Sonny Patel: From Developer to Leader - A Journey in Product Management

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Matt

My name is Matt and I will be talking with Sonny Patel about avoiding burnout and driving technological innovation. In traditional industries like insurance. You have the role around the product and technology. You are the leader here. But I'm always wondering how the experience like working at Amazon or Microsoft before influence you. Like what? Like in the current situation, in the current job.

So maybe do you, do you have some examples here?

Sonny Patel

Yeah. And in, in answering this question I can also cover a bit of my background. So I started by studying computer science both in undergrad and grad and my first job out of after finishing my master's was as a developer and completely dating myself. But this was over 20 years ago. How time flies. So I joined, started an intern summer internship and continued a full time role at Dell back in the early 2000s. And once around that time is the first time I heard about this role called product management.

I wasn't as familiar with that before. I think it definitely exists or there was need for it. But Microsoft was the first one to formalize a role around someone who manages the ideation and design of a product. Was very fascinated by it. So interviewed at Microsoft, got a job and that was my first foray into product management. Absolutely loved it, learned a lot and after about eight years made a switch to Amazon again as a product manager. And while at Amazon, completely by accident, happy accident, got a chance to manage a cross functional team.

And this I found at the time very unique to Amazon. Now probably a lot of other companies do it where they carve out this role. The terminology that Amazon uses is a single threaded owner and the idea for one person to really lead and obsess about one product line and, and you manage a team that from an engineering perspective handles all aspects of it which is product management, the program management, the development of it as well as the qa. So I got a chance to manage a team like that while I was working on the Amazon shopping app.

Matt

And that's really interesting. So what you mentioned that at Amazon for the first time you saw this approach when you have a leader and it's fun focused on, on let's say one product. So I, because I really wanted to talk to you. Like now you combine the product and technology right? The, the, the role of the CTPO cpdo it's kind of like getting really popular and I kind of understand why like to have, not to have those silos right. And the communication like a different goals. So it seems to me like more better approach let's say under one hood like you have everything but how do you see it like, or maybe do you see, do you see the downside of it?

Because I, I of course don't believe that everything is, you know, green on this side.

Sonny Patel

Absolutely right. Yeah. I happy to talk about pros and cons because I had a chance to work in both. So like you, my preference definitely having a combined leadership one, I think personally, I think such a fun, gratifying job. So I like having that role and impact for sure. And also there is I think a reduction in collaboration tax. Now what could be the downside of it is I think a person that is equally good on the product management aspect and an engineering aspect is a complete unicorn. Right. I mean, so, so I think it's difficult to find an individual like that.

So personally myself, I do think because of my background and training I lean more on the product management aspect. So what that means for me as a leader is the areas where I need support on that I have very strong team members to give me, provide that balance for me and my skill set within the team and vice versa. If let's say somebody gets into a CPTO role, I've heard it being referred to as both CPTO and ctpo, either one. So I guess depending on where the emphasis is. But let's say somebody with an engineering, deeper engineering background moves into that role. My recommendation for them would be identify the areas where they would need more support and hire people for that. But this notion of one person who can balance it all, not that they.

We don't have them, but I think it's, it's just hard, right, because earlier in the career it's very likely each of us has focused on one aspect more than the other. So that to me is. And, and finding that right team and balance is probably, I wouldn't say a downside, but I think the balancing act that's needed to really make this role work. It's. I think of this role very much as a team sport rather than one person doing the job.

Matt

That's interesting aspect you mentioned like a team sport and that you need to have somebody to support you on your, let's say weak side because you either are more specialized in product or technology of this role. So like in your case we have like a, I don't know, head of engineering, like helping you, supporting you on this side or how do you organize it?

Sonny Patel

So I can definitely talk about my organization now and then go back in time how I. So like I said, I think I am very aware of the areas where I feel that I bring Deep expertise, expertise to the table and also the areas where I definitely look to others on the team for support. So an example right now, the team, the organization I lead, I have four leaders that helped me run it. And it's in a lot of ways it's a symmetry both on the product and the technology side. So I have head of engineering and a head of product and I have a product architect and a software architect. All four of these individuals report to me right now at socotra. Absolutely a brilliant bench of leaders. Right. I mean I get a chance to obviously interact and work with them.

