Main at Roblox is a sequence that explores the profession journeys of Roblox’s leaders and discusses their roles, philosophies, and administration types. On this profile, we get to know Garima Sinha, Senior Director of Product, who heads up our Social Group inside the Person Group.
Garima with colleague Effie Goenawan discussing a latest challenge
Let’s speak about your profession path to Product management. How did all of it begin?
GS: I’ve at all times been concerned with technical innovation. I studied Laptop Science Engineering in Delhi in an effort to start a profession within the expertise business. After school, I took my first full-time function as a Product Supervisor. This was a bit uncommon, as most PMs enter the place after just a few years of basic engineering expertise. However I jumped in and discovered rapidly. With a view to thrive, I needed to have a “doer” mindset and never shrink back from difficult issues. Many of those traits guided how I lead right now.
Two years later, I pursued my Grasp’s diploma in Software program Administration from Carnegie Mellon. From there, I had some superb alternatives within the coronary heart of Silicon Valley at firms like Meta (then Fb), Thumbtack, and Instacart. I began my function right here at Roblox in April of 2022, and this primary yr has been nothing wanting superb. I’m doing a few of the most modern work of my life.
What does your present function entail?
I’m a Senior Director of Product Administration inside Roblox’s Person Group, main Social. Our imaginative and prescient is to allow one billion folks to attach, play, study, talk, and work collectively in high-quality 3D immersive co-experiences. On the Person 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. Constructing these options safely and at scale has by no means been executed earlier than, and our staff is so excited to reimagine the best way folks talk.
Garima talking at Roblox Builders Convention 2022 with colleague Tom Sanocki
What’s one factor you’ve discovered as a frontrunner at Roblox?
Everybody in a corporation is exclusive, and what energizes somebody and will get them impressed varies throughout people.
Via my time as a frontrunner, I’ve discovered that managing every of my stories in the identical method simply doesn’t work. I want to have the ability to adapt my type to my folks – and by extension, to the state of affairs and context that we’re in at that second. It’s simple to default to my very own most popular administration type, so I’m typically checking myself and guaranteeing that I’m aligning to the person’s wants, not simply my very own. My purpose is to assist everybody do their finest work whereas holding a excessive bar, and empowering them to achieve it.
On the finish 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 imagine in autonomy, possession, and making a tradition the place risk-taking is inspired. I feel it’s necessary to teach my staff, however I additionally need them to have the area and creativity to take the steps that they imagine are proper for a challenge, with out concern of failure. I’ve discovered that when my groups really feel like they will personal and drive their area areas, they actually step up and do their finest work, and if persons are not afraid to fail, they don’t seem to be afraid to push the boundaries. If you happen to can create that surroundings on your folks, you’ll encourage innovation as a frontrunner. I attempt to present steering, inspiration, and help, whereas encouraging people to lean on their very own instincts and experiences. On daily basis at Roblox, our 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 fingers soiled with the staff! I’m by no means shy about diving into the main points – spending time brainstorming, whiteboarding, and problem-solving. We’re working to reply a few of the world’s hardest product questions, so collaboration and knowledge-sharing are key. There’s no job that’s too large or too small for anybody to tackle. It may be simple for leaders to get disconnected from day-to-day work. However for the kind of work we’re doing at Roblox – constructing issues that nobody has ever executed earlier than – it’s crucial that individuals of all ranges dive proper in. We’re altering how the web works for the following 10 years, and we received’t be capable to try this if we don’t all deeply perceive all the things in our product and in our stack.
If you happen to had to decide on a worth that almost all resonates with you as a frontrunner, which one wouldn’t it be?
After I take into consideration our progress towards our imaginative and prescient, I feel we have now two values that work collectively synergistically – Get Stuff Performed and Take the Lengthy View. We take motion and steadily 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.
On the identical time, we’re a really long-term firm and taking the lengthy view is necessary 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 which means a delay to make sure we get it proper. We at all times prioritize constructing with security and civility, which implies creating the most secure product options as an alternative of simply making an attempt to ship issues and verify a field. We’re actively constructing for the long run – despite the fact 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 an entire?
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 imagine that we’re on the crux of one thing large. We’re altering the best way folks come collectively. How they hang around with one another. How they convey. How they play. We’re so near that future, and I’m very excited to make it occur.
Impressed by Garima’s story? She and her staff are hiring! Go to our careers website to discover open roles.
