The Product Manager Who Stopped Being Afraid of the Terminal

Product manager, AI Career Switch

For a long time, one small word followed her around: API. She worked in SaaS as a product manager, yet she never quite felt she belonged on the technical side of the work. She would put it plainly: "I'm a completely non-tech person." Terminals, client scripts and APIs were the parts of the job she quietly stepped around. "The term API, no, it used to scare me."

Meanwhile, the ground was moving under her. "Maybe I was in a completely different world and the world was changing badly." She knew she wanted to move into an AI-focused role. She just did not know where to begin. "Initially I was scared, like I was confused because there were too many things that I didn't understand."

So she joined AI Career Switch, Arthi's 1:1 mentorship.

The very first session went straight at the fear. Arthi set up Claude Code with her in the terminal, and together they started building something real: a bus attendance app. By the end of that first conversation, something had shifted. "But yeah, I'm just so happy that I did it through terminal." She could see that AI would carry the code while she carried the ideas. "But in this case, you know, AI is actually very helpful for me because I don't have to code."

She left that session lit up. "So yeah, I'm really happy that, like, I built something. And I have a lot of aspirations." And then, simply: "Sure. Thank you so much. Thank you for breaking down one of my biggest fears today."

Within five days, the bus attendance app was live. She had pushed it to GitHub and hosted it on Netlify: a working app on the open web, built by someone who had called herself non-technical.

From there, the momentum built week by week. She learned what APIs really do. She ran local models with Ollama and Gemma 3, and added a chatbot to her app. She demoed a flow that pulls meetings from her CRM and moves them to another host. She built a writing-style skill, a LinkedIn draft routine and Telegram flows that bring her AI and job updates, then scheduled emails for new job openings. Later came RAG, agents and a GitHub portfolio roadmap project. Along the way, she began sharing her CRM tool with others.

The sessions started to fly by. "I couldn't feel how this time went today. Like almost one hour and twenty minutes." She stayed honest about what still needed work, too. "I learned what I practice. In fact, I am learning, but I need more practice."

The biggest change was not any single app. It was how she approached a problem. Before, she would hand a whole project to a chatbot and drown in long answers. Now she had a way in.

"I was so confident after I spoke to you, and the difference was very, very much because before that I did not know where to start or what to do. How to approach? I was actually giving the entire project to ChatGPT, asking it to summarize. It gave me long responses, so it was too much... You made it very simple for me."

She described the focus that followed with something close to wonder. "It kind of immediately cleared off and for the next two hours, 7 to 9, I was completely focused and things were very neat and structured. I didn't suffer anywhere. I didn't get confused or lost anywhere."

Today the terminal is just another tool on her desk, and the word API no longer makes her flinch. Ask how she feels and the answer is short and warm. "I feel so nice. Thank you." And, looking back on how it all began: "Thank you so much. I'm so blessed."

Want to build something like this? Explore Arthi's 1:1 programs.

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