Fit Feature: Joshua Tan
Name:
Joshua Tan
Title:
Associate Product Manager
Age or Age Range:
20s
Company:
Salesforce/Tableau
How long have you been in tech?
~5 years. I began my career in tech through product roles at Paymongo and Expedock. Before that, I worked in renewable energy and sanitation, having trained as a Chemical Engineer.
How did you know you wanted to get into tech?
I got into tech by chance.
When COVID-19 first broke out, I looked for ways to volunteer remotely and joined the tech team at the Philippine Red Cross. One of their goals was to accurately report the number of cases as the virus spread. Admittedly, I wasn’t much help at first — I was new to tech, but I was eager to learn quickly.
Nonetheless, I was inspired by the team: they volunteered tirelessly across time zones to serve the Filipino people. The team’s persistence to rapidly build and scale solutions to problems that they cared about motivated me to pursue tech as a career.
That year, I took time off from university to join the product teams of pre-seed and seed stage startups.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to follow a similar career path?
I acknowledge that I was only able to take time off university and pivot into tech because of the privilege that I had and have: I was not expected to financially support my family during or after university. Hence, these are learnings that I wish I had known sooner and not blanket advice for anyone who wants to break into tech product management.
During my gap year, I had two options: to work as a PM in a startup or as a consultant in an established organization that paid almost 10x more. I knew that I wanted to pursue PM, but that was a risk. The consulting role paid significantly more and would appear more credible on my resume. It was the safer option in an uncertain and unforgiving job market.
Jig Young, my first product mentor, challenged me to take the PM role, which ultimately set me on the path I'm on today. This doesn’t mean the consulting option was a bad choice; it would have just led me down a different road. Through this decision, I learned to:
Define my goals: what matters to me and what matters less
It usually is not too late to pivot: As a Chemical Engineer, I spent the last three years in two research labs and hundreds of late nights pounding my fist trying to learn organic chemistry, thermodynamics, and process control. Was I leaving those labs and nights behind to pursue PM in tech? Probably. And that’s okay.
Prioritize learnings over pay and brand names
What do you like most about being a Product Manager?
PM is learning more about people: myself, teammates, users, and customers. I enjoy that PM challenges me to:
Be a better listener
Contribute to the enjoyment, physiological safety, and community of the teams I work for
Make decisions, make mistakes, own up to and learn from them
What skills do you think are most important to have to excel in that role?
Identify and focus the team on underlying problems, not solutions
Take risks: learn and take ownership when wrong; share credit when successful
Build trusted relationships with your leadership, manager, and teammates
Do you feel represented in tech?
There is a growing number of Filipinos in larger enterprises and startups, but we need more! We are still terribly underrepresented, especially globally.
I love that many Pinoys openly embrace each other into different communities within and outside of tech. I will do my part to contribute to and grow the Filipino tech community.
What personal accomplishment are you most proud of?
Building community for myself and others in the US and in the Philippines by nurturing vulnerable relationships :)
What would you like to see more of from Filipinx in Tech?
More events and opportunities to get to know each other more personally
Build a supportive personal and professional community that connects and uplifts our diaspora
Do you have any tips for standing out or landing a job hunting in the current job market?
In networking: be genuinely interested in the people you are meeting. Listen to their stories! Meet them as humans, not job titles.
In interviews: sell yourself. Focus on what makes you special rather than fitting yourself into a mold. Do a TON of mocks.
Be a giver. Support others who are also seeking new roles. It will help you and them.