficulty. It concludes by discussing career paths for product managers such as becoming a director of engineering, chief architect, or CTO.

1. Indeed Engineering
and The Lead Developer present:
Tech Leadership and Management
@IndeedEng | #LeadDevAustin

2. Indeed is the #1 job site worldwide

3. Lead Developer Austin, TX
what where
Find Jobs

4. 60 countries
30 languages
200M unique visitors
20M jobs

5. Offices around the world
4
5
New York
Stamford
Toronto
São Paulo
Austin
Seattle
San Mateo
San Francisco
Dublin
London Amsterdam
Dusseldorf
Paris
Hyderabad
Bangalore
Singapore
Sydney
Tokyo
Zurich
Brussels
Scottsdale

6. Engineering offices
4
5
Austin
Seattle
San Francisco
Hyderabad
Tokyo
Singapore

7. go.indeed.com/eng-jobs

8. Tonight’s Talks

9. Dr. Robyn Rap
Product Science Manager
Fishing a Manager to Teach

10. Paresh Suthar
Engineering Manager
New Engineering Manager at
Indeed? First: Write Some Code

11. Michael Magan
Product Manager
How to Stop Worrying and Love
Product

12. Ketan Gangatirkar
Eng Lead, Jobseeker Products
Quantum Leap: From Managing
a Team to Leading an Org

13. Thanks for joining us!
@IndeedEng | #LeadDevAustin

15. Fishing a Manager to Teach
(or something like that)
Robyn Rap, Ph.D.
Manager, Product Science
robyn@indeed.com

27. Yes, teaching a class is hard.

28. Do it anyway.

29. Colleague #1
Colleague #2
Colleague #3
Survey McSurveyFace

30. I wrote this survey in 2 minutes
Survey survey survey!!!
SURVEY
Bad survey
I also wrote this survey in 2 minutes
Hi! Can you help me and take this survey?
Plz fill out my survey
survey
I am your boss and I wrote this survey now take it.
Colleague #1
Colleague #2
Colleague #3
Colleague #5
Colleague #6
Colleague #7
Colleague #8
Colleague #9
Colleague #10
Colleague #11
Colleague #12
Colleague #13
Survey McSurveyFace

31. With what speed and sense of urgency do the X and Y
teams approach launching new products and enhancing
existing products?
◯ Snails pace
◯ Slightly faster than a snail
◯ An OK pace
◯ Rabbit pace
◯ Lightening Fast

32. With what speed and sense of urgency do the X and Y
teams approach launching new products and enhancing
existing products?
◯ Snails pace
◯ Slightly faster than a snail
◯ An OK pace
◯ Rabbit pace
◯ Lightening Fast
???!

33. I wrote this survey in 2 minutes
Survey survey survey!!!
SURVEY
Bad survey
I also wrote this survey in 2 minutes
Hi! Can you help me and take this survey?
Plz fill out my survey
survey
I am your boss and I wrote this survey now take it.
Colleague #1
Colleague #2
Colleague #3
Colleague #4
Colleague #5
Colleague #6
Colleague #7
Colleague #8
Colleague #9
Colleague #10
Colleague #11
Colleague #12
Colleague #13
Survey McSurveyFace

34. Or I could do something.

35. 81 employees
have taken the survey workshop

36. 19 teams

37. 97%said they found the workshop helpful

38. Efficiently written survey!
Good survey
This survey is a wonder to behold
I have clearly benefited from your survey workshop
Colleague #1
Colleague #2
Colleague #3
Colleague #4Survey McSurveyFace

39. If teaching a workshop is so effective...

40. … why don’t more people do it?

41. Problem #1
“Teaching a workshop takes
a lot of time”

42. Yes. It does.

43. Time
Effort

44. Time
Effort

45. Time
Effort

46. Time
Effort

47. Time
Effort

48. 81 hours
Teaching one-on-one for an hour would require

49. 16 hours
Teaching the workshop 5 times cost me

50. Offering a workshop is more scalable
than teaching one-on-one.

51. Problem #2
“I’m not an expert”

52. Guess what?

53. Me neither.

54. “While we teach, we learn.”
Seneca
Philosopher
Source: Chase et al. 2009. “Teachable Agents and the Protégé Effect: Increasing
the Effort Towards Learning” Journal of Science Education and Technology.
Image source: Jean-Pol Grandmont

55. “I was referred to you by Paul, because I was looking
for some advice regarding surveys and he mentioned
you are a great survey expert.”

56. Huh.

57. You

58. People who know
more than you
You

59. People who know
less than you
People who know
more than you
You

60. People who know
more than you
You

61. omg i am
a total n00b
People who know
more than you
You

62. YouPeople who know
less than you

63. YouPeople who know
less than you
Wow.
Expert!

64. Teaching builds expertise.

65. Problem #3
“I don’t want to present for that long”

67. How to code
1. Import your packages
2. The difference between a string and an integer
3. Here’s what a variable is
4. For Loops
5. Function Defining and You!
6. Call your dataframe a df and just go from there
7. Getting an error? Try resetting your kernel over and over
8. Version control is kind of important
9. If I teach conditional statements, then you’ll know how to use them
10. Class on Classes

70. Provide a sandbox for people
to learn by doing.

71. Consider the think-pair-share.

72. 1. Think individually about a topic

73. 2. Pair up with a partner to talk about it

74. 3. Share with the rest of the group

75. Problem #4
“No one is engaged”

82. Ask people to put away their phones, laptops.

83. Teaching Tips
1. Teaching a workshop is more scalable than
teaching a lot of people one-on-one.
2. Don’t worry about being an expert - you’ll grow
your expertise
3. Provide a sandbox for people to apply what
they’re learning.
4. Use think-pair-shares to get everyone engaged
5. Ask people to put away their phones, laptops

84. One last thought.

85. With what speed and sense of urgency do the X and Y
teams approach launching new products and enhancing
existing products?
◯ Snails pace
◯ Slightly faster than a snail
◯ An OK pace
◯ Rabbit pace
◯ Lightening Fast
???!

