ISHITA PATEL

Amazon-to-Google-to-Amazon #a2g2a thought of the day: You can take a person out of Amazon but you can't take Amazon out of a person 🤣 Two weeks ago, I came back to Amazon after 4 years at Google. I have gotten about 40 private messages from ex-Amazonians who wanted to know more about "coming home" after reading about my experience - leading to a number of very interesting conversations. People who leave Amazon never truly leave Amazon. Back at Google, we had an "ex-amzn" chat group that was quite active... a little pocket of amazonianess in a sea of googliness. Expats talking about the old country. Sometimes the comments were along the lines of "I love not working NN-hr weeks and getting free food is awesome" but more often than not, the comments were "OMG I miss X or Y or Z so much." Before Amazon, I spent 11 years at Microsoft. I enjoyed my time there, and in 2020 I interviewed to come back (and had an offer that I seriously considered). I really like what Satya has done to the culture. I would have been happy to come back to Microsoft, but I did not a strong longing to do so like I did to come back to Amazon. Too soon to say whether I'd come back to Google; I'd say "Definite No" for as long as Sundar is the CEO, but a different leader could change Google the way Satya changed Microsoft after Steve Ballmer's Lost Decade. There's amazingly smart people at Google, and I'm keeping every single share that was granted to me over the course of my last four years. Amazon is an intense place, and perhaps it isn't a great fit for everyone. But I do believe that whoever spends a few years here is forever changed. For me, it was the imprinting of the Leadership Principles, then finding myself in a foreign land where people didn't speak that language. Amazon was formative to who I am. And, if you're reading this message as an ex-amazonian, chances are that, in the right circumstances were to align, you too would Come Home.

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Just completed Shreyas Doshi's week-long product sense class - what an energizing experience full of surprises and insights! ✨ As a product engineer working in startups, I wish I had taken this course earlier in my career — it would have saved unnecessary detours and pitfalls when building products. 💡 Key takeaways: - User-Centric Problem Solving: Understand users' needs and identify their most important and urgent problems before diving into technical solutions. - Strategic Customer Focus: Focus on serving the customers and use cases you can and should support most effectively. - Creative Problem Solving: Wear different hats and think outside the box—creativity is a skill that can be deliberately practiced and trained. The impact goes beyond product insights. Thanks to Shreyas' prompting in class, I found myself adopting a more open and curious mindset and paying more attention to products appearing in every day life, questioning the why behind them. 🔎 Thank you, Shreyas, for sharing your wisdom so generously, sometimes delivered with tough love. Thank you for equipping us with the skills to become better product leaders and clearer thinkers. 🙇‍♀️ #ProductSense #ProductManagement #ProductEngineering #ShreyasDoshi

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It’s been 1.5+ yrs since I started working at Google and several individuals from my LinkedIn network asked me some common questions - “How are you adjusting to the cultural shock between Amazon vs Google ”? I waited for 1.5 yrs since I needed some data to calibrate my journey and share answer in a professionally responsible manner. Also, the tech industry has endured tremendous turbulence in the last 2 years and I had to adjust my surfing gears more than ever. Let me start with - yes, I had cold feet when I stepped outside my 9 yrs old “Amazon” home. But, I can also assure you this decision was not impromptu and took ~5 months of mental exercise. Here are some things that I practiced to weather the change and get acclimatized.   (1) Set right expectations: This is probably the most important one to avoid mental stress and fatigue. Like any trade, there are risks when stakes are high. I spent nearly 2 months finding the trade offs and compromises of my choices which led me to build the plan to address my own concerns.    (2) Build career strategy: With expectations set, I put a methodical structure to accelerate my journey. First 4 months, I was 100% hands-on with SDE-1 and 2s to understand the builder tools (yes, they know the best!), server frameworks, development and deployment best practices. Then I scheduled 50% of time on project delivery, 30% on identifying top engineering problems and 20% time working on the 3 years vision. (3) Stay original and authentic: My strategy was to fight all of my inner urge to practice Amazonian traits at Google (all though some part of me was screaming inside). That said, I did not throw any Amazon leadership principles and instead moderated the tone in the new world, while embracing the Googlyness. (4) Respect what came before: I put a self note on my desk to fight all urges to be judgmental and opinionated about all prior organizational and engineering decisions. Instead, I scheduled meetings and spent several months absorbing what came before and internalizing the vision. (5)Developed my professional network: “Earn trust” is table stakes if you want to grow in your career. Building trust and network is a huge time investment and takes careful planning. Frequent 1:1 with mentors and leaders in my organization definitely paid off to seed the right network structure at the early stage. (6) Learn and be curious: For a builder, it is not fun to throw away familiar tools. pick up new ones and accelerate.  But, here is one thing that helped. I stopped burdening myself with the idea that I am missing my old tools, instead motivated myself to learn technologies those power planet scaled software. Success metric to share: Today I Am driving ~100+ SDE organization as the tech lead. Achieved code review bar raiser in two programming languages Became chaos testing ambassador in Google Ads.  Led a performance improvement objective in Google (won Bronze tier) Launched 2 critical features.