And I cannot believe my own luck that I get to work with such a brilliant set of mine. So shout out to the team if you guys are listening. So in a lot of ways, anything I'm able to do or accomplish, I attribute a lot of it to this set of four leaders. And so I think that to me it's about my role in a lot of ways is about enabling their success within their roles. So the architect roles, both on the product and the technical side bring in that deep. Both design as well as the development aspect and the heads of engineering and product essentially, in addition to a number of other things that they do, are running the team on a day to day basis and work on the people management aspect as well as the delivery aspects and communications aspects of the platform that we develop. So that is a setup I have today.

I think it works beautifully in a large part because of the individuals. Right, so it's a setup and the individuals. In the past I think there was, I've always had a setup similar to that. And I think my job, my number one priority is ensuring I have the right people in these roles.

Matt

And speaking I want to dig now a bit on the like nitty gritty details and how do you do your job? What is special about you? And I always like the aspect of contrarian approaches. So I mean like, do you feel like in your case, do you have any like a contrarian approach to building the product, managing the team, delivering the value to the client, that it's specifically special for you?

Sonny Patel

Yeah, I mean a number of these I can probably talk about one in particular. So I feel that, I mean you talked about the need for that deeper collaboration between product and engineering. Absolutely right. I mean, I think probably number one indicator of success is ensuring that product and engineering are seeing eye to eye. Because. And the reason I say that is because oftentimes, you know, we're probably operating with a shortage of either resources or time or you know, Talking about scope.

Matt

Right.

Sonny Patel

So these are the three variables that we are usually negotiating. So and there is a natural tension that arises because we are probably often working in an environment we are being asked to do more with less time and less resources. So that's a negotiation. So one belief I've come to embrace, I don't know if I would call it contrarian because others might believe the same thing is the most effective use of our time, especially when we are meeting together and having discussions, is to have some very messy discussions. And this is very counter to what I was used to, which is that meetings should be run very clean, very with a lot of social cohesion or to get a lot of agreement in a meeting. And I've come to realize that actually that's. It should be the opposite if you're meeting, if you're all choosing to spend time together to make decisions, the more opinions, counter opinions, the more we are able to push each other.

When somebody shares opinion or makes a statement and using the meeting itself to make a decision rather than, you know, pre make these decisions and come to the meeting to get alignment, I think those are probably the especially tattoo the leaders. This is what I would say that is probably the most effective use of our time and in a lot of ways almost counter to what I would believe at the beginning of my career.

Matt

Great point, great point. I agree. And speaking of building the products, I'm wondering in your case, do you have your own framework or with your team, you have your own framework, how do you bring the idea to the product itself? Do you have your own process behind it? How do you go for it?

Sonny Patel

I think there's definitely a process I like to follow, but it's not my own. I think this one derived from my days in Amazon just because it works so beautifully. So Amazon follows this methodology called working backwards, which is. And the, and the concept behind that is always start with the customer. Always start with what the customer problem is that you're trying to solve and then derive what it is that you're going to do and then lay out the plan. Right. So. But the concept is not that.

And the idea is that don't propose a solution and talk about what it is that you're building and then try to fit in with the customer need. Start with the customer need. Sounds very basic and common sense, but it's especially now in the world of AI everywhere we often forget because sometimes it's so easy and tempting to fall in love with our own ideas or technology and get drawn into why know we should build something because it's just so cool and not really and then try to find a customer to and that would need it. And you know, oftentimes we avoid a lot of waste by just reversing that and starting with the customer problem.

Matt

And you mentioned the AI and I'm always wondering, do you feel that the AI influenced the work you do? The way you do the work? I don't know. Do you see already some changes on your daily basis? Maybe.

Sonny Patel

I find it enormously useful I think for a lot of just my personal productivity point of view. So a couple of my favorite tools that I just use on an everyday basis. One is this tool called Kong which essentially at SAPO just consolidates a lot of our sales calls. Just such an enormously useful tool to summarize these long calls. I mean so as and when I find free time, I love to just listen into some of these customer calls that might be happening. You know, just one of the most useful resources way to hear feedback about either what customers have said about our platform or the needs that they're bringing to the table when evaluating our platform. Both just enormous, enormously useful feedback channels for a product.

