How Ameya Shastri became a rising figure in Product Management
Over the past decade, Product management has matured into one of the most critical and sought-after roles in technology. Organizations have been aggressive to poach leading and experienced Product managers in a bid to ensure their technology teams have an edge over the competition.
One such sought-after figure in the Product management world is Ameya Shastri Pothukuchi, who has over the years quietly made a mark for himself in the Tech industry as someone who is adept at building and enhancing software products at scale. In his current role at Microsoft as a Senior Product Manager, he has been entrusted with product development in complex projects that impact hundreds of millions of Microsoft’s customers worldwide.
Pothukuchi attributes his success in technical product management to his background in Computer Science and Business Administration, in which he has advanced degrees. He states that it has given him a unique perspective making him equally comfortable when speaking to both technically inclined engineers, as well as business stakeholders who are more concerned with customer experience and financial feasibility.
At Microsoft, Pothukuchi is working on big-data migration involving hundreds of Petabytes of customer data, helping the iconic Redmond based enterprise to enhance end-user experience and also save millions of dollars a year. Consequently, this migration technology has become the gold-standard of big- data ETL (Extraction-Transformation-Loading) projects in the tech industry and has been noted by other industry rivals.
When asked what makes his current role interesting, Pothukuchi explains “Unlike other firms having thousands or maybe a few million users, any change we make at Microsoft touches nearly a Billion people globally including essential workers from teaching, healthcare, retail and even the American military. We really cannot afford to slip-up even slightly – it’s not negotiable. People put their trust in us to be able to do their everyday jobs and that’s both a source of pride and pressure to do better, for me and my team at Microsoft. ”
When quizzed about his most satisfying work, he says it’s hard to choose but alludes to his earlier work with Walgreens when he was asked to lead a critical project during the COVID pandemic at their headquarters in the suburbs of Chicago. In his words, seeing middle-class Americans depend on Walgreens stores nationwide for vaccinations and household essentials during the pandemic was an eye-opening experience. “It’s not just that I was leading a regular IT project to help increase the annual profit of a corporation by 2%. The unprecedented context of the pandemic lockdown meant that as a Product manager at the most popular Pharmacy chain in the country, I could see very directly the impact created by me and my team on people’s health.”
An avid endurance swimmer who participates in long-distance events at open-water swim competitions, Pothukuchi’s professional commitments haven’t stopped him from giving back and engaging with the larger tech community. He is a regular figure as a judge in industry events, and was recently inducted as a Senior IEEE member. To top it off, his contributions to the field were recognized earlier this year when he received the prestigious International Achiever’s award for his contributions to the American tech industry. The exciting technical world of software product management is his playground and we can’t wait to see what he will produce next.
