Our recent event, traditionally held at the Silkroad Innovation Hub, featured four remarkable speakers who shared their incredible journeys filled with unpredictable challenges and hardships.
Raya Abdykulova: "Project Management Career"
Raya Abdykulova left her career in Petroleum Engineering in Pavlodar, Kazakhstan. In Silicon Valley, Raya discovered a new meaning for her professional development: project management. She shares that her job at an innovative biotechnology company, Intuitive, which works on robotic surgical assistants aligns with her value of helping people and demonstrates her strong leadership and communication skills. While Raya doesn't have technical skills in biotechnology, she highlights that her ability to work collaboratively with others was a key selling point in landing this job. As she stated, 'It is very easy to work with me daily.' Her perseverance and care for people led her to the position of Senior Project Manager.
"The most important part of project management is that you need to love people… create an environment where you want to work with people and those people want to work with you." - Raya Abdykulova
Mariam Uzdenova: "The Project Manager: The Leader of Successful Projects"
The pandemic was a hard hit for Mariam's trucking business; she eventually had to shut it down. Mariam decided to try out project management roles: she sent 1500 resumes in 2 months. She reveals that applying many times without fear of failure worked for her to get jobs: "Don't be afraid of rejections. It is normal." Now Mariam Uzdenova is a project manager at Meta. Her job description: "As a project manager, you are a middleman between lots of people, and lots of processes, you are the one who organizes the finalization of the project." She notes that endless negotiations, and resolving issues and conflicts which are inevitable during the projects require "soft, soft, soft skills."
"Every project needs to stay on three pillars: one is time, another one is a budget, and the third one is scope delivery." - Mariam Uzdenova
Zhamal Zhanybek: "PM 101"
Zhamal Zhanybek explains that a product manager is "the CEO of a product." The term 'product' can refer to anything, such as the 'like' button on YouTube. As a product manager at YouTube, Zhamal combined her creativity and analytical thinking skills. When it comes to skills required for a product manager, Zhamal posed a question, "Think hard about what it takes to launch an idea?". A product manager is responsible for the success of the product by understanding users and finding solutions to their problems, defining the vision of the product, and executing it’s vision.
Having graduated from UC Berkeley with a BS in Economics and Environmental Science, Zhamal started her career in the United Nations as a project manager. Later she moved to the tech industry and gained experience in a startup company, then Paramount which helped her to get an offer from YouTube. Her first interview at Google didn't go well, however, she succeeded a second time.
"All of us or a lot of us come from very different backgrounds. There is no one perfect path to land your dream job." - Zhamal Zhanybek
Aitemir Yeskenov: "TPM"
A fast-paced environment where you have to be resilient and adaptive. This is how Aitemir Yeskenov describes his role as a Senior technical project manager at Tesla. Aitemir, who earned both BS and MS in Business Analytics and Information Systems at the University of South Florida, worked in technical roles like developer and data engineer. Having a strong IT background, Aitemir decided to change direction to a role that would give him more movement and communication. In his role, Aitemir stresses the extensive responsibility required, such as understanding whether the team can deliver what is asked while navigating them toward favorable results.
"I can work with multiple stakeholders, different people: highly technical or non-technical, managers, and so on, and so forth. And make sure that I execute the projects and I deliver quality outcomes." - Aitemir Yeskenov
During the Q&A sessions, our guests asked about their concerns, questions, and tips for these roles. All of the speakers emphasized the crucial need for strong communication skills. Mariam shared her tip on how to communicate and network as an introvert, asking people questions and letting them talk while being a good listener. Raya's networking tip is asking questions about people's achievements and career journeys: "People like to talk about their success." Other key points for succeeding, as mentioned by the speakers, are knowing yourself and relying on your strengths. Additionally, they shared websites, certifications, and platforms that helped them prepare for these roles.
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