And what Gong does is just summarizes these sometimes hours long calls into key points. So if I don't have time, it's very easy to just read and get the gist of it. In addition, it has a lot of really cool call analytics that it displays. For example, you know, who are the participants? Which participants spoke the most. Just very insightful like that as a human being, like as a. Or with a manual approach.

Some of these, you know, capabilities would have been very difficult, you know, for I use AI for writing, I use AI for instance. Another tool that I find very enormously helpful for me again resource collection point of view is glean that we utilize across the company. So I think personally, I mean Matt, I'm curious how you use it, but it's made from a personal productivity point of view. We live in a completely transformed world. I feel like even compared to five years ago.

Matt

Yeah, I feel it and I see a huge impact. So I have software development company and even using GitHub Copilot, you can produce so much, you can improve the quality so you can be faster, deliver more. So I think it's already possible today. So I'm just thinking about what will be possible in five years. Right.

Sonny Patel

So yeah, I think that some of the. And we've also used it to build some demo where. Right. Again, which would take weeks or months previously and now, you know, I mean, it's a matter of hours and days that we are talking about. But so depending on the kind of task, it's, it's magical. You know, I'm, I'm a huge, I'm a huge fan.

Matt

And how about. I always like to ask about the toughest time in your career. Do you recall like the challenges, like the toughest challenge that you have went through and how this impacted your career? What, what have you learned from it?

Sonny Patel

Yeah, I would say, and I, for me at least, and I guess for most people, that when we are going through a challenging time, oftentimes it kind of, you know, there's an intersection of both personal and professional lives, you know, and you know, one probably impacts the other. So when I look back, I want to say about a little over a decade ago, I had a loss on my family, close family, which was very hard for me and to process. And this was around the time I was doing a part time mba, so I lived in Seattle and I was doing a weekend MBA at Berkeley. So which meant I had to fly out every Saturday, spend the whole day in Berkeley, attend classes and fly back. Very taxing. I mean, now I think I was insane to do it, you know, and also on the work side, I had just moved into a people management role, which I really wanted, but also it was, you know, it took me out of my comfort zone. So I, I did not realize all of those mixing together.

I, I think I got into the state of burnout and not realized I was in that state. And the way it manifested was I would go to work and I would have a bunch of things that I needed to get done and just not be able to do it and then beating myself about not being productive. So it was just this vicious cycle that I went down. Um, now when I look back, you know, I mean, it's, you know, now that there's so much literature about burnout, what that feels like, you know, being able to identify, okay, that was something that obviously was, you know, a lot brought on by like this repeated chronic stress. But things going on in personal life makes sense and I'm so glad for it, for that experience. Right. It really sucked to be in that state back then.

But I think upon reflection, I'm so, I wouldn't say I'm happy, but I think that I'm glad that I went through that. And I think as leaders, each of us have, not only does it build character on a personal level, but it makes us more empathetic leaders. Right. I, I Think has definitely improved my leadership style.

Matt

I want to say really interesting stuff. I, I think like the burnout, it's the, like it's the thing for most of the leaders. I. Leaders. I had the same situation, I think and I think that I have at least three or four times the burnout during my career. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when I, when I'm thinking today about it, I think it was three or four times at least.

But it's really hard. Nobody's talking about it, right. And like to figure it out, how to manage it, like how to go, how to. I don't know how to fight with it. It's so, so difficult. Especially when you have a leadership role. It's like never ending job.

Sonny Patel

No. And, and I think that even. Matt, tell me if this was your experience. Not even knowing what it was. Right. I mean, you know, now I'm able to talk about it and put a name to it and say that's what it was. It was so confusing, you know, because I think we have this belief about ourselves. Right. I mean, or at least I definitely thought I was the kind of person who could push through everything and not being able to do it day after day was very disorienting.

And I think that leads to its own self esteem issues. But I think somebody had to point it out to me and I think there are so many things I personally learned from that experience. I also thought burnout happens when you don't like your job. But I really love my job and I think that it's. It's funny, it's the same that I. It's kind of similar experience I learned with biking. So my husband and I several years ago trained for this ride from Seattle to Portland.

