# Ep.8 Sid Unnithan: on changing jobs at Microsoft, preparing for informational interviews, imposter syndrome and autonomy in the PM role
MAY 30TH, 2022 | 01:07:08 | E8
[Play](https://jlampodcast.z19.web.core.windows.net/episodes/008-sid-unnithan.mp3)
### EPISODE SUMMARY
Sid Unnithan is an early in career Program Manager 2 on my team whose career spans both Windows and the Python team in DevDiv. We talk about the importance of having autonomy in your job. How product building is a team sport, how to deal with negativity from others and how to interview to move laterally within the company.
### EPISODE NOTES
## Table of Contents
- How the Customer Driven Playbook influenced how Sid thinks about PM (14:34)
- How Sid prepared for his informational interview with our team (15:49)
- The importance of preparing for your informational interview (17:23)
- How we structure our PM interviews in DevDiv (19:40)
- Imposter syndrome and what we can do about it (24:05)
- On rubrics and career progression (28:54)
- Side-hustle entrepreneurial thinking while working at a big company (34:20)
- Learning about customers via jobs-to-be-done and customer interviews (41:52)
- The lack of respect that PMs face when working with some engineering teams (46:24)
- On the importance of autonomy and agency in the PM role (55:52)
- Building products is a team sport (57:00)
- Travel bidets, cultural barriers and friction in experiences (1:00:36)
## Transcript
[Link to the full text transcript (with audio player!)](https://share.descript.com/view/9v08vPX5q5q)
## Links
- [The Customer Driven Playbook](https://amzn.to/3a9xE4h)
- [The Jobs-To-Be-Done framework](https://hbr.org/2016/09/know-your-customers-jobs-to-be-done)
- [The Hypothesis Progression Framework for Customer Development](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-customer-driven-playbook/9781491981269/ch01.html)
** Some of the above links are affiliate links for which I earn a commission from the vendor if you purchase a product.