87. What will you teach?

88. Thank you!
Robyn Rap, Ph.D.
Manager, Product Science
robyn@indeed.com

89. New Engineering Manager at Indeed?
First: Write Some Code
The Importance of Manager Onboarding
Paresh Suthar
Engineer Manager, Indeed

90. Who has recently transitioned into a
new role as a manager?

91. Congratulations!
You’re a manager. Now what?

92. managernoun man·ag·er ˈma-ni-jər
one that manages

93. Okay...so what does it mean to manage?

94. “To handle or direct with a degree of skill”

95. 2 types of managers

96. There was the manager who set
expectations and goals for me,
empowering me to achieve them

97. Then there was the manager who told
me what to do and how to do it

98. It makes you wonder...how does
someone become a manager?

99. Usually there are two paths:
1. You’re promoted into the position.
2. You’re hired to manage.

100. Just because you were hired as a manager does not
mean you will be effective in the role

101. Most managers leverage past experiences as their
primary guide on how to be effective

102. Unfortunately, most companies and teams
are different in some way

103. This point was highlighted to me a couple of years
ago when I was consulting for a local company

104. The company decided to assign a manager from a
different group to lead this newly formed team

105. Over a short period of time, the manager began to
get more involved with day-to-day decisions

106. This started to erode confidence in the team

107. Ultimately led to a stressful working environment

108. My onboarding journey as a manager at Indeed

109. I would spend at least one quarter as an
individual contributor
During that time I would write code and
unit tests (of course!), fix bugs, deploy
releases, participate in team meetings and
more...
Before I started,
I asked what
to expect.

110. Wait, did you say that I get to write code?

112. No direct reports
No management-related responsibilities
Effectively, I was a
manager with:

113. I had the same responsibilities as other engineers

114. I got to know my team

115. I got to know my manager

116. I continued to learn and grow
throughout the quarter

117. As I approached the end of my first quarter, I had
discussions with my manager about switching roles

118. We made the decision that I would manage the
Money Team, and I was happy about that

119. I think the team was happy about it, too

120. Ideas for your onboarding journey as a manager

121. View management as
a privilege, not a title

122. Carve out time to do nothing but learn.

123. Build trust with the team

124. Get and stay technically engaged

125. Get feedback early and often

126. Keep a journal of things you learn

127. Challenges:
You are needed to fill a departure role
There are timelines and deliverables
You were hired because you know stuff, you don’t need onboarding
Fear of re-engaging on technical work

128. Build trust with the team

129. Thank you!
Paresh Suthar
Engineer Manager, Indeed
paresh@indeed.com

130. How to Stop Worrying and Love Product
Michael Magan
Product Manager, Indeed
@m_a_g_a_n

132. I love being a Product Manager.

134. Motivate Your Team Build to Last Simplify Requirements
1 2 3

135. Motivate Your Team

136. What is Lead Gen?

137. Self -Serve
Sales
?Sign Up

138. Hiring Need

139. ?
Sign Up

140. Sign Up
Jobs on Their Site
Sign Up + Jobs on Their Site

141. Sign Up + Jobs on Their Site

142. Source: Internal
# of Employer Signups Linked to External Job Sources
150
100
50
# of linkages made vs. time
10 17 24 May ‘17 8 15 22 29 12Jun ‘17
0

143. # of Employer Signups Linked to External Job Sources
# of linkages made vs. time
April ‘17 May ‘17 Jun ‘17 Jul ‘17 Aug ‘17 Sep ‘17 Oct ‘17 Nov ‘17 Dec ‘17 Jan ‘18 Feb ‘18
Source: Internal
1250
1000
750
500
250
0

144. Source: Internal
59,629
Number of Employers with Hiring Needs
From Then Until Now

145. Define how to measure success
Incomplete until we can measure success

146. Cool that there have been
1200 of them since you
added that:
https://go.indeed.com/IQL
6YTRP38
Wow, awesome

147. Built to Last

152. It’s our job

153. It’s product and the lead developer’s job

154. Identify the impact
Validate that it is the next best feature

155. Data

156. Source: Internal
61%
of new external jobs came from Applicant Tracking Systems
More than

157. Simplify Requirements

160. It’s our fault, again

161. Impact (me) Difficulty (you)

162. Impact (me) Difficulty (you)
Really High Really Hard
Low Hard
High Medium
Low Easy

163. Impact (me) Difficulty (you)
Really High Really Hard
Low Hard
High Medium
Low Easy

164. Deliver More Iterate More Achieve More

165. Motivate Your Team Build to Last Simplify Requirements
1 2 3

166. What do you want from your career?

167. Lead Developer Director of
Engineering
Chief Architect CTO

168. Simplifying complex
business needs
Identify the most
impactful work to do first
Measuring the
success of your teams

169. CTO

170. CEO of the ProductCTO

171. Questions and break