Srinath Ananthakrishnan

Thanks, Amnic team, for hosting me on your podcast. I enjoyed the conversation with Sathya narayanan Nagarajan. We have many things in common from our learnings from working on CD-based products where perfection was the expectation in the first iteration to today, when Amnic and Mindtickle are taking big bets on GenAI and Cloud to delight our customers. In this podcast, I shared my experiences of more than twenty years of building and deploying large-scale systems at Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Mindtickle. The podcast also covers my learnings from moving from large enterprises to a relatively smaller company where being agile and nimble is paramount. #Microsoft, #Meta, #Google #Mindtickle.

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From Astrologer's Whispers to Real Connections: Reclaiming Belonging in a Lonely Age Have you ever consulted an astrologer, their predictions swirling in your head, only to feel empty when your day takes a different turn? The emptiness might not be about the details themselves, but about seeking outside approval for your happiness. This same feeling can creep in even when you achieve success. Remember climbing the career ladder, landing that dream apartment, only to find yourself lost in a quiet emptiness? In India's bustling cities, it's a familiar, painful emotion. We're surrounded by people, yet there's a little loneliness at the edges of our lives. Thinking back to Mrs. Deshmukh, your friendly neighbour with the legendary Til Gur Barfi's, who brought the whole neighbourhood together with tea and friendly chats. Those evenings of shared stories and laughter, a web woven by simple human connection, feel like a distant memory in our super-connected yet broken world. We chase success with thumbs glued to screens, building online bridges that leave us feeling more alone than ever. The pressure to create a perfect online self-drowns out the whispers of our own desires. But here's the real deal, that shiny designation and fancy car can't fill the hole left by genuine connection. There's hope, though! We can rewrite this story. Let's ditch the small talk and chase deeper connections. Share your fears and worries, break free from feeling isolated in this sea of ambition. Remember the warmth of family gatherings, the joy of shared childhood games? Revive those small traditions. Pick up the phone for a real heart-to-heart conversation rather than What's Apping. Every act of connection, no matter how ordinary, how small, builds a more satisfying life. Imagine hearing back from an old friend, reliving an old laugh, and being surrounded by people who truly see us, where we belong. Isn't that what life is all about? Together, one conversation, one meal, and one act of kindness at a time, we can tear down the walls of loneliness. We can rewrite the narrative of modern society, where connection becomes the foundation of a life well lived. It's not too late, or is it? #HumanConnections #BelongingMatters #OvercomeLoneliness #RealConversations #MeaningfulRelationships #CommunityOverConnectivity #AuthenticLiving #SocialWellbeing #RedefiningSuccess #TraditionsRewoven #FightIsolation #VulnerableAndReal #KindnessRevolution #SmallActsBigImpact #ReconnectingHumanity #IndianSociety #UrbanLoneliness #DigitalDetox #QualityOverQuantity #ConnectionCures Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

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🚨 I took down a major piece of infrastructure as a tech lead at Yahoo! and didn’t get fired…. I think this is the nightmare scenario for engineers - to not only break your own product, but to do broader carnage to systems at the company. I think we all fear what the repercussions are if we do this. However, when intent is good, recovery is swift and learnings documented, these things are actually quite formative. When it happened, I was able to remain calm and walk through a rollback in 2 minutes, which allowed the downstream infrastructure to recover in about 10 minutes. This was also the start to my reputation as a level-headed technical leader. Good relationships with my peers in the infrastructure team allowed us to quickly diagnose that my code push was the cause of the incident and take action. I was leading a team building a very powerful piece of software. We had a client library that was installed on every server and allowed us to push out front-end code to every web property simultaneously. Code changes would propagate in about 2 minutes from push. It allowed us to provide a consistent branding, search and navigation system.  Because we understood the power of the system, we also had plans in place if something went wrong and had practiced rollback and forwards. Typically, when things went wrong, they were minor UX bugs in the interface. Medium problems cost us some dollars in search revenues. However, this time, my change had a massive impact downstream. I had added a new polling feature that worked against the caching strategy of the platform I was calling. Within 2 minutes of diagnosis I executed the rollback strategy. The bad news was the product manager had to wait a few more days for the new feature to roll again respecting the caching strategy of the platform. The good news is that we recovered quickly. I learned a few lessons from this outage: 🚨 Outages happen all the time and you will likely not lose your job if you cause one. 📝 Your team should have plans should an outage happen how you will approach debugging and recovery. ⏰ Practice for urgent situations before they occur. 🏋‍♀️ Building and maintaining strong connections with leads of systems where you have dependency is key. 🧞‍♀️ I have a special ability to appear completely calm while feeling absolute panic inside, which is a good capability to have. 

