Personal Background
Two months before I started my hedge fund internship this summer, the firm hired its first U.S. AI Engineer, embedded within the Global Healthcare Investment Team. The portfolio manager told us to figure out how to use AI for clinical trial outcome prediction to help with investment decisions. However, neither the engineer nor I had healthcare expertise—the engineer had struggled in the months before I started—while the team’s analysts lacked AI experience. To support the engineer and work toward a solution, I held meetings with each analyst to understand their process, incorporate their domain expertise into our project, and align the project with their needs. I identified and synthesized key data sources, prediction parameters, and market expectation with LLM-based models and designed the architecture for an explainable AI pipeline the team can use for clinical trial outcome prediction. I applied the pipeline to an ongoing clinical trial, benchmarked the results against the current approach, and produced a memo for the engineer, analysts, and portfolio manager.
My View of a PM’s Job
- We didn’t know what we were doing. In PM, your CEO may just point to a space, and you have to figure out the product to build.
- I left with a completely different role than what I entered with. I thought I would be an applied AI intern, solely working with the engineer. However, I transitioned to a more PM-adjacent role. As Matt LeMay says in his book “Product Management in Practice,” “product managers can come from anywhere.” There is no prescribed path, and one can end up in such a role in unexpected ways.
- I didn’t write a single line of code. Even if I could be considered a “technical” PM, I dedicated most of my time to meeting with the analysts and engineer and acting as a middleman, rather than actually “building” a product.
- I worked with the analysts the same amount as I worked with the engineer. “Product management is a uniquely connective role, requiring its practitioners to bridge user needs with business goals, technical viability with user experience, and vision with execution.” I learned good products are made from collaboration among interdisciplinary teams.
- I came and saw for myself, but we conquered as a team. When I started the role, I set out to create some novel product and gain a boost on my resume. After witnessing the necessary collaboration, I realized, “The value [PMs] create will be largely manifest in the work of [their] team. The best product managers…truly believe that their team’s success is their own success.” What mattered to me in the end was that I forged a link between the engineer and analysts, getting us a step closer to our collective goal.
Questions for Author
- As organizations not traditionally focused on product do not have PM roles, could these roles be fully integrated into such organizations? If so, how?
- If such organizations can viably incorporate PM roles, do you see a future where this actually happens?
