We’re happy to welcome you on the Season 2 of the Growthmates podcast where we will dive into insightful conversations with leaders from Amplitude, Canva, Intercom, Coda, HubSpot, and more to come. If you enjoy our show — subscribe to get all episodes right to your inbox on katesyuma.substack.com.
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In this episode, I talked to Jenny Chang, interim Head of Design at Amplitude, who shared her insights and experiences on transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager and the mindset shifts required to become a leader. In the first part of the conversation, we discussed the key challenges we encountered while transitioning from IC to a Manager and emphasized on the importance of maintaining well-being during career growth. Later in our conversation, we discussed the role of data in decision-making, the need for a data-informed culture, and the collaboration between stakeholders and data teams. Jenny also provides tips for making data meetings engaging and suggests questions that designers should ask their data analysts to build a more informed user experience. Jenny concludes by recommending books and resources for further exploration that you can find below in the episode description.
Some Takeaways:
Transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager requires a mindset shift and the ability to let go of hands-on work.
Maintaining well-being is crucial during career growth, and prioritizing health can lead to better career outcomes.
Data should be used by everyone in a product team, not just data analysts, and collaboration between stakeholders and data teams is essential.
Engaging data meetings can be achieved by incorporating visualizations, session replay tools, and creating a collaborative environment.
Designers should ask data analysts about the most engaged users and their actions within the product to better inform the user journeys.
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Where to find Jenny Chng, interim Head of Design (Amplitude):
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejennychang/
Where to find Kate Syuma, Growth Advisor (ex-Miro):
Newsletter: https://katesyuma.substack.com/
X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/kate_syuma
Where to find Oscar Torres, Product Designer at Miro:
Website: https://www.oscartorres.me/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oscar_towers_/
What we’ve covered in this episode:
00:00 Introduction and Background
06:11 Transitioning from IC to Manager
14:20 Mindset Shifts for Becoming a Leader
18:12 Maintaining Well-being During Career Growth
25:13 Data-Informed Culture and Who Should Use Data
29:22 Collaboration Between Stakeholders and Data Teams
36:00 Engaging Data Meetings
46:24 Data Questions for Designers
49:22 Surprising Data Insights
51:36 Recommended Resources
51:53 Conclusion and Contact Information
Resources referenced:
- Zhou, “The Making of a Manager”: https://www.amazon.com/Making-Manager-What-Everyone-Looks/dp/0735219567
Scott Belsky, “The Messy Middle”: https://www.amazon.com/Messy-Middle-Finding-Through-Hardest/dp/0735218072/
C. Pam Zhang, “Land of Milk and Honey”: https://www.amazon.com/Land-Milk-Honey-Pam-Zhang/dp/0593538242/
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