This is an annual bike ride that happens between the two cities. 206 miles. Right. So we were training for it. And so the, you know, I mean not that I'm very athletic or anything, but I think it was very easy for me to get on a bike and go for a 20 mile ride. Um, and as we were starting to add on miles, there was a point in time I think we were around going on these 50 or 60 mile rides and, and I've again, it, it feels very similar to that burnout stage. But I never physically experienced experience a sensation where I just couldn't pedal.

You know, in the middle of the ride I had to get down the bike and I had to, I had to sit down and probably eat some of those, you know, gel, caffeine, gel things to be able to get by, and it's so confusing. It's like, why, why can I not my brain not tell my legs to keep biking? Um, you know, it's, it's a very weird sensation. So to me, if I have to equate the burnout felt like that mental fatigue. But you just cannot go on.

Matt

It's a great example. Like you stop and you cannot pedal anymore. It's like a sign of the burnout. It's like really, really, really, really cool stuff, what you're saying. I'm doing the road biking, so I kind of like understand it really well. But my colleague with whom I'm road biking and he's really successful entrepreneurs. Entrepreneur. And like I live in Spain, so the heels are really high here and I hate it.

I absolutely hate it. But like, especially at the early bit early days, it was really difficult for me and he was saying like, hey, like we have like a huge hill in front of us. And he's saying like, do your at your own piece. Like you still get it at the top and we will make it like it doesn't matter what, how much time do we need? Just pad out easily and then everything will be easier. The same as at work. Right. So you do it in your own piece.

You don't have to hire, you don't have to know everything at the same time. Like, give yourself some time. So like the, the biking is I, I think is a good example even.

Sonny Patel

I, I agree. You're absolutely right. And also, you know, I mean like, just to build on that analogy, it's you take care of yourself before you get to that muscle fatigue stick stage. Right. So, you know, whatever the, the nutrition, your hydration, knowing yourself and you know, pacing. Absolutely right. Pacing yourself, but also providing your body, the, the, the nutrition before it gets into that state.

Like I said, I think I am so happy like that I had that experience for myself because I think, I do think it's one of those things where it's one thing to hear about it or read about it or like, you know, we do talk about stress and burnout, but completely another when you experience it for yourself. You know, the, you know, personal experience is always the best teacher.

Matt

So, but, but I, I, I know a lot of leaders who are, let's say around the 30, around 30 years old. Right. So they are beginning, and when you are beginning your career, you have a lot of energy. You work at Ernst and Young or those kind of organization or consulting jobs. So you work 24, 7, I would say. So this, those are really intensive Jobs. But do you like, if, if you, if you, if you would talk with such a person, with such a young person and this person is like close to the burnout and you see it from the outside, like, what question would you ask to evaluate it?

Or the person could evaluate it, like based maybe on your own experience, like how would you approach it?

Sonny Patel

You know, maybe I, and I could give them advice. Absolutely. But given my reflection, I wonder if you should just let them go and experience it for themselves and they'll learn. And, and that is because I think about my, like I was, this was basically, I was in my early 30s and I wouldn't have listened if somebody had come and said, hey, why are you doing this?

Why are you taking, you know, doing this MBA and taking on this new role and changing teams. If somebody had tried to talk me out of it, I would be like, no, don't worry, I can handle it. You know, and that hubris that comes from being young and having all the energy and this was, you know, before I had kids.

So I had all this time, you know, all my time was my own. And I think it, and obviously when you do all of those things, oftentimes you tend to be successful and success is such a terrible teacher. I think it builds a lot of arrogance and hubris and you attribute a lot of your success to yourself rather than who's around you and who's supporting, supporting you. And like I said, I think I, I needed that wake up call and I needed to learn it for myself. So if I'm seeing somebody go down the path, if they come ask me for advice, absolutely, I would give advice, but I think I wouldn't intervene. I would probably let them play it out because in a lot of ways I think that's probably the best way to learn about our own limits. Right? So how, how do you know how, what you're capable of if you don't push yourself?

Matt

Yeah, well said. But I know one example, like there's the one entrepreneurs organization, really successful guys and they, they sold their companies, they made a lot of money, right? And you know what is the common problem and what they want to educate those guys. They educate about investing the money because like when you sell your company, you feel like that you are so good and you will be successful at like any kind of business. And the guys are losing the money because of the investments that they are making.