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Feeling bad for those who got impacted by Layoff at Intuit. if you are impacted and reading this… 1. Take a break to process your emotions..it’s okay to Shout Out Loud or Cry or Meditate or Walk..whatever works for you. 2. When you feel better, send me a DM for referral, introductions to hiring managers/recruiters, or any guidance/support you may need. There may be a delay to respond back but I will definitely help. Start subject with LayOff. 3. Remember - you will come out stronger tomorrow 🙌

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The Decision That Doomed a Dream 📽️ 🎬 What if your most hyped product idea became the reason your company collapsed? This is the untold story of a decision that sent a $2 billion startup spiraling. Priya: “Remember Quibi? The short-form streaming platform that raised $2 billion only to crash and burn in six months?” Amit: “How could I forget? But wasn’t their whole idea—quick bites of content on mobile—a good one? People are obsessed with short videos now.” Priya: “Exactly! The concept was solid, but the product decisions? Not so much. One of their biggest missteps was locking all their content behind a paywall with no free tier.” Amit: “Wait, they didn’t offer even a single free episode? Not even ads-supported content?” Priya: “Nope. They banked on the idea that people would pay $5–$8 a month upfront for content they’d never seen before from a brand they didn’t know. Add to that the fact they launched during the pandemic, when people were glued to their TVs—not mobile phones.” Amit: “Oof. That sounds like a classic case of not reading the room.” Priya: “It gets worse. Their product didn’t allow screenshots or sharing clips on social media. Imagine trying to launch a video platform in 2020 without virality built in.” Amit: “So, they made themselves invisible on the platforms where their audience hangs out. That’s a killer mistake. Did they try to fix it?” Priya: “Too little, too late. By the time they introduced features like TV support and extended free trials, their subscriber numbers had tanked. They shut down just six months after launch.” Amit: “Man, all that money and talent—and it was decisions, not the idea, that sank them. Makes you wonder how many product decisions are make-or-break moments in disguise.” Sometimes, the right product decisions aren’t about flashy features but about understanding your audience’s needs. #QuibiStory #ProductManagement #LessonsFromFailure #StartupJourney #InnovationGoneWrong #PMJourney Photo Credits: https://lnkd.in/gtg33zHu

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Amazon-to-Google-to-Amazon #a2g2a thought of the day: The Intensity, oh, the Intensity!!! When I went from Amazon to Google, it felt like I had just gotten off the freeway and was driving on a side street. At the time, I couldn’t quite disentangle whether the slowdown was because this was June of 2020 and covid had turned the entire world upside down or because it was a deeper part of the DNA of the company. Now that I’m back at Amazon, I feel like I was indeed driving on a side street for a while and now I’m accelerating onto the freeway onramp once again. There’s most definitely a difference in intensity between the cultures. Intensity by itself is neither good nor bad, but it depends on the context. As covid shut down the world, I appreciated Google’s emphasis on their employees well-being. In 2020, googlers received a generous 14 weeks of additional time off, fully paid, to be used any way we needed given the extraordinary world circumstances. I had two boys that we were now suddenly homeschooling, so I very much appreciated the benefit. The other side of that is that at times I wanted to step on the gas and it was quite hard. You can’t single-handedly do that, you need people around you to be as excited as you are and to follow you on the journey. Working backwards from firm dates is a bit of a foreign concept to Google and it’s table stakes at Amazon. "Intensity" is NOT necessarily the same thing as "working long hours" (although it is often confused). I have a family and my time with them is very important to me. It's about what you do with the hours that you do spend at work. The last few weeks, the intensity has been healthy. I’ve felt more alive. It’s energizing. I see the freeway up ahead and the adrenaline is beginning to kick in again!

