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Product managers wear a lot of hats—but what do they actually do?

In this episode of Beyond the Build, we sit down with our first-ever guest: Thien-Y Le, a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft, to get the unfiltered truth about one of tech's most misunderstood roles.

Thien-Y walks us through the real work of a PM—from balancing customer demands with business goals to managing relationships with engineers. We dig into what it takes to build a roadmap, why product managers are sometimes called “mini-CEOs,” and whether PMs really need to know how to code.

We also talk about the joys of bringing a product to life, the pain of navigating conflicting priorities, and the behind-the-scenes decisions that rarely get airtime.

Whether you’re an engineer curious about what PMs do in all those meetings, or a PM looking to feel seen, this episode gives you a candid look at product management inside one of the world’s biggest tech companies.