Sonny Patel

So 100%, yes, not so good one.

Matt

This is not a good one. So they started to educate and implement the education on that, that, But Maybe this is a bit different topic. It's out of topic. Yeah, yeah, right, right. You know, but that's a good, I.

Sonny Patel

Mean that's a good one and that's a very important, I guess life skill to develop. Yes.

Matt

And, and speaking of your role and, and in your career, I'm always wondering like what are your challenges right now? Like this year, last year, what do you feel you, I don't know, type in Google and ChatGPT what you are trying to solve. Because I feel like each year brings something new and we learning something new and I'm just wondering in your case, what are the challenges on your plate?

Sonny Patel

Yeah, I can give a bit of background on Socotra and then we definitely have an exciting road ahead of us. So Socotra at this point is in the insurance space and the platform that we build out, it's an enterprise SaaS platform build out is targeted towards insurance carriers to help them manage a policy throughout its life cycle. So for example, an insurance carrier that's offering, you know, either personal insurance products like auto and homeowners insurance, or on the commercial side like for insurance for commercial property, commercial fleets, that sort of thing can leverage our platform to create some of these policies and enable the management of that policy throughout the life cycle, including managing the billing for these policies. So it's a problem that has always existed. There's a number of legacy solutions for it. And about 20 years ago there were some companies that formed who are now the incumbents that try to modernize the old mainframe based solutions. And Socotra comes in about 10 years ago and says, hey, you know what, we are going to rethink how this is done in a completely cloud native.

We do not have any on premise setup at this point. We've been born in the cloud, right. And we could afford to do that because the technology and the infrastructure was ready by the time we got started. And at this point, the way that we have built the platform, our belief is that this is absolutely the most innovative, the most advanced policy administration system in the market. The challenge is to build the reference ability so that it's not even just us saying that, it's our customer speaking for itself and influencing future customers. So that is the challenge ahead of us this next year. So very different from what we were focused on or what I was focused on from a what to solve perspective last year.

I think from a product perspective, we have a lot out there in this platform that our customers can leverage that we believe would tremendously help be an enabler for them to launch products in a much more efficient way. And I think this is the fun of it and this is the challenge of it is how do we get more of these customers to believe and adopt and get that virtuous cycle going where we have some customers and we use them as reference to bring on more customers? Yeah, that's where we are.

Matt

So I assume there is a lot of education and a lot of talking of the clients. Right. So the product itself is complex, so I assume it's not an easy job.

Sonny Patel

Right, exactly right. I mean, it's not, for instance, a B2C product that, that's easy to explain and understand. This is very, I think in that industry specific in that way. And insurance is, you know, not as mainstream within the tech circles, so. Exactly. You're right. Like, so when we talk get into the what does this platform do?

Why is that different? You know, how is this differentiated? You get very quickly into the technical details of it.

Matt

And then last but not least, the question that I ask all of my guests, it's about the, the books, the resources, conferences, something that had a major influence on the, on you as a leader. Do you recall any titles that you could share?

Sonny Patel

Oh my gosh, so many. And I, I, I think if my brain could be scanned and dissected, I'm sure there'll be some AI tool in future. It probably there's different bits of it that have been that formed because of different books I have read throughout my life. You know, I think that would be a very interesting tool is that like brain scan, which, which is impacted by which book. So the one that I'm reading right now is, I haven't finished it yet, but I think it's fascinating. It's by Chris, was called Never Split the Difference. So I think that's the one that comes to mind because I'm in the process of reading it.

I will, I will definitely share what I, what I think is the most meaningful. But so many of them and I, I absolutely, I think that that's probably my, one of my favorite downtime activities is to read. Well, as you can tell, I wish I spent more time on it, you know, but that's the eternal quest for, you know, time.

Matt

Sonny, thank you so much for your insightful talk and your time today. I really appreciate it. And I think this is the first time when I talk and I talk during the podcast about the burnout and let's say, the soft side of, of of our work. And I think it's such an important topic that it should be covered more and more. So thank you for that and sharing your experiences here.

Sonny Patel

Matt, again, thank you so much for having me. Have a great day.

Matt

Thank you. Follow Matt and Lechek on link.

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