Leading at Roblox is a collection that explores the profession journeys of Roblox’s leaders and discusses their roles, philosophies, and administration types. In this profile, we get to know Garima Sinha, Senior Director of Product, who heads up our Social Team throughout the User Group.
Garima with colleague Effie Goenawan discussing a latest mission
Let’s discuss your profession path to Product management. How did all of it begin?
GS: I’ve at all times been eager about technical innovation. I studied Computer Science Engineering in Delhi with a view to start a profession within the know-how trade. After faculty, I took my first full-time function as a Product Manager. This was a bit uncommon, as most PMs enter the place after just a few years of common engineering expertise. But I jumped in and realized rapidly. In order to thrive, I needed to have a “doer” mindset and never draw back from difficult issues. Many of those traits guided how I lead immediately.
Two years later, I pursued my Master’s diploma in Software Management from Carnegie Mellon. From there, I had some superb alternatives within the coronary heart of Silicon Valley at firms like Meta (then Facebook), Thumbtack, and Instacart. I began my function right here at Roblox in April of 2022, and this primary 12 months has been nothing in need of superb. I’m doing among the most revolutionary work of my life.
What does your present function entail?
I’m a Senior Director of Product Management inside Roblox’s User Group, main Social. Our imaginative and prescient is to allow one billion folks to attach, play, be taught, talk, and work collectively in high-quality 3D immersive co-experiences. On the User Group, I lead Product for 2 of our verticals: Connections and Communication. Our focus is on constructing the merchandise that empower free, expressive, and immersive communication on-platform, and our mission is to allow and mimic real-world communication in digital co-experiences. Building these options safely and at scale has by no means been finished earlier than, and our staff is so excited to reimagine the way in which folks talk.
Garima talking at Roblox Developers Conference 2022 with colleague Tom Sanocki
What’s one factor you’ve realized as a pacesetter at Roblox?
Everyone in a corporation is exclusive, and what energizes somebody and will get them impressed varies throughout people.
Through my time as a pacesetter, I’ve realized that managing every of my stories in the identical method simply doesn’t work. I would like to have the ability to adapt my model to my folks – and by extension, to the state of affairs and context that we’re in at that second. It’s straightforward to default to my very own most well-liked administration model, so I’m usually checking myself and guaranteeing that I’m aligning to the person’s wants, not simply my very own. My objective is to assist everybody do their greatest work whereas holding a excessive bar, and empowering them to succeed in it.
At the tip of the day, my job is to assist my staff do nice work and develop as technical professionals. Grounding my strategy to management in that goal has helped me coach superb and numerous professionals who complement each other with their completely different types and strengths.
How do you assist to guide and construct a tradition of innovation at Roblox?
I consider in autonomy, possession, and making a tradition the place risk-taking is inspired. I feel it’s vital to teach my staff, however I additionally need them to have the area and creativity to take the steps that they consider are proper for a mission, with out worry of failure. I’ve discovered that when my groups really feel like they’ll personal and drive their area areas, they actually step up and do their greatest work, and if persons are not afraid to fail, they aren’t afraid to push the boundaries. If you may create that setting to your folks, you’ll encourage innovation as a pacesetter. I attempt to present steering, inspiration, and assist, whereas encouraging people to lean on their very own instincts and experiences. Every day at Roblox, my groups are fixing issues that none of us – myself included – have the reply to. By inspiring our folks to push boundaries and discover artistic choices, we’re capable of finding these solutions and innovate past our wildest imaginations.
The second factor I do to facilitate innovation is get my arms soiled with the staff! I’m by no means shy about diving into the small print – spending time brainstorming, whiteboarding, and problem-solving. We’re working to reply among the world’s hardest product questions, so collaboration and knowledge-sharing are key. There’s no job that’s too huge or too small for anybody to tackle. It will be straightforward for leaders to get disconnected from day-to-day work. But for the kind of work we’re doing at Roblox – constructing issues that nobody has ever finished earlier than – it’s crucial that individuals of all ranges dive proper in. We’re altering how the web works for the subsequent 10 years, and we gained’t be capable of do this if we don’t all deeply perceive all the things in our product and in our stack.
If you had to decide on a worth that the majority resonates with you as a pacesetter, which one wouldn’t it be?
When I take into consideration our progress towards our imaginative and prescient, I feel we’ve got two values that work collectively synergistically – Get Stuff Done and Take the Long View. We take motion and often iterate to attain a really excessive quantity of labor at scale. Our tradition is action-oriented, and we’re always searching for options that allow us to construct with velocity.
At the identical time, we’re a really long-term firm and taking the lengthy view is vital for us. Our tradition encourages intentional pauses: if we see one thing off or awry, it’s innate in our values to pause, step again, and rethink – even when meaning a delay to make sure we get it proper. We at all times prioritize constructing with security and civility, which suggests creating the most secure product options as a substitute of simply attempting to ship issues and test a field. We’re actively constructing for the long run – regardless that we may have to attend weeks, months, or years to essentially see our imaginative and prescient come to life.
Garima Sinha, Senior Director of Product at Roblox
In closing, what excites you about the way forward for your staff? What about Roblox as a complete?
I’m extra impressed proper now than I’ve been in a really very long time. And I say that as a result of I consider that we’re at the crux of one thing big. We are altering the way in which folks come collectively. How they hang around with one another. How they impart. How they play. We are so near that future, and I’m very excited to make it occur.
Inspired by Garima’s story? She and her staff are hiring! Visit our careers website to discover open roles.
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