How I got a job as an Amazon product manager with no technical experience

• Ridge Carpenter is a physical trainer and product manager for Halo, Amazon’s fitness tracker.
• When she applied for the position, the only detail she knew was that the job was fitness-related.
• Now he has to incorporate physical training into his new role and work on cool features every day.

This narrative essay is based on a conversation with Ridge Carpenter, 36 Amazon Halo product manager from Seattle, Washington on how he turned his passion for fitness into a career. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Fitness has been an important outlet for me to deal with insecurities throughout my career.

In 2008, I received a BA in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York. I was nervous about what was next, so I freelanced in illustration for a while and worked as an entry-level print and runway model. At the same time, I became a certified personal trainer in New York.

Working out was one of the productive things I enjoyed. I had an interest in teaching methodology that came from a similar space that drew me to medical and anatomical illustration. By 2015, I had returned to Seattle, where I grew up, and had fully transitioned into teaching.

I worked at a sports medicine and athletic performance facility where I taught group and individual fitness classes. I also worked with patients on the clinical side as a strength and movement coach – an adjunct to the rehabilitation process. In 2017 I added more general population training and worked with individuals and groups in a larger commercial gym. I wanted to know the “right way” to exercise (Spoiler: There are many right ways).

Eventually, a colleague and mentor steered me toward a job as a fitness consultant at Amazon—which led to my job today as a product manager at Amazon Halo.

My colleague couldn’t tell me much about the role, but I knew he was into my passion for fitness

I went through three interviews with my hiring manager and had to complete a sample task where I was asked to explain how I would solve a problem and label sample data before being offered the role. I think the beginner’s mind that loves to learn and is ready to say yes to something new helped me get the job.

It wasn’t until my first day on the job that I found out that I’d actually be working on Halo, Amazon’s fitness tracker that hadn’t even launched yet. (Halo was confidential at the time.) In 2018 I had a two month contract to work 30 hours a week. This contract was extended to 11 months, but on the 10th month I was offered the opportunity to interview for a permanent role.

My title in the Halo organization was ‘fitness expert’, although I was more broadly referred to as ‘industry specialist’. Anyone with a question about fitness will come to us, the fitness experts, from UX designers wondering about wording or displaying information to product managers who have questions about how a trainer would approach a problem. We were resources of knowledge, in short, even before we appeared in front of the camera.

I didn’t have any promises of a full-time role when I started. I actually started with the presumption that I would work as a contractor for a year or two at most. The opportunity to interview for a full-time job was a surprise, although it came as a result of me wanting to fully lean into my role and really create the work I wanted. My full-time term began in April 2019.

Every day I work on something different

In the very beginning, I spent most of my time studying data for machine learning algorithms. My days were often spent labeling data to calculate body fat percentage and teaching others how to do the same.

This was something completely new to me. I learned so many new skills and I’m still learning. Product management taught me to think differently and ask the right questions.

Now, as a product manager, I make sure the product team knows what to build based on our overall mission and strategy. I make sure we have a solid understanding of why we’re building it (and for whom) before we collaborate with engineers, designers, and other teams. After launch, we review the performance of the product and make further decisions to ensure we are still offering the best product for our customers.

I used to be involved in processes that were a little further from the development side that customers didn’t interact with directly. The more I moved into new responsibilities, the closer I got to the customer experience.

One day I’ll be working with a data scientist on the logic of translating someone’s overhead squat video into a series of results, and how to ensure those results are consistent and actionable in our application. The next day I might be reviewing text in the app for this evaluation from above with a UX designer to make sure it meets the bar of accuracy for how things actually work while making sense for all reading levels.

I’m also heavily involved in improving newer features — like the Halo Movement Assessment, a personalized exercise program that helps improve mobility, stability and posture over time. I really enjoy being able to plan such a system in collaboration with researchers, applied scientists, and data analysts who can help strengthen and refine the fitness architecture.

I can also spend one to 2 days a month out of the office shooting fitness content

Amazon

During my days away from the office, I usually film a few classes and a dozen or more pieces of short video content that is available to members of the Halo app.

I still love teaching so it’s great to be able to wear both hats. I currently have no personal training clients (I stopped seeing my last few clients in the early days of the pandemic), although I thought I’d bring a few back – it’s fun to work directly with people and celebrate the wins as they come.

I occasionally put on my coaching hat while working on a product challenge, testing users in simulated training, or giving other collaborators insight into the process. I occasionally get the chance to work as both a trainer and a product lead, conducting live training and speaking sessions for the Halo team and external customers.

You should like it something for your work if you want it to be sustainable in the long term

If it’s all about getting through the day to get to the fun part of life, your job won’t satisfy you for long. I love that my work incorporates concepts and practices that excite me in a vibrant community of people who are excited about the same things.

The more you get from both work and life, the easier it should be to commit to balance. Do the work during the work day so you can really switch off outside of it.

Brandon Peters, a sleep expert who consults with Halo, recommends keeping waking activities away from your bed to ensure we can sleep easily—in other words, carry your wakefulness “bucket” away from your bed and ” bucket’ for sleep to by making sure your habits match the setting. Cool down completely after a workout, relax before bed, or spend time in your waking hours organizing your next day.

It’s the same with work. I try to organize the next day before I leave at the end of my work hours — it allows me to completely switch off and removes free things that I would otherwise be tempted to start focusing on. This reinforces the rhythm of waking in and out, where many of us blur the lines by working before bed or jumping right into the day before we’ve even woken up.

one a piece of The career advice I come back to often is from a great coach. He said, ‘Show it’s done makes a difference.‘

In my work as a trainer, I have always taken this advice as a guideline to do my best to help my clients succeed, learn and improve. In the case of Halo, this advice reminded me that I wasn’t there to take up space or just add my approval to every idea — I had a responsibility to contribute what I knew to make a product I could be proud of.

It used to be easier for me to escape attention and minimize my impression to avoid doing bad. But committing to showing up means determining how you want to impact the world around you.

At work, this means committing to decisions, perhaps taking risks, but ultimately contributing something real. Outside of work, it means being a real presence to your loved ones, whoever they are, and bringing something of yourself into their lives that will enrich them.