Last month a friend forwarded me a TikTok video. The description read, ‘Cinneah of Flynanced – Asking #Afrotech2022 attendees how much they make…’
I clicked the blue underlined text to watch the clip. Jerlisa Fontaine, holding a little white mic, introduced herself as an Associate Product Manager. How much was she making? She broke down her total compensation package (base salary + extras), then totaled it up– the sum was a whopping $199,000.
Jerlisa is 26 years old.
My first thought was this is amazing!
Then, after discovering her tech role did not require a background in coding, I thought, I need to interview this girl!
Working in tech is a hot topic right now. For those who get in, it can be rewarding and lucrative. Yet, many people, don’t consider working in tech because of the false belief that you have to know how to code to get in.
But here’s a black woman proving that’s not true!
If you’ve been looking for a way to break into the industry without a background in programming, read on to find out if Product Management is for you…
Jerlisa’s Story
Jerlisa tells me since high school, or maybe even before, she wanted to be a doctor.
“I’m a giving, nurturing person and I felt the medical industry was the best way for me to help people through these traits I naturally possess.”
So, after high school, she became a pre-medical student at the University of Albany.
Then, after graduating, she got a job at non-profit organization teaching teens about different clinical careers while she waited to take her next step—preparing for the MCAT. But something changed…
“I realized I did not want to go to med school anymore,” Jerlisa says with a laugh.
Reflecting on what she would do if she weren’t a doctor, she began thinking about business and the tech industry within healthcare.
In her undergrad, she met people doing different things related to technology, business, and social impact. She had also worked in a lab as a student helping a professor with a study that was focused on health communication, researching what health topics young adults lacked understanding of so an e-health learning platform for young adults (think content and gamification) could be created.
“Boom!” Jerlisa says. “… Tech helping healthcare.”
Just like that, she realized she didn’t have to be a doctor to help people better their health. Maybe, she could use business and technology to create new interventions instead.
“My mission then changed to not just being this nurturing, loving talent but to guide people with their health through technology.”
With this new direction in mind, Jerlisa scrambled to get herself into a master’s program specializing in Public Health last minute.
She tells me at that time most admission deadlines had already passed. So, she went to talk to every school with rolling admissions to figure out ‘who the hell was going to take her.’
She got into NYU.
“That was basically that first step. Then I networked my ass off with this NYU name, meeting business and healthcare people trying to figure out, should I be a salesperson? Should I be an operational person in health tech? Should I be a project person, a product person?”
Her academic background and the different roles and projects she did throughout her academic career led her to Product, which eventually led to her current position at Oscar Health.
What is a Product Manager?
“A Product manager is somebody who works with designers, engineers, analytics folks, and business stakeholders to create products and tools that solve a problem plaguing the demographic that a company is focused on. Basically, you’re working with these teams to think about, what can we do to solve this?”
Jerlisa explains that a Product Manager also ensures the company is benefiting.
“Everybody needs to win,” she says.
On a day-to-day basis, she could be involved in wireframing, customer research, user experience (UX) design, testing, launching, monitoring the metrics behind launched products, and optimizing products to make sure they hit key metrics.
Want to get into Product Management? Read on…
Jerlisa’s Tips for Getting into Product Management
Check out the Inclusive Product Management Accelerator
“I did a program called the Inclusive Product Management Accelerator. For anybody who wants to be a Product Manager, I wouldn’t recommend it; I would enforce it!”
The program is led by product leaders from top companies like Salesforce and teaches students everything from product management frameworks to how to land your first product job. Program participants also get assigned a mentor for guidance throughout the program and beyond.
Learn some Structured Query Language AKA SQL
A big part of Product Management is monitoring data to make sure products are performing in alignment with key business goals. Knowing SQL is a skill that can help Product Managers pull complex data from a database quickly, therefore having this skill will make your profile stand out and make the job easier once you’re in.
“When you’re using SQL, you’re creating queries, which are basically code-like ways to ask a question to [a data] system so that it can give you certain data back that’s going to help drive improving your product,” Jerlisa explains.
She took a free intro to SQL class through DataCamp.
Prepare for case study questions
According to Jerlisa, case study questions are quite common in product interviews. In her interviewing process, she was shown a tool and asked to improve it.
Given a scenario like this, she explains it’s important while answering, to express what the surface-level problem is, who the problem is affecting, what you’re really trying to solve for, who you’ll need to work with to solve the problem, and how you’ll work with them.
Expressing this will highlight your thinking skills and how you’re capable of working with people to solve a problem, which is what companies want to understand.
If you’re asked to share about a time when you solved a problem in the past, Jerlisa says to be sure to answer the question from the lens of something as close to the product as possible.
“The toughest question is really going to be, ‘walk us through a challenge and how do you solve it?’ and staying in that state of mind of realizing I’m answering this from a product lens, not just some general problem.”
Final Words
I finish the interview with Jerlisa by asking her what it feels like to work in tech and make that tech money!
She tells me it feels great. She loves that her role allows her to be part of the entire life cycle of a product from brainstorming to executing and as for the money, she says she now has plenty to invest and to live her life without worrying about finances.
“I don’t feel like there needs to be a trade-off in life,” she says. “I am a huge advocate that people should pursue getting their passions and getting their money. Chase passion, but chase money too, that matters. We don’t want to struggle.”
Besides being a product manager Jerlisa is also the founder and host of the Hue Capital Podcast, where she interviews diverse senior professionals, community leaders, and entrepreneurs to give people insight into the different career trajectories that are out there and how to get into them.
To connect with Jerlisa, follow her on social media (IG/TikTok) @ jujufontaine_ and subscribe to her podcast.
1 Comment
This was really informative!