Main at Roblox is a sequence that explores the profession journeys of Roblox’s leaders and discusses their roles, philosophies, and administration kinds. On this profile, we get to know Garima Sinha, Senior Director of Product, who heads up our Social Group inside the Consumer Group.
Garima with colleague Effie Goenawan discussing a latest mission
Let’s speak about your profession path to Product management. How did all of it begin?
GS: I’ve at all times been keen on technical innovation. I studied Pc Science Engineering in Delhi as a way to start a profession within the expertise trade. 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 a couple of years of common engineering expertise. However I jumped in and realized rapidly. To be able to thrive, I needed to have a “doer” mindset and never shrink back from difficult issues. Many of those traits guided how I lead immediately.
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 in need of superb. I’m doing among the most progressive work of my life.
What does your present function entail?
I’m a Senior Director of Product Administration inside Roblox’s Consumer Group, main Social. Our imaginative and prescient is to allow one billion individuals to attach, play, be taught, talk, and work collectively in high-quality 3D immersive co-experiences. On the Consumer 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 performed earlier than, and our workforce is so excited to reimagine the way in which individuals talk.
Garima talking at Roblox Builders Convention 2022 with colleague Tom Sanocki
What’s one factor you’ve realized as a frontrunner at Roblox?
Everybody in a company is exclusive, and what energizes somebody and will get them impressed varies throughout people.
Via my time as a frontrunner, I’ve realized that managing every of my experiences in the identical method simply doesn’t work. I would like to have the ability to adapt my type to my individuals – 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 well-liked administration type, so I’m usually checking myself and guaranteeing that I’m aligning to the person’s wants, not simply my very own. My aim is to assist everybody do their greatest work whereas holding a excessive bar, and empowering them to achieve it.
On the finish of the day, my job is to assist my workforce 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 kinds and strengths.
How do you assist to steer and construct a tradition of innovation at Roblox?
I consider in autonomy, possession, and making a tradition the place risk-taking is inspired. I believe it’s essential to educate my workforce, however I additionally need them to have the area and creativity to take the steps that they consider are proper for a mission, with out worry 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 greatest work, and if individuals are not afraid to fail, they don’t seem to be afraid to push the boundaries. If you happen to can create that surroundings in your individuals, you’ll encourage innovation as a frontrunner. I attempt to present steerage, inspiration, and help, whereas encouraging of us to lean on their very own instincts and experiences. Day by day at Roblox, my groups are fixing issues that none of us – myself included – have the reply to. By inspiring our individuals to push boundaries and discover inventive 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 palms soiled with the workforce! I’m by no means shy about diving into the small print – spending time brainstorming, whiteboarding, and problem-solving. We’re working to reply among the world’s hardest product questions, so collaboration and knowledge-sharing are key. There’s no job that’s too massive 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 performed earlier than – it’s crucial that folks of all ranges dive proper in. We’re altering how the web works for the following 10 years, and we gained’t be capable to try this if we don’t all deeply perceive the whole lot in our product and in our stack.
If you happen to had to decide on a price that almost all resonates with you as a frontrunner, which one would it not be?
After I take into consideration our progress towards our imaginative and prescient, I believe we’ve two values that work collectively synergistically – Get Stuff Accomplished and Take the Lengthy View. We take motion and incessantly iterate to attain a really excessive quantity of labor at scale. Our tradition is action-oriented, and we’re continuously looking for options that allow us to construct with velocity.
On the similar time, we’re a really long-term firm and taking the lengthy view is essential 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 meaning a delay to make sure we get it proper. We at all times prioritize constructing with security and civility, which suggests creating the most secure product options as a substitute of simply making an attempt to ship issues and examine a field. We’re actively constructing for the longer term – regardless 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 workforce? What about Roblox as a complete?
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 consider that we’re on the crux of one thing enormous. We’re altering the way in which individuals 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 workforce are hiring! Go to our careers website to discover open roles.
