SB

Shankar Binjawadgi

About Me

I am a STEM MBA candidate at the University of Washington Foster School of Business and a product-minded builder with a software engineering foundation. My work centers on AI products, customer discovery, product strategy, and clear go-to-market thinking, with a bias toward understanding real user behavior before shaping solutions.

I like product work that starts with a messy human problem, moves through disciplined discovery, and ends in a clear strategy, prototype, or roadmap that teams can actually use.

Highlights

  • MBA candidate in Management Science (STEM) at Foster School of Business
  • VP of Foster Tech Club and AI product builder
  • Senior PM-T internship experience in AWS FinOps
  • Six years of Azure engineering experience across storage, migration, and monitoring

Skills

  • User and market research
  • Customer interviews
  • Product strategy
  • Metric-driven prioritization
  • Go-to-market strategy
  • Competitive analysis
  • Design thinking
  • Cross-functional collaboration
  • Technical roadmapping
  • Developer experience

Tools

  • LLMs and RAG
  • Claude Code
  • OpenAI Codex
  • Figma
  • Canva
  • Tableau / Power BI
  • AWS
  • Azure
  • Python
  • SQL

What I'm doing

AI Product Building

Designing practical GenAI workflows, prototypes, and product concepts from real user needs.

Customer Discovery

Turning interviews, reviews, and market signals into sharp problem framing and product direction.

GTM Strategy

Connecting positioning, segmentation, adoption barriers, and metrics into clear launch thinking.

Technical Leadership

Bringing engineering judgment to product tradeoffs, roadmap clarity, and cross-functional execution.

Experience

aws
aws
Jun 2025 - Sep 2025

Senior Product Manager Technical Intern, L6, AWS FinOps

Amazon Web Services

Seattle, WA

Worked on AWS FinOps cost optimization strategy, customer discovery, roadmap prioritization, and PRFAQ-style product definition.

Jul 2018 - Jul 2024

Software Engineer 2, L62, Azure Storage, Migrate, and Monitor

Microsoft

Bangalore, India

Built and led work across Azure Storage, Migrate, and Monitor, with experience spanning developer experience, distributed systems, UX performance, incident workflows, and cross-team delivery.

2 projects

WSLBlobNFS PowerShell Module and Package Distribution

Spearheaded 0-to-1 development and launch of a Windows CLI client using WSL2 virtualization for Azure Blob NFS, unlocking a new Windows user segment and onboarding 150+ B2B customers. Packaged and distributed the module through PowerShell Gallery to improve discoverability, installation UX, and adoption for Windows users.

Soft Skills

  • 0-to-1 development
  • Developer experience
  • GTM partnership

Hard Skills

  • PowerShell
  • WSL2
  • PowerShell Gallery

BlobNFS Troubleshooting Tool

Built troubleshooting tooling to diagnose Azure Blob NFS issues, collect useful logs, and support faster root-cause analysis for users and Azure support workflows.

Soft Skills

  • Diagnostics
  • Support tooling
  • Root-cause analysis

Hard Skills

  • Azure Blob NFS
  • Troubleshooting scripts
  • Log collection

Education

W
W
Sep 2024 - Mar 2026

Master of Business Administration (MBA), Management Science (STEM)

Foster School of Business, University of Washington

Seattle, WA

VP of Foster Tech Club and AI Product Builder, focused on product strategy, customer research, AI prototyping, go-to-market thinking, and product leadership.

11 projects

AI Hike Researcher

Architected an agentic AI hike researcher that automates real-time trail planning across six safety-critical dimensions, including weather, snow, road conditions, user history, and personalized filtering. Reduced weekly hike-planning time by 98% through staged research and recommendation workflows.

Soft Skills

  • Agentic workflow design
  • Personalization
  • Safety-critical research

Hard Skills

  • LLMs
  • RAG
  • Research workflows

Spotify MiniMix

Built a GenAI music recommendation workflow in n8n for mood and occasion-based sub-playlist curation, using dynamic song-feature selection to improve recommendation relevance by 73% versus a rule-based baseline in project testing. Documented the product concept through a PRFAQ-style narrative and workflow design.

Soft Skills

  • Recommendation logic
  • Experiment design
  • User relevance evaluation

Hard Skills

  • n8n
  • LLMs
  • Dynamic song features

StreakFit

Discovered student wellness pain points through six customer interviews and synthesized unmet needs into a behavioral-psychology-informed fitness prototype. Built the initial product experience in three hours at the OpenAI Codex Hackathon to reduce pre-gym friction and improve habit follow-through.

Soft Skills

  • Customer interviews
  • Needs synthesis
  • Behavioral psychology

Hard Skills

  • OpenAI Codex
  • Figma
  • Interview notes

Asana Sales Strategy and GTM Assessment

Conducted a comprehensive GTM and sales audit of Asana across nine sales-motion dimensions, defining its Ideal Seller Profile and aligning PLG-to-SLG motions with the skills, traits, and enablement needed for stronger enterprise selling. Awarded 1st place for the most comprehensive GTM assessment.