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Today, I want to share how my workday looks like as an SDE 3 at Oracle 🚀 🎯 Morning Routine: Wake up at 7 AM, workout, and start my day at 10 AM with a team stand-up. 🎯 Core Work: Dive into feature implementation, tackle internal bug fixes, and address critical customer issues. I work primarily with Java and OCI. 🎯 Collaboration: Engage in meetings with other teams for upcoming features. I also have evening calls with US team members when needed. 🎯 Task Management: Handle various responsibilities including DevOps tasks, testing, and design discussions for new product features. 🎯 Work Strategy: Allocate time slots for focused work on bugs or features. When stuck, seek help and suggestions from colleagues. This role is quite different from my responsibilities at Infosys. It’s a significant change, but incredibly exciting. Switching from an SBC to a PBC has truly been one of my best career decisions. If you want to join a PBC like Oracle but struggling to clear the interviews, try connecting with senior engineers from top PBCs at Preplaced. You can connect with them for FREE here: https://lnkd.in/guq4EVd9 They will offer targeted guidance on skills and provide effective strategies for interview preparation, including resources and mock interviews. This support will boost your confidence and help you crack your dream role. 🌟 #adayinmylife #collab #preplacedcollab #sde3 #ad #sponsoredpost

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I usually set my certification exam times at around 2-3 PM if it is in the weekends, the primary reason for it being my wakeup time then is typically around noon. I did the same yesterday as well, for my GitHub Actions exam. I woke up, freshened up, made food, washed clothes, cleaned the table, made sure nothing unnecessary was nearby and sat down about 30 minutes before the exam. Then I checked the time and found it was only 2.26. The exam was at 3 and I could start the checkin, verification et al at 2.30. So I thought; "the wifi acts up often, so I better restart the router just in case, there is time anyway". So I made my way towards the router and found a red light blinking on it: "Houston, we have a problem". I restarted the router anyway, which solved nothing, so I switched over to my mobile network. But of course that also had to act up! It suddenly will give only 4G, and that was slow beyond measures :) So I resorted to extreme measures to force 5G in the phone, which worked and got things to run. Fast forward to the exam, the checkin was smooth. Unlike the Pearson Vue experiences I had where the monitoring people were rather paranoid and had me take a thousand pictures of everything, things were done in less than 5 minutes (this exam was via PSI). A bit into the exam and I was cursing internally at the exam maker, because the questions were rather unnturally skewed towards the enterprise/management side than the actual "github actions". I had my fair share of experiences with the latter before, but the former was just a temporary friend I made via the learning path. I finished the first section and instead of ending the section, decided to review my answers. After correcting one of the previous answers I ended the section and found myself in the third section! But wait, where did the section 2 go (I still have no idea)? I searched a bit to no avail and finished section 3 instead and clicked end test and suddently as if everything crashed, the whole browser window itself closed. I remembered (or misremembered) that during my Pearson Vue tests, there were some feedback etc. (It was basically the section 3 here) after the exam and confirmation about the exam ending, so I was taken aback. And usually you can see the scores right afterwards, but I couldn't, nor was I sent any mails. I checked two of my mails frequently, but found nothing. At that point I basically gave up. Many hours later I had to access my work email and found a mail there saying "you have successfully passed the github actions certifications exam" :) And somewhat ironically I had hundred percentage accuracy in the enterprise related questions! Thanks to UST and UST GAMA team for this certification initiative! Also thanks to Sreepad from the GAMA team for assisting me in my many questions. I remember one of his mails basically instructing "after you get certified, share....": that was bold of him to assume I'll pass the exam. TL;DR - I passed the GitHub Actions exam.

