YEE CHEN, ROSS '15

Director of Product, Reddit

Post-Ross / Current Role

 

What lured you to join Reddit in your current role?

I wasn't a Reddit user before joining the company, but have always heard about the platform from my wife about the fun stories on r/nosleep. As I was wrapping up the launch of the new Words With Friends game at Zynga, the Head of Growth at Reddit / my former VP at Zynga reached out to me about joining Reddit - and the rest of history! It was great to join a team where I understood the expectations and trusted the leadership, which always makes things easier when starting a new role.
 

What do you wish you knew before you started in your PM roles and then ultimately your Growth role now?

To hear about the stylistic differences in PMing is one thing, and to experience it is a complete other thing. To be a great PM is much more than doing the work and following the process, but it's to be thoughtful every step of the way and build the relationships that ultimately produce better outcomes in the future. The way that Zynga trained its PMs was a direct translation to my Growth role today in carrying over the fundamentals, where Zynga was a very data oriented org that valued impact above all else. At Reddit, while the growth and data mentality carried over well, I learned much more about the nuances of PMing from my peers who came from companies all over the industry.


Ross Reflection

 

Looking back at your time at Ross, what course(s) or activities were the most helpful for you in your post-Ross career?

I'm going to botch the names of the courses, but the ones that had the most direct transferrable learnings were from the Big Data course, the Design Thinking course from the School of Information, and Professor Karnani's Strategies for Growth course. That said, I found the Wolverine Venture Fund to be the most valuable in helping me build a critical lens in how I thought about ambiguous problems, and being able to make compelling cases in front of a group of sharp, but tough crowd.

 

Flipping that question, what do you believe you spent too much time on?

At the time in my tech recruiting journey, I had misunderstood a Product Manager's job description of being technically-minded as needing to code. I ended up taking a handful of operations classes that had coding components, and even spent a quarter doing Codeacademy modules only to realize that they're not so applicable to a PM's world. I've found that courses that focused on hard skills vs. soft skills had much less application on the daily - except SQL which I still use frequently.

 

What skills do you wish that you had worked on at Ross to help you with your current role?

Not too much to add here, so will skip the question. )

 

If you could go back in time, is there anything you would have done differently during your time at Ross and in Ann Arbor?

I had a car with me in Michigan but used it very little except for picking up groceries and the very occasional outings with friends (we stayed mostly in Ann Arbor and I biked around town). I wish I had spent a bit more time exploring and learning about the midwest and the surrounding Detroit area.

 

What do you think you did really well during your recruiting journey? What do you think you could have done better?

I was dead-set on moving back to San Francisco, where I spent my time before business school and where my girlfriend (now wife) was. I came to San Francisco on a monthly basis to visit her and would set up coffee chats with alums each time I was here. While off campus recruiting was challenging, the Michigan alum network was so welcoming and helpful along the way that it made everything that much easier. I got my Zynga internship via the off campus recruiting process because of an introduction from a Ross alum!


Just for Fun!

 

What are a few of your go-to’s to either relax you or cheer you up when you’re having a difficult day?

I recently got into indoor top rope climbing, and find it to be a great way to disconnect from things that are bugging me. It's both a great physical workout and a great mental workout to solve the puzzles.

 

If you can remember, what was your first AIM or hotmail screen name?

Will try not to embarrass myself too much here. At some point, it evolved to ninjayee, which is also my instagram handle.

 

What is something that if someone asks you about it, you could go on talking about it for hours?

Cooking a good piece of steak / smoking meat.


Words of Wisdom / Insight

 

What words of wisdom would you share for our current Tech Club members at Ross who are looking to pivot into Tech and make the most of their two years at Ross?

If you know tech is where you want to be, learn about the roles that appeal to you and don't get distracted by the craziness of on-campus recruiting (consulting, banking, etc). Focus and perseverance will ultimately pay off.