Edition 26
Name: Nitzan Soffer
Position: Senior International Product Manager
Affiliation: Roche
Location: Carlsbad, CA
Pronouns: She/Her
Please briefly describe your current role in your position.
Product manager of infectious diseases diagnostic assay.
What is your terminal and/or current position in academia?
Postdoc
How did you hear about your current position? Was it a career option that you were aware about during your educational process?
LinkedIn and signed up for job alerts with companies I was interested in joining, and then cold applied. I don’t recommend cold applying, it just happened to work out. I did not have a clue that product management was a thing until I worked my first industry position.
How did you end up working at your current affiliation?
My background in microbiology and product management experience in my previous job helped me get in the door.
How long have you been working at your current affiliation?
< 1 year
What type of position is your current job?
In-person
Is your role more a managerial or individual contributor role?
Individual Contributor
What are the defined roles of your position?
Commercialize a new product, educate and enable sales to be successful, create marketing material and understand the customer needs (scientific and user experience).
What are your day-to-day tasks that you perform in your position?
I work with more teams than I can recall at the moment, from RD, regulatory, clinical, medical affairs, manufacturing, sales, and regional marketing teams to bring a new product into market. In this current job, I came into the project when the product was being prepared for market, so my focus is more on making sure that there is sufficient data and material to launch a new product (including clinical trials, FDA submission and the marketing message/forecasting). In general, the job is half science and half business. Product marketing includes talking to a lot of potential customers, learning where gaps in the market are and working with many teams to bring a solution.
What do you like best about your job?
Seeing a product that was once just an idea come to life and actually being used to help improve people’s health/ lives.
What do you dislike about your job?
Documentation.
If your job is outside of academia, what is similar and what is different about your current job and your terminal position in academia?
The creative process of coming up with something new and innovative is similar to academia, also there is lots of reading scientific publications and critically thinking about data (although others generate and analyze it). The rest is all very different, its very team orientated, with multiple functions coming together for one goal. Also, in product management/industry the goal is to create something tangible that people will use, while in academia, the applications are very theoretical. Also, in industry everything is fast-paced and deadlines matter (which I personally love).
How did your microbial ecology (or academic) education prepare you for your current position?
I work in infectious disease diagnosis, so microbial ecology comes into use all the time. Having basic microbiology knowledge is useful, but I think that understanding how microbes interact, antimicrobial resistance evolution, understanding metagenomics/microbiome, etc., gives me an edge in this space.
What skills do you wish you learned during your educational process that would better prepare you for your current role (e.g. machine learning, management skills, etc.)?
If you have any interest in industry, having some business skills/education is very helpful. I have taken short classes in business (a “mini MBA”) and spent considerable time learning the fundamentals “on the job”. Since AI was not really a thing when I was in grad school learning how to properly use AI tools, while still maintaining your ability to critically think, is helpful. Work on your soft skills, being professional and personable goes a long way.
Do you have any recommendations and/or tips for early career microbial ecologists looking for jobs similar to yours?
Networking! If you have any interest in product management (or marketing), join some local meetups/groups in this area. Also, having some business classes under your belt will also help. Some companies only hire PMs with MBA degrees while some hire scientists/technical experts and then train them. Also, don’t confuse Product management with Project management!