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🤬 Rude questions 🤬 A useful exercise I learned during my time at Amazon. A few days before an important meeting, when meeting materials are not yet locked but nearing completion, the team would gather to brainstorm a list of “rude questions” — the tough queries we might face during the session. For each question we drafted a concise one-paragraph answer. This exercise not only helps you prepare for challenging scenarios but also highlights areas where you could proactively refine your pitch and meeting materials. I’ve used this exercise to prepare for many type of meetings, including leadership reviews, customer calls, and Q&A sessions. It’s especially useful when the stakes are high. It's especially helpful when done with the team.

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Call it the job market or more number of folks planning to move to product management. Lately, I've been getting quite a few DMs from people asking for advice on their product management journeys. It's honestly been both humbling and inspiring! That's why I've decided to start coaching on Topmate. Whether you're... ...trying to figure out how to land your first PM role ...wanting to sharpen your product development skills ...just needing another PM to brainstorm with ...I'm happy to chat. I want to share what I've learned – both the wins and the mistakes – and help you navigate your own path. Interested in connecting? Schedule a time here: https://lnkd.in/du32txYE And even if you don't want a formal session, feel free to reach out! I love connecting with this community. #ProductManagement #CareerMentorship #Topmate #ProfessionalGrowth

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Here is how I use ChatGPT and LLMs to be a better Engineering Manager. 1. Whenever there is a birthday or work anniversary (we call them Yelpiversaries) I will hop over to ChatGPT or Stable Diffusion and generate a card catered to that person. It's a small investment from me, and usually sparks some joy! I might generate a few to get something interesting. Almost everyone else will search for gifs or memes, which are a great alternative. In either case, I will also try to write something meaningful and personal (I don't use ChatGPT for this, but you could ask for ideas if you feel stuck. Tell the LLM a bit about the person and ask it to construct a concise message. Use that as inspiration, don't copy paste, it will come across cheap). 2. Understanding new concepts quickly. I had never heard of RAPID before, and when I did a Google Search I had to deal with a bunch of really weird websites and bad explanations. I asked ChatGPT to explain RAPID to me, and then I asked it to be explained for a software engineer. It was fantastic. For deep research and understanding I wouldn't just use an LLM, and I'd be careful to double check, but for well known concepts it does really well. I didn't need to be a grand master at RAPID, I just wanted to know what the heck these Product Managers were talking about. 3. Helping format data. Sometimes I want to invert a table. Passing ChatGPT a markdown table and asking it to invert it has worked out really well. I usually carefully scan to make sure it didn't change values, but so far hasn't failed and saves me a bunch of work. 4. Helping me quickly write bash or python scripts to do different tasks. As a manager, I don't write production code. But sometimes I pull down data and want to process it. For example, looking over all of our incoming support requests we have on Slack (we support a lot of internal teams). I can use an internal API to take someones slack handle, and determine their team or department. In that way I can see how much support requests we had this month from a particular area which is useful data to see how we can better support the organization. 5. Rubber ducking. Talking through problems. In general I prefer to get feedback from a human, but mentors are busy creatures, and our schedules don't always mesh up. If I'm working through a difficult problem, chatting it through with an LLM has been very helpful. I keep out personal details because paranoia, but I describe the situation and how I'm thinking about it. That's the important part that helps; forming my thoughts. Rarely is the actual output from the LLM helpful, although I can't say it never has been. People get really hung up on LLMs/ChatGPT not just solving things for them 100%, and I think these people are going to be left behind. It doesn't need to be perfect, it can even give you the wrong answer and you still benefit. But it can help get your brain looking at lots of answers.

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I had read about the Zeigarnik effect and its application in products. However, it only recently dawned on me that it very well explains the calm and joy writing posts on my blog has given me over the years. Many professional and personal gurus have advocated writing to bust stress and drive clarity. This psychological explanation helps reinforce it. So, I wrote a blog post about it. What else? Check out link in the comments.

