I got a senior AI job at Microsoft to help future-proof my career. 3 key steps made up my playbook to get here.

Sophia Sun, a 29-year-old from San Francisco, shares her inspiring journey of transitioning into a senior AI role at Microsoft after gaining hands-on experience in AI product development. Her story highlights the importance of identifying real user problems and crafting effective AI solutions. Starting her career at Microsoft in 2018, Sophia worked as both a program manager and product manager until 2023. Seeking new challenges, she left the tech giant to join Kajabi, a platform focused on creator commerce. Here, she developed an AI product designed to assist creators in expanding their reach through innovative content tools. Sophia recognized a significant gap in the market: many creators struggle with marketing and content repurposing. With this in mind, she envisioned a tool that would employ AI to transform podcast transcripts into concise blog posts and create short-form videos for social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. After carefully assessing Kajabi's priorities, she gained approval to move forward with the project. Despite her limited prior experience with AI products, Sophia leveraged her knowledge of AI technologies and consulted resources to refine her approach. She focused on creating a testing infrastructure that allowed her team to iterate rapidly, ultimately using her own podcast episodes as material to fine-tune the tool's outputs. The product, named Creator Studio, was successfully launched in March 2024. However, Sophia sought further growth and decided to apply for a position back at Microsoft, this time on a team specializing in generative AI for visual content. She believed that mastering AI applications in images and video would enhance her expertise and career resilience. Her preparation for interviews centered around articulating her comprehensive experience with AI product development, showcasing her ability to identify business challenges and explore viable solutions. Sophia’s practical experience in building an AI product at Kajabi played a crucial role in her successful re-entry into Microsoft as a senior AI product manager in July 2024. Sophia's journey underscores the significance of practical experience in the tech industry, particularly in the rapidly evolving field of AI. She encourages professionals interested in AI to actively test AI solutions in their work environments and consider proposing innovative projects to their teams.