Cindy Au

Over the years several students and young, ambitious people have asked me how to break into tech. Everyone has a different path so I'm curious to learn how others landed their first job in this field. Excluding many tech-related side projects in my youth (selling electronics on eBay, modding Xbox's, building websites, etc.), my first real career in tech was an unpaid social media intern at a gaming startup called InstantAction during my senior year at the University of Oregon. I discovered the opportunity through a marketing club I was a part of and was fortunate to land the role. I was such a noob but learned so much. That led to a full-time job after I graduated where I eventually was promoted into product management. The key learning for me was the importance of getting real-world experience asap (ideally before or during college) and building good relationships (by doing great work) with your teammates. At InstantAction I met Andy Yang who eventually recruited me to join another startup in San Francisco. My life changed after that.

Next week most of the Product Hunt team is flying into San Francisco from around the world to plan our roadmap for the second half of 2019. We'd love to hear your ideas. What should we build? These could be completely new products or improvements to existing features. Feel free to get creative. There are no bad ideas.