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If you work in Tech, and specifically Product teams - you want to follow Shreyas Doshi; here is a just a very very small reason why: https://lnkd.in/gGBXAeva - He created a thread of folks who are hiring Product Managers with 50+ responses of actual opportunities.. #ProductManagement #Hiring

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The products team's fixation on milestones tends to divert their attention from the broader perspective. They hop from one feature to another, enamored by each glowing aspect. Individuals work in isolated bubbles, fixated on ticking off one milestone after another, sometimes without significant displacement. Read More - https://lnkd.in/dxEvS6Yg #products #productmanagement #milestones

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Work tidbits - Living on the edge! Over a year back, I received my patent in the Knowledge Annotation space after 5 years of wait - it triggered me to join this new team.  The space was/still is AI Accelerators, within Cloud Compute. My team specifically was the ‘last mile’, productionize and land the AI accelerators for the top cloud customers.  The work would have been fine in the last 2+ decades of my career - but these times were different. Everyone and everything was in the AI/ML race. Before we(or others) could plan a new stack - something better was out there - sometimes open sourced! Before anyone could make the perf/$ cheaper - There was an update on new numbers available. There were negotiations on software lifecycles, in favor of velocity.   Customers were eager more than any other time. They were feeling the same stress - best LLM, best Stable diffusion, best MLPerf, best ML stack, best chips, best networking, best price! We did very well overall and that part will continue - despite living on the edge. Recently things shifted and I have gotten time to breathe(joined a sister team), also write my thoughts/tidbits - 1.) A friend, a mentor once said - Go far, not fast! Life is not a race and you have a long way to go! I do.  2.) Build resilience. You will see a lot of ups and downs. You don’t always have time to feel sorry for the down, or cheer for the ups! Keep your emotions in the middle spectrum.  3.) Find the true allies, and keep them close. They will tell you when you are wrong, or not - but most importantly they will stick with you, for long. I just ran into my peer from 9 years ago, 2 companies back in the hallway today!  4.) Recognize that some folks are indeed for the fast, maybe also far.. but mostly fast. Let them be! Take 2 steps back. Build resilience.  5.) Invest in your team - My reports, people are/were the team's biggest strength, and the primary reason to keep us going. We certainly don’t end here. The jobs will always be demanding, and that is by design. But the 'how' is on you..   My Amazon manager (now a VP@Microsoft) wrote me a handwritten note that said - Shivani, slow down and take the time to smell the flowers - I have been practicing something like this lately..  I am taking my learnings and my tribe along - and certainly aiming to go far.  Please take care of yourself, no matter what stage! ##resilience #livingontheedge #farnotfast #machinelearning #google #cloud

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It's time to clear the air and get you the facts you need about EB1-A. 🔍 Myth 1: The EB1A visa is only for Nobel Prize winners. ❌ Fact 1: The EB1A visa is for anyone with extraordinary ability in their field, including people working in Tech, Finance, Insurance, and as Consultants! ✅ 🔍 Myth 2: You need decades of experience to qualify for an EB1A visa. ❌ Fact 2: What matters most are your achievements and recognitions in your field. Senior-level professionals at Fortune 500 companies often have the qualifications needed. ✅ 🔍 Myth 3: Only scientists and researchers can apply for an EB1A visa. ❌ Fact 3: The EB1A visa is available to individuals in various fields, including technology, finance, arts, and business, as long as you can demonstrate extraordinary ability. ✅ 🔍 Myth 4: The EB1A application process is too complicated and time-consuming. ❌ Fact 4: With personalized, relevant information and expert guidance, you will receive the support you need. We focus on helping those we can genuinely assist, ensuring the process is streamlined and efficient, helping you navigate through the complexities smoothly. ✅ Don’t let myths hold you back. Discover the real possibilities and take the first step towards your EB1A journey. We are hosting a free webinar to dispel these myths on June 23 at 6pm. 👉 Get the REAL facts by signing up: https://lnkd.in/dar-FtBr #VisaMyths #EB1AFacts #H1BtoEB1A #TechProfessionals #FinanceExperts #Fortune500 #ImmigrationSuccess #EB1A #GreenCard #Myths #RealFacts

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Throughout my life, I've always held a deep-seated belief in the power of continuous learning. Growing up, I was fortunate to be surrounded by brilliant minds, which fuelled my desire to contribute meaningfully to discussions. Whether it's enriching my personal understanding or honing my professional skills, this inherent drive for learning has become an integral part of who I am. Recently, I had the privilege of completing the Product Management program at Stanford Online, an experience that has significantly elevated my skill set. Led by industry pioneers, this program delved deep into four core domains of Product Management, including 1. Product Lifecycle, 2. Strategy, 3. Demand Creation, and 4. User Research. The meticulously structured curriculum, coupled with engaging assignments, provides one with both the theoretical insights and practical tools. 🎓 What I found particularly enriching was the blend of familiar concepts and somewhat eye-opening revelations. Having spent nearly half a decade as a Product Manager, I approached the courses with a mix of familiarity and curiosity. Who knew learning about Product Management could be as fun as binge-watching your favourite series? Well, okay, maybe not that thrilling, but close! 🤭 I'm already witnessing the impact of this program in my day-to-day responsibilities. The insights gained from the course have empowered me to make more informed decisions, navigate complex landscapes, and drive meaningful outcomes. Moreover, I'm excited about the future opportunities to leverage these newfound skills to further enhance the product offerings, elevate the customer experience, and drive sustainable growth. 💪 I'm grateful for the support of my mentors and colleagues, whose guidance and encouragement have been invaluable throughout this journey. Ever had a learning experience that made you feel proud? Share your tales below, and let's inspire each other to keep chasing those 'Eureka!' moments! 💬 #ProductManagement #ContinuousLearning #Growth #StanfordOnline #Career

