Rajeev Soni, Director of Product — Interview — The Product Post
By: The Product Post
Tags: Product, Agile, Product Development, Product Design, Product Management

How did you get into the Product space?

I started my career as a developer, and soon realized that I wanted to get more out of this role. So, I decided to pursue an MBA at Stephen M. Ross School of Business in Michigan. After completing my MBA I started my own company and worked as the Head of Product — that’s when I really started to fall in love with the Product space. After the company that I co-founded had a successful acquisition, I decided to re-enter into the corporate world.

Since then, I’ve held roles at an executive level as the VP of Product, Chief Product Officer, and now, I’m a Director of Product at Gartner, which is one of the world’s leading research and advisory company.

What are your main job responsibilities?

At Gartner, I’m responsible for the search function within their platform. The search function is what allows our clients to reach other people and find services as needed. My main responsibilities revolve around:

Vision and strategy — managing the entire vision for this function and the strategy that will help us achieve this vision. Measuring and identifying key opportunities — managing the end-to-end pipeline for delivery on projects. It also means continually doing user research and product discovery to identify new opportunities to help grow the business and take us to where we need to be. Prioritization — continually prioritizing the projects that we have in queue, and ensuring that the projects that have the greatest impact are kept at the top of the queue.

What does a typical week look like for you?

My week starts off with my Product Managers and my Business Analysts talking through what’s currently in our pipeline. We also discuss our top priority items that need to be completed for the upcoming week. After making any key decisions, we collaborate with our data science and tech team to coordinate delivery for our projects.

A big part of my week also involves training and mentoring the Business Analysts and Product Managers on my team. This includes helping them understand key factors of their projects and taking the steps to help them move forward with their career. It involves incorporating lean product principles in their methodologies (designing an MVP to experimenting and interacting, reaching an iteration that is gaining traction and scaling that product or feature).

It also includes setting up and joining in on client interviews on a daily basis so that we continue to be as close to our customers as possible.

What makes a good Director of Product in your opinion?

I’m still trying to figure out what this means! But, from my experience, I think a good Director of Product should:

Understand Product Management — it is critical for a Director of Product to have a strong understanding of the product management process. It should be someone who has gone through the Product career path and has a thorough understanding of interactions and the parts of a process that can be optimized. Prioritize & switch between levels of thinking — different levels of thinking are going to be critical for someone in this role. There may be a time where you need to help a Product Manager dig into a specific bug for a project, but there may be other times where you need to present a roadmap to the company’s executives. It is important for the Director of Product to be able to see things from both a high level, but dig into granular items as needed. Manage the Product team effectively — you should ensure that your team has the resources needed to be successful. This means clearing any blockers off their plate and ensuring that you’re reducing unnecessary distractions. Mentor & coach — you need to be able to work with both people who are very new in their career, and with experienced Product Managers. You should ensure that you are able to provide the people who are new in their career with a level of mentorship, and should coach them through different problems.

If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

For me, getting an MBA was a game changer — it opened up a world for me that I didn’t know existed. But at the same time, I wish I could’ve gone back to let myself know that learning is one thing, but putting those experiences into action is what drives us forward. I would push myself to interview a lot of people that are currently in the role, and get as much information from them as possible before starting my career.

For me, the journey was everything. To me, Product Management is dealing with ambiguous situations and putting structure to it. I would push myself to learn as much as possible, look outside of school, and talk to as many people as possible.

What is your favourite thing about the work that you do?

My favourite part of work is having the ability to help others. I love the flexibility and opportunities that Product Manager’s have to create a great outcome for users and fix problems that they’re having.

Written by: Christian Karkada