From Property Manager to Product Manager

I want to start off with the caveat that my background is not in technology, but in multifamily management and branding. I was responsible for the management of offices spread out over large and diverse markets such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and the New York metro area.  My knowledge of property management software was limited to what I learned while working within the product at an AvalonBay (AVB) community.  When I left the world of property management to pursue a graduate degree, my focus and background quickly became brand management as I interned for innovative companies such as Procter & Gamble and Harley-Davidson.  Once I completed my degree and began working for an enterprise software company, I felt as anachronistic as an IBM 704 mainframe trying to run in a “cloud based” world.

As I began to get more acclimated to my responsibilities as a Product Manager, I started to recognize similarities from my previous experiences that were applicable to the technological space I now inhabited. Throughout this transition I have begun to understand ways in which I could leverage that knowledge.  The first thing that jumped out at me was my experience working with the product I was now responsible for continually improving. I have experienced firsthand the shift from residents stopping by the management office to fill out a work order for a broken dishwasher. In today’s technology driven society, these same individuals are creating that work order from their couch, in the elevator, or walking out the door to work in the morning. Gone are the days of being forced to acquiesce to the hours of the leasing office and they have been replaced with instant gratification through the use of technology.

Additionally, my current role has taken me away from the annual process of identifying which capital expenditure (CaPEx) projects to move forward with for the communities I managed. Now I am strategizing with my peers to prioritize projects for our developers to work on. Similar to how the CaPEx projects at AVB would benefit our residents, each of these development projects will greatly benefit our customers. It just so happens that my customers went from being the residents of the properties I was responsible for, to the individuals that are fulfilling resident’s requests.  Knowing how difficult, or time consuming, certain tasks are while managing a portfolio of properties, I feel well positioned to help continue strengthening the MRI brand of products and provide even more efficiencies to our clients.

I am excited for this new challenge in my life. While I was initially a bit overwhelmed about transitioning from a B2C environment into a B2B company, I quickly realized that my talents and knowledge were still very much applicable to continue developing industry leading software. Each day there are at least a handful of moments where I find myself thinking how a product enhancement I am contemplating would have affected my job at AVB.