Completing an internship (5 points)

 

Completed my 12-week Product Management Internship with the IDNA Governance Team at Microsoft’s Atlanta Hub was a truly transformative experience, culminating in the design and delivery of an end-to-end security feature for Lifecycle Workflows that is now heading into private preview. This rigorous journey required a sharp synthesis of product strategy, cross-functional communication, and problem-solving, reinforcing the key lesson that product management is essentially storytelling. Beyond these achievements, the summer shifted my perspective on technology, igniting a powerful curiosity about the potential of AI in engineering and design. I now leave the internship more driven than ever to become an "AI-enabled PM and engineer" focused on building intelligent, scalable solutions that  enhance user security and automate key processes. 

The internship was a deep dive into the practical realities of product management, which proved to be a constant exercise in translation and collaboration. My initial days were focused on gathering nuanced customer insights, which required filtering qualitative feedback into measurable, quantitative requirements. This foundation allowed me to effectively bridge the gap between abstract user problems and concrete technical specifications. Working alongside engineers, I sharpened essential skills in cross-functional communication and negotiation, learning how to advocate for product strategy while remaining flexible to engineering constraints. This experience solidified my belief that the essence of a PM role lies in synthesizing diverse perspectives, technical possibility, business value, and user empathy to create a unified, forward-moving product vision.

-Skylar Fletcher