Shankar Binjawadgi

Shankar Binjawadgi

AI-First Technical Product Manager

Ex-AWS PMT-ES Intern · Ex-Microsoft Azure Engineer · UW Foster STEM MBA ’26

Who I Am

Hi 👋, I’m Shankar — an AI-first Technical Product Manager who brings curiosity, technical depth, product taste, and grit to ambiguous problems. I enjoy product work that starts with a messy human problem, moves through disciplined discovery, and ends in a clear strategy, prototype, or roadmap that helps cross-functional teams build simple, scalable products customers adopt and trust.

Outside product work, I’m usually hiking, working out, or trying to understand why people behave the way they do.

My Featured Project Work

Below are a few of my latest projects, some of which are still works in progress. For more project work, check out the Experience and Education sections below.

StreakFit

Discovered student wellness pain points through six customer interviews, synthesized unmet needs, and built a behavioral psychology-informed GenAI product in three hours at the OpenAI Codex Hackathon.

AI Hike Researcher

Architected a cost- and time-efficient AI Hike Researcher, an agentic skill that automates real-time data gathering across six safety-critical dimensions, reducing weekly planning time by 98% through staged research and personalized filtering.

Spotify MiniMix

Built a GenAI music recommendation engine in n8n for mood and occasion sub-playlist curation, using dynamic song-feature selection and improving relevance by 73% versus a rule-based baseline in project testing.

HeyLily GenAI Scam-Call Assistant

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

My Core Capabilities

Customer & Behavioral Psychology

Understanding how users think, struggle, decide, and adopt products.

AI-First Product Building

Using AI to rethink workflows, reduce friction, and create new product experiences.

Data-Driven Product Judgment

Turning customer signals, usage patterns, and business context into better product decisions.

Business Acumen

Connecting customer needs, market context, financial tradeoffs, and go-to-market realities into product decisions that create durable business value.

Technical Depth

Working credibly with engineering teams across cloud infrastructure, distributed systems, scalability, and reliability.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Aligning engineering, design, business, and customer stakeholders around clear problems and measurable outcomes.

My Modus Operandi

Deliberate

Discipline, consistency, attention to detail, and simplicity.

Analytical

Systematic thinking, observation, long-term orientation, and outcome-driven decisions.

Human-Centered

Curiosity, empathy, inquisitiveness, abstract thinking, and high IQ + EQ.

My Personal Interests

  • Behavioral psychology
  • Hiking
  • Gym
  • Poker
  • Anime

Where I Worked

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 the 0-to-1 development and launch of a Windows CLI client using WSL2 virtualization for Blob NFS, unlocking a new Windows segment and onboarding 150+ B2B customers while partnering with product leadership on go-to-market strategy.

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.

What I Studied

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 a cost- and time-efficient AI Hike Researcher, an agentic skill that automates real-time data gathering across six safety-critical dimensions, reducing weekly planning time by 98% through staged research and personalized filtering.

Spotify MiniMix

Built a GenAI music recommendation engine in n8n for mood and occasion sub-playlist curation, using dynamic song-feature selection and improving relevance by 73% versus a rule-based baseline in project testing.

StreakFit

Discovered student wellness pain points through six customer interviews, synthesized unmet needs, and built a behavioral psychology-informed GenAI product in three hours at the OpenAI Codex Hackathon.

Asana Sales Strategy and GTM Assessment

Benchmarked Asana's sales strategy and go-to-market motion across nine dimensions, recommending clearer PLG vs. SLG guidance and competitive differentiation. Awarded 1st place for best assessment out of eight teams.

HeyLily GenAI Scam-Call Assistant

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

Product Teardown Series

Launched a new Product Teardown series to deconstruct world-class products, producing three events with 110+ attendees.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ratings, root-caused the recurring no-matches problem, brainstormed solutions, and proposed Bumble Barney, a GenAI wingman intended to decrease no matches by 10%. Won 2nd rank in the February NextLeap Capstone project.

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.

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.

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.

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.

How to Contact Me

Liked my work, have an idea to collaborate on, or just want to chat? I’d be happy to hear from you. ☕