My failure was quite unexpected. I'd studied computer science and was working as a product manager in São Paulo, Brazil. I'd always received good feedback from my colleagues and managers. One day, I decided to change my LinkedIn profile from Portuguese to English, and soon, I was contacted by a Dutch recruiter who said my profile was interesting for booking.com. I wasn't looking for a job, but I thought: "Why not?" Until then, I had only worked with other Brazilians, but I was curious about working in an international environment.
In the interview with the recruiter, everything I heard sounded nice, and when I looked at the requirements, they seemed to be a match. I was feeling confident, but in my second interview, with the hiring manager, there were lots of questions I wasn't prepared for, such as: "How do you measure the outcome of your sprint and its impact on business growth? What tracking metrics do you use?" and so on. The problem was we didn't do any of those things. I led the team, and we aligned with the stakeholders, delivered what was needed and moved on to the next task. The manager in the interview told me I was missing the point of my career, which was to deliver value, not just create output, and ensure that what we created made sense.
Failing the interview hurt, of course, but at the same time, I saw new possibilities that I hadn't considered before. I thought about how I could prepare myself for the next time. One of the things I realized was that I'd have to change my job because, until then, my performance had been measured by output. That was how success had been defined. I wanted to go beyond that. I started to network with people who were ahead of me in their careers, to find out how they had learned. I understood that I had been too technical in my approach, so I decided to do an MBA to learn more about business metrics, innovation and dynamics. I read a lot of books and worked very hard, and gradually, more doors began to open for me. I received offers to go abroad — and eventually, I came to Germany — but it all started from failure.
The role of a product leader requires communication and leadership skills to create an environment in which great ideas happen. Technical knowledge is still important, but without the soft skills, people won't follow you. My advice is to have a learning mindset all the time. As soon as we think we're good enough, we can fall into complacency, and that's a big trap in any career.