Praveen Gujjar, Director of Product at LinkedIn, discusses the evolving role of product managers in data-centric environments, emphasizing clean, reliable data. He highlights challenges in building scalable data platforms, platformization complexities, and the role of product managers in bridging engineering and business teams. Praveen provides insights on long-term planning, strong relationships with engineering teams, and the future of data management.
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insights INSIGHT
Data Product Management Focus
Data product managers focus on clean, reliable, and compliant data, crucial for large organizations.
They build internal platforms and products for flexibility and customization, addressing scaling complexities.
insights INSIGHT
Data Product Ideation
Data availability and technical feasibility are key factors in data product ideation.
Organizational and cultural alignment are also crucial for successful data product adoption.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Platformization Strategy
Avoid over-platformization; find the right balance to maximize leverage.
Plan long-term, considering technology changes and platform evolution over 5-10 years.
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Summary In this episode Praveen Gujar, Director of Product at LinkedIn, talks about the intricacies of product management for data and analytical platforms. Praveen shares his journey from Amazon to Twitter and now LinkedIn, highlighting his extensive experience in building data products and platforms, digital advertising, AI, and cloud services. He discusses the evolving role of product managers in data-centric environments, emphasizing the importance of clean, reliable, and compliant data. Praveen also delves into the challenges of building scalable data platforms, the need for organizational and cultural alignment, and the critical role of product managers in bridging the gap between engineering and business teams. He provides insights into the complexities of platformization, the significance of long-term planning, and the necessity of having a strong relationship with engineering teams. The episode concludes with Praveen offering advice for aspiring product managers and discussing the future of data management in the context of AI and regulatory compliance.
Announcements
Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management
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Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Praveen Gujar about product management for data and analytical platforms
Interview
Introduction
How did you get involved in the area of data management?
Product management is typically thought of as being oriented toward customer facing functionality and features. What is involved in being a product manager for data systems?
Many data-oriented products that are customer facing require substantial technical capacity to serve those use cases. How does that influence the process of determining what features to provide/create?
investment in technical capacity/platforms
identifying groupings of features that can be served by a common platform investment
managing organizational pressures between engineering, product, business, finance, etc.
What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen "Data Products & Platforms @ Big-tech" used?
What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on "Building Data Products & Platforms for Big-tech"?
When is "Data Products & Platforms @ Big-tech" the wrong choice?
What do you have planned for the future of "Data Products & Platforms @ Big-tech"?
From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?
Closing Announcements
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