I’ve recently hit the 5-year mark at Microsoft as a Technical Program Manager/Product Owner. As I reflect on how my professional experience changed me, I realized how helpful it would have been for my career if I knew a few years ago what I now know. I’m penning down my learnings with the hope that it may help someone else out there to learn from my experiences. If the below post seems too long, please scroll down to tl:dr summary of the learnings 😊 Learning 1: It’s your responsibility to convey your career aspirations. Think of a scenario where you have worked hard all year long. You landed a very important feature. You’ve received a lot of appreciation from the leadership. You can feel your impact in the air, and naturally you expect a promotion out of it. Come your time for annual review, you were not given a promotion. You are very upset about this result and your manager was surprised at why you were upset as you never once expressed that you were aiming for