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A Decade at Amazon - Reflections After a 10-year journey at Amazon, I recently transitioned from a yellow badge to the red corporate employee badge. While there is room for improvement at Amazon, I'm struck by how much I've learned and grown, thanks to Amazon's culture and leaders. In my last 10 years, I've had the opportunity to work across different organizations in stores, AWS, and Alexa as an individual contributor and as a manager in technical program management and engineering disciplines. Some of the most profound lessons that will stick with me include: 1. Following leadership principles unifies a company's culture and boosts productivity. 2. The importance of deep understanding, practice, and insisting on the highest standards. 3. Driving outcomes over empires and being strategically patient yet tactically impatient in pursuing customer obsession. 4. Having an insatiable curiosity and beginner's mindset. 5. Every customer issue represents an upstream process deficiency that needs to be identified and resolved urgently. 6. Prioritizing and tackling the hottest, highest impact items first. 7. Being "green-lighted" doesn't mean risk-free, and transparently calling out risks with projected issue dates. 8. Prioritizing input goals you can control before output goals, and optimizing inputs relentlessly. 9. Goals are directional, not dogmatic, and undershooting or overshooting can be acceptable if customers are delighted. 10. While off-the-shelf solutions can cover 80%, investing in tailored solutions for the remaining 20% is critical. 11. Simplicity, incremental progress, and smart automation are core philosophies. 12. Transparency in prioritization rationale and openness to adjusting the roadmap based on new inputs. 13. Sticking to your strongest points persuades better than attempting to discuss everything. 14. Removing blockers is your responsibility, not someone else's, and committing 100% once a group decision is made. 15. Embracing failures as learning opportunities in complex operations. This enriching decade has been about customer obsession, frugality, ownership, never stopping learning, highest standards, and delivering robust solutions. I'm grateful for the growth I've experienced here.

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🔍 Understanding the "90 day sprint plan" 🛠️ While browsing through a VP of Engineering role on LinkedIn, I came across an intriguing responsibility that sparked my curiosity: "Create 90 day sprint plans, based on quarterly roadmap milestones, for review with CEO, CTO, and market-facing teams." At first, I found myself thinking, "wrong, wrong, wrong..." However, I paused and considered if there was a context where this approach could be valuable. It prompted me to reach out to my network for diverse perspectives that I might have overlooked. What are your thoughts on this responsibility? I'm eager to hear your insights and explore scenarios that I may not have considered. 💬 #Engineering #Leadership #Agile

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Dear Intuit, Layoffs always suck but publicly labeling laid-off employees as underperformers is not a good move. Firstly, it reinforces the stigma that being laid off is synonymous with poor performance. While this may be true in some cases, it's often not the reason for large-scale layoffs. Highlighting this only strengthens that misconception. Secondly, bad performance doesn't necessarily mean it is the person's fault. We have all seen teams left in a dire situation after a reorg or change in company priorities. In reality layoffs often reflect company decisions, not employee capabilities. Additionally, personal challenges or ineffective management can impact anyone's work. Let's face it, we've all experienced periods where our performance wasn't our best. Not performing at a given time is not a sin and it shouldn't weigh on those employees forever. Thirdly, this labeling can have a significant negative impact on the mental well-being and job prospects of those laid off. The perception becomes, "They were let go because they weren't good enough." Let's support those affected and help them land awesome new gigs. Here to help any Intuit employee in any way I can #layofffs #layoffssupport https://lnkd.in/gX3TfqGe

