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Young Innovators @ Google - Laura Holmes
January 20, 2012
Introduction: Today's post is a continuation with our
Young Innovators @ Google series
where we're highlighting the great work of Googlers who, not too long ago, were students like you. In their short careers, these engineers and product managers have had an impact on Google and our products. For today’s post, we sat down with Laura Holmes, a product manager at Google.
Tell us about your path to Google.
Laura Holmes:
I went to Stanford where I considered being an English and psychology major. I discovered computer science pretty late in the game because one of my dormmates suggested I take the intro class. I found that there are actually quite a bit of similarities between English and coding—phrases, for example, whether they be in literature or code, represent very complex thoughts. I ended up working at Google in New York City as a
software engineering intern
on mobile search quality. I was told that I would make a great product manager (PM) since I spoke well and knew technology so I actually spent a couple of weeks during my internship as a PM, specifically on mobile docs. During this time I was the PM for the launch of the doclist and mobile spreadsheets UI. After graduating, I worked on user experience at Cooliris before joining Google’s
Associate Product Manager
program, which is a two year rotational program for those interested in product development. I was recently promoted to Product Manager on Google Analytics conversion tracking products, helping marketers understand their return on investment across different marketing channels.
Tell us about your APM experience. What rotations did you have?
LH:
The APM program is an amazing two-year rotational program that helps grow new grads with Computer Science backgrounds into Product Managers. They do this by giving you way too much responsibility way too soon, and everyone just expects you to rise to the occasion. APMs have the same responsibilities as any Product Manager, where you have to work with engineers and designers to define the direction and strategy of your product. Some could liken it to a sink or swim mentality, but it’s mostly swim because Google’s there helping you every step of the way with all sorts of mentorship and skill development.
After you spend one year on a product, APMs rotate onto a different product, usually in an entirely different product area. The rotation experience is important to the APM program because it gives you a great breadth of experience across different teams. It was a great way for me to discover the other things I wanted to learn to balance out my skill set.
When I first joined Google, I thought they were going to put me in mobile because I had a lot of experience there. However, my first rotation was actually on Search and my second rotation was on the conversion tracking team for
Google Analytics
. I really benefited from the placement process, because I never would have picked Search for myself. I always thought Search was this big behemoth that no one fresh out of college could possibly help with, but within a couple months I was making decisions that affected a large percentage of queries. I bounced around between a couple different Search projects, then
Google Instant
started taking off, and I ended up working on that full-time. I first worked on localization of Instant and the slow connection experience, child safety experience, and machine planning and roll-out scheduling. At the end of the day, I was in charge of where Google Instant was going to be and when. It was up to me to decide when Google Instant was launching in Europe and Southeast Asia.
In what ways have you been able to make an impact?
LH:
Google Instant was a highly strategic product that gave us an edge in a lot of search markets. However, we had to carefully figure out which markets we launched in to make sure the product met our quality bar, and that was my job. Because I was the decision maker for when and where we launched, I had a big impact on Google Search's positioning in international markets.
How has Google helped encouraged you to be innovative?
LH:
Google encourages innovation first and foremost through its people. We spend a lot of time in rooms just brainstorming, and by having a bunch of smart and adventurous people together, we get a lot of great ideas.
Another way in which Google encourages innovation is through lowering the barrier to trying out new ideas through prototyping. There are a couple of in-house tools that make it possible for people to make quick changes and try them out on real users, fast.
Search has an infrastructure that allows engineers to prototype rapidly. If you want to try something new, rather than having to do everything from scratch, you can prototype the change within a couple of minutes. This allows innovation to happen at a large, quick scale.
How long after joining Google did you first see the impact of your work?
LH:
The first launch was the
Google anagram Easter egg
, which was about 3-4 months after I joined. On April Fools’ Day, I worked with the spelling team to localize a special result for the search query [anagram], which asks the user, “Did you mean ‘nag a ram’?” We put it in 35 languages and it was pretty cool to set up Google alerts and see as people slowly discovered the Easter egg and their surprise and delight in Google.
The Instant project moved very quickly. The whole project took about five months to grow it from a demo on one engineer's computer to an internationally launched product. I joined the project about two months in, and saw it launch a meer three months later in five countries that were my responsibility.
What does Google offer that is different from other companies?
LH:
The APM program gives you a lot of the same experiences you could get at a start-up, but you have the tools to help you develop professionally. You’re given mentors who help you navigate difficult situations. You're also given a management coach that can work 1:1 with you to develop public speaking skills and interpersonal skills to navigate tricky situations.
Google's also great because of the quantity of great leaders you get access to, even when you’re an entry level employee. You get to see leadership from a variety of different approaches, and learn which styles you want to emulate.
Lastly, Google also offers you the opportunity to operate at scale. Everything you do has to be scaleable, because it's going to be seen by millions of people. I keep telling myself that if I can succeed here, I can work on pretty much anything.
Any great Google stories?
LH:
I gave a presentation to the Board of Directors where I demoed
Google Instant
. It was such a unique and exciting experience. I had been at Google for only five months, and I was standing in front of the Board of Directors showing them the future of Search. They asked pointed questions about it and then John Doerr asked, “so when is it launching?”
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