Soft Skills

  • Competitive analysis
  • PLG vs. SLG strategy
  • Positioning

Hard Skills

  • Market research
  • GTM scorecard
  • Strategy deck

HeyLily GenAI Scam-Call Assistant

Led an 11-member cross-functional team across design, engineering, and business to build HeyLily, a GenAI scam-call assistant for seniors and Hiya competitor. Ran 15+ user interviews, guided development of an Android call app, and shaped a 5-year B2B2C go-to-market model.

Soft Skills

  • Cross-functional leadership
  • User research
  • B2B2C strategy

Hard Skills

  • Android prototype
  • Interview synthesis
  • GTM model

Product Teardown Series

Launched and facilitated a Foster Tech Club product teardown series that helped students deconstruct world-class products, discuss product strategy, and build sharper product critique skills. Produced three events with 110+ attendees.

Soft Skills

  • Community building
  • Product critique
  • Facilitation

Hard Skills

  • Event programming
  • Product teardown templates
  • Discussion guides

Roblox Foster Case

Proposed Roblox, a user-generated-content platform, as the acquirer for Shutterstock in the Foster Case Competition. Presented a $1.5B valuation and synergy analysis showing how Shutterstock assets could expand Roblox creator tools, content quality, and market share.

Soft Skills

  • M&A strategy
  • Valuation
  • Synergy analysis

Hard Skills

  • Market research
  • Financial analysis
  • Case deck

Microsoft 365 Copilot GTM Strategy

Developed a go-to-market strategy for Microsoft 365 Copilot to capture 1% of the U.S. university student market, modeling $2.9M in value over four years. Positioned Copilot as a Gen Z-facing AI productivity product through campus adoption, value messaging, and education-focused GTM tactics.

Soft Skills

  • Go-to-market strategy
  • Market sizing
  • Positioning

Hard Skills

  • Strategy deck
  • Market analysis
  • Value model

Quantum Tech Partners Gaming GTM

Produced four milestone reports on South Korea's gaming sector, covering market sizing, developer and publisher mapping, growth themes, and investment analysis. Turned the research into a prioritized outreach list of six targets to guide 2025 go-to-market planning.

Soft Skills

  • Market sizing
  • Investment analysis
  • Target prioritization

Hard Skills

  • Market research
  • Developer map
  • Publisher map

SBS Consulting Strategy

Developed a structured consulting analysis for SBS, turning client context, market research, and strategic signals into prioritized recommendations, supporting rationale, and an executive-ready presentation.

Soft Skills

  • Client research
  • Strategic analysis
  • Recommendation design

Hard Skills

  • Research synthesis
  • Strategy deck
  • Market analysis

Tech Club Event Marketing

Created event marketing assets, posters, and audience-facing messaging for Foster Tech Club programming, translating event goals into clear promotional content and registration flows.

Soft Skills

  • Event marketing
  • Audience messaging
  • Visual communication

Hard Skills

  • Luma
  • Poster design
  • Marketing copy
NL
NL
Feb 2023

Product Management Fellowship

NextLeap

Bangalore, India

Product management fellowship focused on structured product thinking, customer pain-point analysis, and capstone problem solving.

4 projects
B

Bumble Barney GenAI Wingman

Analyzed 100 one-star Bumble App Store reviews, root-caused the recurring 'no matches' problem, and proposed Bumble Barney, a GenAI wingman concept intended to decrease no-match outcomes by 10%. Won 2nd place in the February NextLeap Capstone project.

Soft Skills

  • App review analysis
  • Root-cause analysis
  • Product ideation

Hard Skills

  • App Store reviews
  • User pain-point synthesis
  • Concept brief
N

Netflix Circle Wireframes

Designed wireframes for a Netflix social discovery concept, exploring how friend circles, onboarding, and recommendation flows could make content discovery more social and habit-forming.

Soft Skills

  • Wireframing
  • Social discovery
  • Onboarding design

Hard Skills

  • Whimsical
  • Journey mapping
  • UX flows
N

Netflix New User Onboarding Journey Map

Created a user persona and mapped Netflix's new-user onboarding journey to identify friction points, emotional states, and opportunities to improve activation, personalization, and first-session value. Published the journey map on Figma, where it received 650+ uses and 17+ likes.

Soft Skills

  • User persona
  • Journey mapping
  • Activation analysis

Hard Skills

  • Figma
  • Persona mapping
  • Onboarding audit
F

Figma Product Design Work

Collected product design explorations in Figma, including journey maps, wireframes, and interface concepts that show product thinking across discovery, interaction design, and user experience.

Soft Skills

  • Interaction design
  • Journey mapping
  • Wireframing

Hard Skills

  • Figma
  • UX artifacts
  • Interface concepts
PES
PES
Aug 2014 - Jun 2018

Bachelor of Engineering, Computer Science

PES University

Bangalore, India

Graduated with a 9.5 CGPA, ranked in the top 5% of the class.

1 project

Sketch-to-Image GenAI Tool

Built a GenAI tool that transforms hand-drawn sketches into realistic images using Convolutional Neural Networks and Generative Adversarial Networks. Won 2nd place in the final-year project competition for applying computer vision and generative modeling to creative image generation.

Soft Skills

  • Computer vision
  • Generative AI
  • Image generation

Hard Skills

  • CNN
  • GAN
  • Python

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