In this Accredian Spotlight interview, we feature Rahul Singhal, a Director of Product Management with over 17 years of experience. He currently works with Pickrr. His insatiable quest for knowledge and upskilling led him to enrol in the Global Certificate in Product Management at Accredian.
Question 1: Which program & batch are you part of at Accredian & tell us more about your current work profile?
Rahul: I am a part of the GCPM course, Aug 2020 batch. I work at Pickrr as the Director of Product Management for the Supply chain products.
Question 2: Walk us through your career journey & what got you interested in Product Management?
Rahul: My career journey so far has been tremendous. I have worked as a:
- Software Developer, 2005 with Keane Inc.
- Played multiple roles like Business Analyst, Onshore lead, Project lead, etc. at TCS in 2006
- Joined GalaxE solutions as Project Manager
- I started my own startup DavaDaru.com briefly for around 10 months in 2014
- I joined Vinculum Solutions in 2014 when my official journey with product started I was incharge of Product operation and gradually started contributing in Product development
- Solved multiple problems of multiple customers with these SaaS based OMS, WMS products
- Recently I joined Pickrr as the Director of Product
Question 3: What all Product Management concepts, frameworks & tools have you mastered in your program at Accredian so far?
Rahul: I learnt Jira, Aha, Miro board. I wont say I have mastered them but now understand the basics and with usage, will be able to learn faster.
Question 4: What are some of the initial challenges when you got started on your Product Management journey and how did you overcome it?
Rahul: My journey is a little different. I was working in developing new SaaS products but was not aware of the best practices like user research, design approach, etc. Because of this challenge, the products were unscalable. Now, I spend a lot of time thinking, planning and creating strategies. It helps me a lot.
Question 5: Who is your favorite faculty at Accredian and what did you learn from them the most?
Rahul: I love sessions that are hosted by Suchit and Sai. These sessions are more full of high energy and practical use cases. I loved the session with Ishaan as we also used to get regular assignments and feedback.
Question 6: In your view, what is the goal of Product Management & how has it evolved in the last few years?
Rahul: The goal of Product Management is to create good products for the end users. Now organisations have started understanding the challenges around this. It is a full fledged function now.
CXO takes feedback seriously and in a mature organisation, the product team is responsible for translating the company vision through the product, after defining their strategies.
Question 7: Which are some of the Product Management blogs, podcasts, communities & channels that you follow?
Rahul: I usually spend time on Medium, Yourstory, Captable and watch the PM videos on YouTube.
Question 8: Please tell how your journey has been with Accredian so far and what are the elements that you liked.
I like the presentations of sessions, pre-read and post-read content and prompt support from Gaurav.
I still believe that Accredian can make sessions more interactive. Weekly assignments are a must to do.
Question 9: What is your advice to anyone wanting to start a career in Product Management?
Rahul: My suggestion would be to begin with analysing the problems, think how you can solve them, the more curiosity you have the better solutions you may come up with.
Hope you enjoyed reading this interview. If you want to read more such interesting student stories, check out Accredian Spotlight.
