👀 Visa APM: Application to Offer – iykyk

Berkeley, Unique Experiences, & Coffee!

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

Hi! My name is Sumayia, and I’m an APM on Visa’s Risk and Identity team. I grew up in San Jose, CA, and went to UC Berkeley, where I studied Civil Engineering + Computer Science.

In my time in Berkeley, I was involved in the American Society of Civil Engineers, Association of Muslim Professional Development, as well as a sustainable consulting club, BEACN.

Many people question my academic background, but I think that’s the amazing thing about being a product manager – your unique experiences, and perspectives, is what you need to excel. In fact, I know people who don’t even have a technical background, that are wonderful PMs here at Visa.

For fun, I am a professional henna artist, and am absolutely obsessed with coffee. Let me know if you ever want to go on a coffee run ;)

Your Cohort is Your Community

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

I did not realize how community focused the APM program was. Our cohort has two leads who not only plan socials, but take our feedback and talk to the APM leads about it. At the end of the day, everyone wants you to exceed as a PM. Your feedback is so important on how the program is run. Originally our rotations were selected in a randomized manner, but because we all spoke up, we now get to choose our selections.

Your cohort becomes your best friend. Everyone gets the same salary and perks, so there isn’t any feeling of competition. Also, if you need any help with something, in less than a few minutes someone will offer some resource.

Being in your first, out of grad job is scary. You can feel alone, and deal with things like Imposter Syndrome. However, the best perk of being an APM is the compassion and warmth you get from the people around you!

Honestly, we all don’t know what we’re doing – but we’re doing it together <3

Program Structure & Program Mentors

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

The Visa APM program is a 24 month program, with four 6-month rotations on the highest need, as well as most innovative and exciting initiatives. You will be working in collaboration with the marketing, sales, product, and engineering teams.

At the end of each of your rotations, your manager goes through a feedback cycle with you. After that, you get to look at the various rotation proposals and choose which ones are high priority to you. This allows you to track which department and key skill sets you want to work on to thrive as a PM.

APM Career Mentor: As an APM you are given an APM Career Mentor, a higher product level PM who is essentially your career coach guiding you throughout the program. You stick with the same APM Career Mentor over the two year rotation. You can go to them for any advice and for any skill building resources.

APM Mentor: For every rotation/6 months you are also given an APM mentor, who is usually the youngest person on the team. They help you onboard and are a point of contact whenever you need some guidance or have project related questions. Personally, this is one of my favorite things about this program, because sometimes it can be challenging getting used to your manager and their working style. Your APM mentor is supposed to make the experience easier for you.

Also, every week there are trainings set up by the APM leadership team. This is to introduce you to the payments industry, as well as the various business units Visa has to offer. They host conferences, speaker series, and socials.

Confidence & Gaining Experience

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?

OWN YOUR EXPERIENCE. OWN YOUR WORK.

That’s it. As a product manager, you are in charge of some crucial decisions, and many people will challenge you and won’t agree with you. But the best PMs have this confidence about them that allows them to take initiative and drive change.

Being a civil engineer, everyone that interviewed me would ask me “why?” “Why did you waste your degree on studying something irrelevant?” Don’t let anyone try to undermine your experience, and your accomplishments.

Instead tell them: my background in X, taught me Y skills, which are important in being Y as a product manager. I can assure you, even the most randomest, “unrelated” experiences you have, can be tied back to being a PM.

If possible, get exposure to being a product manager early in your career. By doing internships, joining clubs on campus, and networking with PMs, it will give you the exposure needed to understand what being a PM entails. Also books like Cracking the PM Interview helped me a lot when I was preparing. Familiarize yourself with it as soon as you can!

Plus having a funny catch phrase is a plus. I would tell my interviewers: “Civil Engineering isn’t that different from being a PM. In one, I learnt how to build a physical bridge, in another I learnt how to build a social one.”

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?

The Visa APM program is comparable with other leading APM programs. Every year, there is a salary increase, and after your 24 month rotations, you get a new compensation offer from the team you are permanently placed on. This is when you become a Senior PM. After a year of that, you can become a Staff PM.

Future Plans, Grad School, & Sustainability 

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

Visa is one of the top payments industries in the world. The data and knowledge that we have access to is absolutely incredible. Currently, I am working on the Risk and Identity team and it’s insane how complex it is for your credit card to authenticate your data, and the various use cases Visa offers to protect your money. In the future, I hope to pivot to sustainable products and work on a more innovation related team, where we can take more sustainable initiatives in the payment industry.

I eventually want to get a masters in a SME, and become an experienced product manager working at a sustainable startup that is working on enhancing smart cities, and urban mobility.