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A little mortified Ajay Bulusu posted my tweets on "Cab Company CEO" here. Twitter & LI are like Oil & Water - they don't mix well. But to summarize my thoughts, the attempt by the Cab Company CEO to package Cloud and AI as a "nationalistic" venture, is dubious & unworkable. Very soon it will turn into an attempt at regulatory capture in the name of patriotism & national security (he has already called for data localization using the CrowdStrike outage as an excuse - never mind that these have no relation). I have seen Gaurav and Ajay build NextBillion.ai into a viable alternative to Google maps for enterprises. Krutrim is welcome as well - but no special favors because it's 'Indian'. The world of digital products & ideas is global. More innovation lies ahead than behind - and it will come from talented people - not legacy factories or fertile land. Countries that do well in this will be the ones who attract the best innovators. Technologists tend to cluster around these leading innovators. Capital too is globalised and will fund these innovators wherever they are. Digital innovators are nomadic - they only need an internet connection as a tether - & the world's leading and wannabe tech hubs are all competing to attract them. Our benchmark for success should be how many innovators setup companies in India, work from here, patent their IP here, bill their clients from here. Today, most of our innovators incorporate abroad & emigrate at the first chance. News of relaxed entrepreneur visa norms in the US gets a million views and likes. Many of our best engineers are always looking for emigration opportunities. If the Indian Govt. is interested in capturing more of the value of this ecosystem - it should try to align governance to attract this crowd. That means low and predictable regulation, economic and social freedoms, moderate taxes, great livable urban spaces and so on. This is a far far cry from the India of today - with it's urban hells, parasitic taxation levels in certain areas, ridiculous and high friction regulation around global currency movement and securities transactions, and lack of a trustworthy judicial and L&O system. Hucksters step into this lack of an internationally competitive environment - and claim that "protectionism" in the name of "nationalism" is the answer. It is most definitely not. We won't get our own Facebooks and LinkedIns by erecting walls. Such walls will only help give these hucksters' ventures a leg-up - so their otherwise shoddy goods and services are not exposed to international competition. And in fact such walls will only drive further emigration of genuine innovators. To the contrary - we should be tearing down walls like FEMA laws - that harass economic freedom today. We are the kids of 1980's India. We don't want to go back there. We don't want our internet captured by reincarnations of the Bajaj Auto regulatory capture model (the sheer irony). Compete fairly in the global marketplace and win.

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It’s a wrap! In the past 8 days, I had one of the most intense, humbling, and exhilarating 30 hours taking Shreyas Doshi’s Improving Your Product Sense course with 100+ accomplished and dedicated product and engineer leaders. I was deconstructed and then amalgamated. A few key highlights: 💡 Go back to the fundamentals. Product is a hard craft, but we can decompose it by going back to the fundamentals. Start by building a deep understanding of your users with motivation theory and cognitive empathy. 🚀 Product sense can be acquired. It’s not easy, but with the right input and consistent practice, you can improve over time, and the payoff is exponential.  💥 Product strategy requires creativity. Too many people mistake it as a purely analytical exercise. True excellence requires creative thinking.  🪴 Being top-notch at Product will also make you a better person. It requires deep introspection and empathy: you need to understand why you do what you do and feel the way you feel, and empathize and simulate how others (including but beyond your users) might think, feel, and act. I’m excited to apply the product lenses acquired from the course, to accelerate my career as a product leader, and to be a more insightful, deeply empathetic, and curious person. For those passionate about honing their product craft, I highly recommend this course. It's an investment in both professional and personal growth.

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Is quantity always the deciding factor? Let's look at examples without bringing up nationality: 𝐀𝐈 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: OpenAI and Anthropic (creators of ChatGPT and Claude) have far fewer employees than tech giants, yet they've made groundbreaking advances in AI. 𝐒𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐲: TSMC became a leader not by size, but through focused strategy and cutting-edge technology. They weren't the largest for years. 𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬, 𝐁𝐢𝐠 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭: Japan revolutionized the automotive industry (Toyota, Honda) with innovative manufacturing processes and quality control, despite having a smaller population than many competitors. Israel, with its limited resources, became a global leader in cybersecurity and software development, producing numerous successful startups and attracting significant international investment. We need high aspirations, we need to build deep tech companies, and we need to build nail cutters too (Yeah we don't build them yet in India). The most important thing is we need to be humble, Zoho is a good example, they have multiple products that compete with the biggest companies. They are humble and use positivity for growth.

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Building a 0 to 1 product can be challenging, but what if your success is measured by whether this can scale to the next billion users for Google ? That’s exactly what Jimmy Sindhwad , Shruti Anand and I spoke about in our latest episode of What the tech is product management. As someone who had to launch 0 to 1 products over the last couple of years at Walmart Connect , I really appreciated how the nuances of company culture, incubators, team sizes, success criteria can make similar product managers treat the problem so differently Please use the link in comments to check out part 1 of this conversation. #productmanager #google #unc #mba #productcareers #productpodcast #incubators #0to1

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Last year, I shared a cheat sheet for guesstimates, and to my surprise, it took off like a Mumbai local at rush hour. 🚆 Since so many of you found it useful, why not level up and bring some more India-specific data into the mix? So here’s a new cheat sheet full of key numbers and facts about India that can help you ace those tricky interview questions. Whether it’s estimating the number of mobile users or figuring out how many cups of chai are brewed in a day (spoiler: a LOT), this sheet has your back. Like the name goes (just a 𝗴𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘀 -timate), the numbers here might be slightly off but must be good enough for those sneaky questions that test your problem-solving skills under uncertainty. 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗼 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗅 If you are also looking for the previous one, here it is: https://lnkd.in/d4mmHnbV Save this before you miss it! And follow Nikhil Agarwal for anything and everything product!

