👀 Atlassian APMM: Application to Offer – iykyk

UC Berkeley & Finding APMM

Hi there 👋 — Who are you and what’s your background?

Hi, I’m Cindy! I just graduated from UC Berkeley last May, and I started this job at Atlassian in July as part of their inaugural APMM cohort. In college, I studied Psychology and Media Studies as a double major, and did a certificate in Entrepreneurship and Technology.

I actually started out mainly interested in psychology and human behavior, but I also knew I didn't want to go down the clinical/research route. Instead, I wanted a job where I could talk to different kinds of people and get people excited about things that I was excited about, and that's how I landed in marketing. I was introduced to the PMM career path through a tech-focused consulting club on campus, and was excited by the prospect of doing marketing work that was closely tied to tangible products and features, and that’s how I landed into this little niche within tech.

After an incredibly fun time interning last summer in 2021 as a product marketing intern at Atlassian, I heard they were developing a more robust/official APMM program with more resources and mentors, and I became even more eager to return full-time.

Project & Mentor Rotations

For those who are unfamiliar, how is the program structured and run?

The program is 18 months long, with rotations between projects and mentors within one product.

Our manager (also the program manager) made this very strategic decision when she designed the program so that we’d be able to develop market knowledge and apply it quickly in our projects. That’s why she decided to keep us on the same product – so we could build deep product expertise faster, then utilize it to contribute in more impactful ways throughout the different projects that we get placed on.

In the current cohort there are four APMMs total, and when we started out we each got placed onto a product along with a mentor. The idea is that we’ll rotate mentors and project partners every six months (roughly.)

Within the product, there are different workstreams and different types of projects that you can work on. Your project partner has a specific workstream and corresponding marketing focus with 1-2 projects that you help with and get exposure to, so you’re applying your existing product knowledge that you're gaining to a new area of PMM work.

Mentor = Go-To Person

How often are you meeting with your mentor, and could you describe that relationship?

You’re typically meeting at least once a week. Each mentor will manage the relationship a little bit differently, but for me, I've talked to my mentor daily (if not more); she's my go-to person. That includes everything work-related, but my mentor also lives in New York (which is where I'm at right now), and so she's become like an older sister to me, even giving me tips and advice during the apartment-hunting process!

She also reviews my quarterly plans and delegates my bandwidth. For example, if I tell her, “Hey, I'm interested in learning about this workstream,” she'll say, “Okay, let’s link up with this person on the team as a potential next project partner and ask about x and y projects within that workstream that you can work on.” She helps me make sure that I have the right amount of work – not too much or too little – so that it supports the team in an impactful way and supports my personal growth too.

Agency, Support, & Growth

Is there anything the landing page doesn't tell us about the APMM program?

In terms of the program as a whole, I think the most surprising thing was the amount of agency that I have over the projects that I get to work on. I originally thought I would be assigned projects to take on and that the rotations between the projects would be set for me, but my experience – and maybe this is a perk of being a part of the first cohort – has been that we have a lot of influence over the projects we get placed on.

When I first came in, I was given projects already set in motion so I could hit the ground running (which I really liked), but then coming into the second half of the year I had a conversation with my mentor and manager where they asked, “What areas do you want to grow in?” and following that, they opened up opportunities for me to be partnered with a specific project partner in the workstream that I expressed interest in, which was really cool.

Reading the Website & Building Experiences

What do you think made you stand out as an applicant and is there a recruitment strategy that nobody is doing right now, but should be?

In total transparency, I wasn’t completely sure how to prep myself when I was looking into these APMM roles.

What I do think helped me, though, was reading through the website and learning about their products ahead of time. As a PMM, you're working so closely with the teams who are building the product, so you have to have really deep knowledge of the product itself, and what you bring to the conversation is knowledge about the market the product sits in and understanding about the customers themselves. Learning about the product and market is something I did even with other marketing interviews outside of Atlassian and PMM roles. I highly recommend just reading through the company website and learning their lingo before heading into interviews.

In terms of case study prep or anything like that, I didn't do any of the mock case studies, and Atlassian, at least during my interview, didn't have any of those questions either.

In terms of standing out, I do know that when I was interviewing for the internship role my junior year, it worked out that the project for the role matched really well with a marketing internship experience that I had the previous summer. The project had to do with revamping the website and content creation experience, and they saw a very close skill set match. I think that also just comes from being proactive in my past internships and asking for projects that were outside of my skillset at the time. That allowed me to keep building my repertoire/toolbank, in a sense. I remember on my resume for internships, I listed a bunch of different projects that I worked on within marketing so that I didn't have a specific niche in, say, social media or business development yet. I just had a whole slew of various marketing experiences which set me up to draw on experiences that were specific and relevant during the interview questions.

Salary Expectations & Progression

What sort of salary should program participants expect, and what does the salary progression look like once you’ve graduated from the program?

*Sourced from LinkedIn:

Zone A: $78,300 - $120,100

Zone B: $70,400 - $108,100

Zone C: $64,900 - $99,700

In terms of raises, there is a market adjustment raise that’s very typical in the corporate world that happens at the end of the calendar year. When you graduate from the APMM program, you can become a candidate for a promotion and corresponding salary increase.

PMM, Reflecting, & My Personal Philosophy

What’s your next play after graduating from this program and how has this program impacted your 5-10 year career plan?

My hope after graduating from the program is to become a full PMM (dropping the ‘associate’ part 😅) on my team. During the past 7 months in the APMM program I feel like I've grown more compared to any other internship experience or even the past few years of work experience combined. The mentorship, the support, and jumping into a full-time role for the first time has taught me so much. No doubt it's been hard, but it's been incredibly rewarding.

I see that trajectory of growth continuing once I become a full PMM too, because I'm going to be transitioning from owning small projects and supporting larger ones, to owning the large projects and organizing entire campaigns with multiple moving parts from idea to completion.

From there, I think at around the two-three year mark, I plan to take a mental step back and ask myself, “is this the path that I want to continue pursuing?” At that point, if PMM isn’t the place where I'm feeling most fulfilled in terms of career path, I might consider pivoting into something entirely new either within the corporate world or outside in nonprofit/public sector work. I want to keep all of my doors open right now, but so far, PMM has been working out really well for me.

My personal philosophy is that we’re not meant to find our full fulfillment solely in work. Of course, I believe that there is a good and healthy level of satisfaction that comes with doing work that aligns with our values, passions, and intentions for what we want to contribute to the world – but there's freedom in knowing that your job title or profession is not your end-all-be-all. For that reason too, I encourage people to not have five- or ten- year plans when in college. I wish, if anything, that I spent more time in college discovering, going to new places, and trying out different things instead of honing in on one path too quickly. I definitely felt that pressure to figure out what I was going to do right out of college, but I think that hinders the ability to test out different passions and hobbies and see what sticks – and college is such a perfect time to do that exploring. And your worth is not dependent on your career; each person adds so much value to the world through our voices, perspectives, stories, and more ways way beyond the walls of professional life.

Half Marathon, Guitar, & Something New?

What do you enjoy doing for fun outside of work?

My current interests are in music and running. In college, I was in an a cappella group and that was so much fun! When I moved to New York, the first thing that I bought for myself was a second-hand guitar off of Facebook Marketplace. It's like 100 bucks but it’s brought me so much joy here. I've also recently picked up running again after an injury and long road to recovery, and have a group chat with some new grad coworker friends who like to run too. It’s been such a great way to get off my computer after work, and a great mental health saver!

I also gave myself the goal of picking up an entirely new passion project, having just moved to a new city and given everything New York offers, but that’s still in the works!