Growing up in Silicon Valley, Pratima Manga was surrounded by the power of technology. The USC Iovine and Young Academy alumna knew it would undoubtedly be a part of her career track, but she also yearned to take on the life of a “business person.” When she got to the Academy, she tapped into the dynamism of both tech and entrepreneurship while also unearthing a new passion – design. Post-graduation, she’s a product designer at Meta, using her creative brain and her business strategy prowess to enhance the Instagram ad experience for companies and users. For Manga, design represents the impactful marriage of the industrial past and a digital future, and she’s making sure she honors both sides as she continues to innovate in the advertising space. 

When you hear design and Meta, you might think Manga’s job is making Instagram as visually alluring to users as possible. Manga is actually entrenched in the Reels monetization part of Instagram, committed to bettering how scrollers like you and me interact with ads as they navigate social media. Maintaining a level of  “pretty” is one thing, but there are other meaningful components to consider. 

“I spend my days trying to create this native ad experience which is super fulfilling for both businesses and easy to use, and on the other end of the spectrum, it’s still super entertaining for users to watch. I feel like it’s been this really cool thing balancing business problems with people problems as a space to be in,” she says. 

Being a designer can be focused on making products look good, but it also means ensuring they serve a purpose. Manga is slashing misinterpretations of the field, affirming the benefit of product designers across a variety of platforms and companies. 

“Product design doesn’t always have to be sexy,” she asserts, recalling advice she received from an early career mentor. 

She explains, “All of these very business-facing products still need product designers on a day-to-day basis. As designers, your goal isn’t always to make things pretty, it’s to make things usable. I think that advice stuck with me through my entire career … Obviously you should make your designs pretty, you should make them delightful… but if they don’t work, then no pretty gradient is going to fix them.”

This approach to design was born and fostered during Manga’s time at the Academy, where she developed her physical design experience – a skill set she says translates to the digital side of things that is so prevalent in today’s industry. 

“I think, for me, actually taking physical product design classes like 3D modeling through the Academy, combined with UI and UX classes, is where I ended up learning the most. The design of everyday objects in real life, a lot of the problems you face when designing, it translates a lot more than you think to digital products … Before I got to school it was industrial design only and now it’s digital design only, but I think getting to learn a little bit of everything helped me become a much stronger product thinker overall.” 

In addition to perfecting both a physical and digital take on design at the Academy, Manga commends the program’s  “learning by doing” framework. She says junior year’s Industry Practicum (formerly Discerning and Making) was her favorite class – and the most influential – she’s ever taken. A year-long partnership with Adidas producing a shoe aimed at student athletes from research to execution set her up for what she does at Meta today. She attained a theoretical roadmap for effectively getting in the mind of a consumer, learning to ask the right questions to elicit informative responses that actually create a valuable product. That “actual doing” as opposed to just studying became a vital exercise for the so-called real world. 

Manga also identifies she feels at home in discussions ranging from business to engineering to design. She remembers a distinct lightbulb moment where she saw her depth of knowledge prove itself professionally. Manga kicked off her career at Meta (formerly Facebook) working in commerce onboarding, figuring out how to get new businesses on the platform. Speaking with an engineer about how to store data in the backend – an intricate technical conversation – she was able to follow along seamlessly. Her multidimensional know-how empowers her daily.  

“The fact that he was saying all of these pretty complex things about how the backend worked and I was easily able to digest it and then brainstorm how the designs would look with him… that’s my Academy education in a nutshell,” she shares.

As Manga works to strengthen the social ad experience at Meta, she looks at the industry’s imaginable destiny, and how she can channel her inventiveness into practical and creative action. She sees a world where consumers welcome ads on their feeds and the potential positivity of a symbiotic user-to-business synergy. 

“The ad space is ripe for creativity and a lot of innovation,” she shares. “Making ads that seem like a partnership that can be additive to your life is something nobody’s truly figured out yet. If I could see an ad for something I didn’t know I needed which was within my budget and I knew I could buy it seamlessly, that would be an additive feature to my life!”  

At this rate, Manga is on her way to being the change she hopes to see in the ad and product space. Be it digital, industrial, or a medium that hasn’t even been defined yet, the future is hers to design. 

Growing up in Silicon Valley, Pratima Manga was surrounded by the power of technology. The USC Iovine and Young Academy alumna knew it would undoubtedly be a part of her career track, but she also yearned to take on the life of a “business person.” When she got to the Academy, she tapped into the dynamism of both tech and entrepreneurship while also unearthing a new passion – design. Post-graduation, she’s a product designer at Meta, using her creative brain and her business strategy prowess to enhance the Instagram ad experience for companies and users.

Inside the Mind of a Meta Product Designer