After recruiting for Product Management roles during her first year at Tepper, Marlo Abramowitz (Tepper, ‘21) spent her summer as a Product Management Intern at Tableau. During this experience, she got the chance to get familiar with the product management role through two separate projects and also got the chance to interview the Tableau CEO. In this interview, Abramowitz shared what it was like to work as a Product Management MBA Intern, and what she learned during the summer.
MBASchooled: What did you choose to recruit for, and what did you do for your summer internship?
I recruited for Product Management internships in the technology industry and was thrilled to have had the opportunity to work at Tableau Software (a Salesforce Company) as a PM Intern. I worked on Tableau’s SaaS product, Tableau Online. Tableau Online is a analytics platform fully hosted in the cloud that allows users to publish dashboards, share discoveries with anyone, and invite colleagues or customers to explore interactive visualizations.
MBASchooled: What projects/responsibilities did you have as a Product Management Intern? What were the important skills you had to use?
I was able to work on a few projects throughout the summer that allowed me to get a well-rounded view of what Product Managers at Tableau work on. One project focused on market research and strategy where I was able to work on creating a strategy to increase focus on a specific market segment. I was able to collect customer feedback, analyze sales data, review marketing funnel information, and perform research to determine where we should focus and how to adjust the product and experience for these customers.
The second project I worked on focused on ideating and scoping a new feature within the Tableau Online trial experience. I developed a user journey to understand the customers and their pain points. From there, I worked with sales, marketing, and engineering to develop a business case for the new feature that was focused on improving the user experience and trial conversion rate. To close the summer, I completed a technical specification that will be used to build the feature.
MBASchooled: What were your favorite aspects of your Product Management Internship?
I had a lot of favorite aspects! One of them included being able to interview the Tableau CEO, Adam Selipsky during an intern-wide Executive Series. It was a unique experience to be able to get insight into his thoughts and strategy for Tableau.
Since there were also just a handful of PM interns, I thought that some more events focused around early-career product management would be beneficial. I organized a panel of Product Managers within a few years of their PM career as well as an agile for product owners presentation for the interns. This was fun and I was able to use my passion for learning and development within the internship.
Another favorite was being able to work on projects that were not just created for my internship; rather they were projects that had full impact on the company. I started with just having one project planned for the summer but because of my interests and drive, was able to pick up my second project that was sponsored by the Executive VP of Cloud. I was able to present to him on the last day of my internship to share what we were recommending and to gain buy-in on the next steps that the team will continue with.
MBASchooled: What were some of the things that helped you be successful in your summer internship?
Some things that helped me be successful in my internship were being over-communicative and being proactive. Working remotely puts even more on you to actively reach out to others when you need help or information. In my first week, I wrote a scoping document to outline what I was planning to accomplish this summer and I gained buy-in on it from my manager. From there, I used it as a guiding document to keep me on track the entire summer so that I accomplished everything I set out to do and more. Every week, I shared what I had accomplished and learned in the previous week, what other experiences I had, and where I was within my deliverable schedule. This process helped me reduce stress about getting things done and come out of the internship having completed everything.
MBASchooled: What was an important lesson that you learned from your summer internship?
Having had 7 years of experience before getting my MBA, I was weary about being an “intern” during the summer. Shortly after starting my internship my worry disappeared as I discovered that I was going to be working on projects that had a big impact on the organization and that I was given autonomy to get it done. Everyone was there to help me along the way wherever I needed it but I was also given the opportunity to own the process and the outcome. I learned that with the right company and people, the internship can actually give you a real insight into what a full-time role would look like.
MBASchooled: Knowing what you know now, what would you do to prepare in order to be even more successful in your internship?
I think something that could have helped me be better prepared would be to read more product management and tech industry focused books just to have a better understanding of the various tools and processes before I tried them during my internship. I felt prepared and not too overwhelmed during my internship but some additional resources before would have been helpful.
MBASchooled: Now with your summer internship experience under your belt, what do you hope to spend your second year to further your interest or experience in Product Management?
As the President of the Business and Technology Club at Tepper, I have the opportunity to be heavily involved in curating the experience for my peers learning about technology and product management careers. With this, I plan on spending my second year learning more about the role and helping others prepare themselves while also increasing my knowledge of the field. My summer internship confirmed that the PM role is a good fit for my skills and experiences that I gained through engineering and leadership roles that I have taken on and I’m excited to continue on this path full-time.
MBASchooled: What advice do you have for MBA students considering internships in Product Management?
Do your research to understand what the role really is and how it varies at each company that you’re considering. Though I have to say that I may have fallen into the trap, I now make sure to let others know not to get into product management just because it seems like everyone is doing it.
There are a lot of roles in tech and some may be a better fit for your skillset or interests. If product management is the one that fits the best, then great, go for it – if it doesn’t then that’s great too!