Alumni Spotlight: Brother Dina Zheng
Written By: Patrick Morrison
(This blog post is the first in a series of posts highlighting and celebrating our Gamma Xi Alumni.)
Once our amazing seniors graduate from our Brotherhood, it’s sometimes harder to stay in touch than we would like. It’s also more difficult to hear about all the things that our alumni are learning about in their careers post-SCU. This blog post hopes to establish a series in which we can hear about our alumni’s post-grad experiences and any lessons they might have learned.
Brother Dina Zheng was kind enough to make time for me this quarter to have a short conversation – despite her being very busy with her position at DocuSign as a Platform Product Manager. Dina was very honest about her experience, and I feel like I learned a lot from our conversation - about the professional world and how it is adjusting to life after Santa Clara.
The Position:
Dina works in San Francisco at DocuSign as a Platform Product Manager (PPM). For the most part, a PPM is the bridge between tech and business. The role entails designing and creating products for DocuSign and, simultaneously, adopting a customer-oriented mindset – ensuring that the product design process incorporates the customer's voice. The role also revolves around designing strategies for implementing the product. Working as a PPM also entails maintaining and improving the DocuSign platforms coming up with ideas for improvement and for how the platform can remain competitive. As a PPM, you also must think about platform security and how to integrate products and platforms into the existing platforms, especially new products with the existing infrastructure.
Impressions of the Role:
Dina said that she entered the position with a particular perception. However, the position has been different than her initial perceptions in a very positive way. The job involves learning every day and because of the fast-paced environment, every day is a different experience. There’s a lot of self-direction and autonomy involved in the role, which is something Dina likes. You’re able to set your own timelines and deliverables. The role is also all about high impact and high visibility – which is exciting.
The Lessons Learned:
Dina’s main takeaway from the position and her time at DocuSign is to “trust your judgment.” There can be a bit of imposter syndrome surrounding your first job position – Dina says it’s important to trust your instinct and trust that you’re there for a reason. Additionally, it’s helpful to lean on your network. Dina says working in a high-pressure role is positive and she thinks it’s beneficial for everyone to work at a place that pushes them forward. A fast-paced environment with competition drives you to be more ambitious. Regarding the specifics of platform design, Dina said it is engineer-oriented and that the opinion and roles of the engineers throughout the product platform design process are significant. This is something that she’s learned as part of the role and something that must be considered when working on platforms and products.
Key Advice:
Dina’s advice, overall, is to trust and challenge yourself. Dina stated that she wanted to be a PPM since high school, but that she started to reconsider in college. After a lot of thought, however, Dina arrived at the conclusion “Why don’t I just challenge myself?” Her advice to everyone is essentially the same – just try something, even if you’re not sure how it might turn out. She also said she doubled down on networking after college – which was very helpful in learning on the job and finding what she really wanted to do. Another piece of wisdom that Dina had to share was “why not turn doubtful energy into an opportunity.”
Feel free to leave a comment or question at the bottom of the page if you enjoyed the post and if you have any questions I can try and answer them, or I can reach out to Dina. Stay posted for more “Alumni Spotlights” in the future!