Day in the Life: Product Manager (Non-Tech) at Amazon
About Dani: Born and raised in New York, Danielle moved to LA to attend UCLA Anderson School of Management. Before starting in the Full-Time MBA Program, Danielle went to Skidmore College where she studied English & Business, enabling her to bring together her love of communication and analysis to develop a unique perspective on pressing business issues, especially in Tech, which she is passionate about. This fueled her work as an Account Manager for 5+ years supporting customers with their adoption of B2B SaaS & AI platforms across industries. She was a Product Manager at Amazon this summer and intends to continue her career as a strategic marketer in the tech industry after business school. In addition to serving as a the EVP for AAC, she is the EVP of Alumni & External Partnerships in the Tech Business Association (AnderTech), a group lead for the Entrepreneurship Leadership Development Program, and the VP of Social & Communications for the Jewish identity club (JBSA).
Amazon’s Operations organization is based out of Bellevue, WA (about 30-40 mins from the main Seattle campus). There are tons of teams under the Ops umbrella, including Worldwide Returns & Recommerce. Within WWRR, there are a variety of teams that support value recovery, which means getting the most value from products later in their lifecycle, usually after a customer return. The team I worked on this summer, Amazon Resale, is a team within WWRR that recovers value through reselling returned or otherwise acquired products (e.g., were not successfully delivered to a customer and got damaged along the way). If you’ve ever seen or purchased products on Amazon that are “Used – Like New” or similar titles, that’s Amazon Resale; the goal is to be the primary destination for non-new, high-quality products within the familiar Amazon shopping experience. This was an interesting part of the business to work on because the goal is to recover value, instead of net new revenue generation (which is what I was used to from Go-To-Market/GTM roles). Additionally, the scope/span of what a Product Manager on this team is responsible for varied considerably: you can be responsible for customer-facing (CX) or more backend/operational products and functions.
My project was complex and operational in nature, falling into the second bucket, outlined above. It’s important to note that at Amazon, you can be a Product Manager (Non-Tech) of a software product, hardware product (e.g., Devices), or systems/processes, which is where my project aligned. My work centered around inventory strategy. I was responsible for redefining inventory monitoring metrics to ensure the business team had key insights into how to optimally price, place, and deliver products. I was responsible for creating technical integration documentation to support this, and designing a pilot for the team to run after my internship ended. Each component of my project enabled me to stretch and flex in ways I didn’t know were possible. I was able to directly apply what I had learned in 1st year classes (Strategy, Ops, Data & Decisions, etc.), increase my comfort with AI tools, Excel modeling, and SQL, and improve my ability to tailor and clarify communication for higher-level, executive audiences. I was challenged to bring form and structure to an incredibly ambiguous problem, navigating largely on my own. I had 40+ conversations with different stakeholders and team members across my team, partnering teams, and other related functions, to recommend a comprehensive solution.
I was encouraged to take ownership, move quickly, and bring concrete ideas to the table. I was given the opportunity to become an SME in a topic I knew very little about. I was also in the position to educate not only myself, but team leadership, on this topic. They valued my ideas on what gaps and opportunities existed and what was the best way for us to succeed.
Student Blogger: Danielle Ostrove ‘26
Undergrad: Bachelor’s in English Language and Literature at Skidmore College, ‘17
Pre-MBA: Senior Enterprise Customer Success Manager at Darktrace
Leadership@Anderson: EVP, Admissions Ambassador Corps; EVP of Alumni and External Partnerships, AnderTech; VP of Social for Jewish Business Students Association; group lead for Entrepreneurship Leadership Development Program
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