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📰 Sergey Brin, Google co-founder and former Alphabet president, is back working at Google "pretty much every day." Why? He can't resist the excitement around the recent progress in AI! During an interview at the All-In Summit in L.A., Brin shared that there's nothing as thrilling as the advancements in AI at the moment. His return to Google underscores the importance and potential of AI in driving innovation and staying ahead in technology. 🚀 Businesses can take note of this trend. Harnessing AI can open new opportunities for growth and innovation. The technology not only streamlines operations but also offers valuable insights that can steer companies towards success. 🌟 Embrace AI, and your business could be the next success story. Let's discuss how AI is transforming industries! 💬 #Innovation #AI #BusinessGrowth Who else is excited about these advancements? Drop your thoughts below! 👇

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🚀 I’m thrilled to share that I've been part of the incredible team at Paperguide for the past 7 months, contributing to Product Development and UI/UX as a SDE2. It’s been an exhilarating journey, and I can confidently say this is the best team I’ve ever worked with! 💪 At Paperguide, we’re not just building a product—we’re transforming academic research. 📚 Our AI-powered platform streamlines the entire research process, from discovering and reading papers to managing citations and writing with AI assistance. We’re focused on empowering researchers and students by simplifying complex tasks and enabling more efficient, impactful research. What makes this experience truly special is the collective ownership we have as a team. Everyone here is enthusiastic, dedicated, and spot on 24/7. We don’t just work on the product—we own it. And the best part? We have a lot of fun while doing it! 🎉 I’m very much excited about what’s to come. If you’re passionate about research, innovation, and making a real impact, stay tuned—Paperguide is just getting started! 🚀 #AI #Research #Innovation #Paperguide #ResearchInnovation #AcademicResearch #ResearchPapers #AIResearchAssistant #AIWriter #DigitalResearch #ReferenceManager #CitationTools #AIForResearchers #SmartResearch #ResearchManagement #ChatWithPDF #ResearchTools #AcademicTools #ResearchTech

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After listening through a wonderful podcast by Shreyas Doshi on the art of Product Management, here are my 3 key takeaways I thought of sharing: • Pre-mortems are powerful: Identify potential problems before they happen to increase your chances of success. • Internal optics matter: Spend time making sure your work is understood within your organisation to create energy, awareness, and feedback. • Prioritise effectively: Use the LNO framework to distinguish between low-impact, normal, and optimal tasks to maximize your impact. Watch full here: https://lnkd.in/gsCbpCeJ

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I wanted to share a few ways to land job at Meta in US from India. Please note that all of these options have some risks/downsides associated with them. None is perfect. 1. It’s easier and higher probability to apply for a SWE job for Meta in London. Once you are at Meta in London, you can try to take an internal transfer to US after a couple of years. 2. Try to get into a Meta equivalent in India - Google, Amazon and the likes and try to shift internally to their US offices. Once you are in US, if you want, and you are on H1B, you can try to move to Meta. 3. If you are a final year student, you could try looking for internship opportunities at Meta. I would start with looking at Meta London. And try to perform well, so that you end up getting a job offer. 4. Go for an MS in US. After finishing your MS in US, you can try to join Meta in US. Credit goes to Manish J. for this Post.

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I recently completed my 4-year tenure at Amazon, with a short break in between, and found myself reflecting on what makes Amazon a great place to work. When I first joined, I was excited but overwhelmed. The scale and complexity of the company left me wondering: Would I be able to succeed here? Early in my journey, I caused a COE (Correction of Error). It was humbling and daunting, but it also became a pivotal moment in my growth. At Amazon, mistakes aren’t seen as failures. Instead, I was encouraged to take ownership, identify the root cause, and implement corrective actions. This experience taught me that success isn’t about avoiding mistakes—it’s about how you respond to them. Over the past four years, I’ve grown immensely, both professionally and personally. The culture of ownership and continuous learning has shaped who I am today. That COE wasn’t my last mistake, and it won’t be the last. But with every challenge, I’ve gained a deeper understanding of what it means to take accountability, embrace learning, and keep improving. Reflecting on my journey, I truly believe Amazon’s emphasis on ownership, diving deep, continuous growth, and its supportive culture are what make it an exceptional place to work. #Ownership #LearningAndGrowing #AmazonJourney #ProfessionalGrowth #SuccessAndFailure

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