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We are often stuck in the scenarios, when the made up Organizational Optics around product discovery/delivery becomes more taxing then the execution itself. What the middle management or upper middle management, with limited authority should do? Shreyas Doshi has suggested an approach for building two "worlds", within your boundary. This is indeed more work for you, and arguably very few of us are able to do this, and fewer attain mastery. Inside World: Your team/department/people around you. Here, prioritize protecting them from negativity. This might involve ignoring unproductive company processes. Outside World: The broader company. Adapt to existing structures, even if frustrating. Play the game and deliver what the company needs, even if it feels superficial. Having said that, the approach of two "worlds", gives you freedom to build in your inside peripheral, it also gives you that slice of happiness and containment. #leadership #communication #workplacehacks #careerdevelopment P.S. Check out Shreyash's talk in the comment for a deeper dive

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Interesting article from Bloomberg about life at Google's X in a time of layoffs and cost reduction at https://lnkd.in/gmw3GG7C. X is a component of Alphabet (Google's parent company) that incubates new ideas. They have been responsible for some great successes - getting Waymo and a lot of Google's AI work started - but they've also had projects that didn't survive - like Google's attempt to provide Internet access via weather balloons. When you work at a company that has hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues, it's hard to get a lot of interest in an entirely new business idea that brings in hundreds of millions. If you have a project that improves ads revenue by that amount, or decreases capital expenditures, you can do it, but if you want to, say, build wearable tech, it becomes hard to attract the attention of marketing or product. So, new ideas often die on the vine. For the most part, this is good and proper. Companies may have the financial wherewithal to branch out, but more often than not, they consider it a distraction. And they are probably right - it's hard to argue that Meta was right to divert such a huge chunk of their resources to chase after the metaverse. They've (rightfully) pulled back, and are more focused on their core business again. On the flip side, if you are in the tech sector, and you don't innovate, you are likely to get left behind at some point. So, you need to make and manage these investments somehow. When I joined Google, the CEO had a 70-20-10 rule - 70% of effort went to core businesses, 20% to broader efforts to improve Google, and 10% to stuff that's completely blue-sky. This is probably not completely right, but it is also probably not completely wrong. X is the division of Alphabet that is *specifically* designed to bring blue-sky products to life. Unsurprisingly, they've had to pivot and rethink their strategy many, many times. The article interviews a number of people who have worked at X over the years; it's well worth a perusal, for folks who are interested in the story.

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In today's remote work environment, building a supportive and engaging culture is essential But how do you do that when you are miles apart? This article provides practical tips on how BlaBlaCar is fostering a strong collaboration culture by creating comfort zone, allowing staff members to get feedback and support in a very assertive way ! Thank you Kineret Kimhi, Yannick Hoffsess and Maxime Fouilleul for this great article :)

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Mid-tech-career learnings: How to avoid regrettable interactions with colleagues, usually involving the potent cocktail of alcohol, casual environments and/or power dynamics. Silicon Valley is a place of rebellion, where suits and professional management are looked at with suspicion and technical prowess and the hoodie-clad engineers who wield it are held in esteem. You don’t just go to a job. You work hard, long hours, elbow to elbow with colleagues with the shared idea that the technical projects you manifest will change the world. Many of them do. Often, in an effort to improve team bonds, you will leave the confines of your (home)office to attend a conference or off-site with the “work hard, play hard” mantra. There will be fun activities, inspirational speakers, music, food and beverages, and usually alcohol. This is where most regrettable interactions happen. Yes, people say and do things they regret at the office, but the change of scenery and ample alcohol is usually a ripe environment for worse behavior. I’ve learned over the years to navigate these situations. As a leader, I try to plan such events with great care, guardrails and a reminder about codes of conduct. Once I was invited to present some new technical capabilities at a sales off-site. My presentation went great, and I was excited for a work-paid stay at a beach hotel. We had dinner on the beach with lots of fresh seafood. I enjoyed talking to my colleagues and getting to know them better. After a few hours, the alcohol started to kick in and that’s when a very senior, “nice family guy” made a pass. That was my cue to exit the party. I noticed a pattern to the events where I could safely stay a couple hours past dinner, stick to groups of people I know well and stay more sober than not. Even this strategy is not perfect. I once went to have a beer with all my peers and boss immediately after an offsite dinner and one ended up drinking hard liquor and getting verbally and physically aggressive. That led to some major trust breakdowns in our working relationships. While these types of events usually create strong bonds and lasting memories, they sometimes have an aftermath that breaks personal relationships, negatively impacts physical or mental health, or destroys trust at work that cannot be undone. It is sad that these things happen among otherwise rational and high-performing individuals. This is perhaps an unpopular opinion, but my recommendation is to think about how you want to show up for your colleagues and how you want them to show up for you and approach off-site events with a plan that will reflect your values. 

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