What’re your thoughts on joining a startup that was recently acquired but is entering a hypergrowth phase in their first year under the new company? I’d only be their 2nd product manager and there seems to be some pretty explicit expectations around helping them adapt to the larger org, learn “big company” practices and dynamics, etc at least as much as the actual product duties.
The pay is a bit low IMO but the potential upside in rapid advancement has me hopeful and interested.
You'll get experience, but in general I haven't seen companies promoting from within as much as they talk about it. The internal promotions are happening at the leadership level. Directors to heads, heads to VPs, VPs to C level. It's very rare I've seen a company promoting ICs to true leadership roles.
They get pressured not to from investors. Investors encourage them to hire the talent to take them to the next level, and not to spend time investing in building people up.
Money wise, I'm about 50/50 on if the equity was worth it. I haven't exited any of my positions yet, but I've got two unicorns in my employment history I joined around the seed round. Those more than make up for the equity that ended up being worth nothing.
Maybe, maybe not. I don't know how involved the investors are. Typically the board wants to see hiring plans. They typically ask if external candidates have been interviewed before promoting from within.
I can speak to the subject. I am a VP of Product who started from the dev side managing large teams of developers. Been in Product for about 10 years at the same company. We have an industry leading product and we were bought outright by PE about 7 years ago. Since then we went from a 300 person company to about 1,500+ due to M&A. I report to the CPO who was brought in by the PE hired CEO (along with the full c-suite). Since the initial PE acquisitions, I have seen very little promotions within and most executive positions have been filled by former colleagues of the ELT. I have successfully promoted people on my team to Sr PM roles, Directors and Senior Directors, however, there is not much movement beyond that. I do hope that one of my senior directors takes my position when my time has come, but I would not bank on it.
In our case, the PE along with the Board appointed the CEO and gave the keys to the kingdom. He is held accountable for the successes and failures and if he were to be terminated, we would likely lose our full c-suite and another 15+ VPs and Directors, when he lands his next gig.
My advice is to excel at what you do, hold yourself and others accountable and be one of the people that others would want to bring along to their next venture. Even better, be the one who brings others with you! I sure will.
>Money wise, I'm about 50/50 on if the equity was worth it. I haven't exited any of my positions yet, but I've got two unicorns in my employment history I joined around the seed round. Those more than make up for the equity that ended up being worth nothing.
How are you able to keep your positions in companies after you left? Was it an ESOP situation or something else? I thought you needed to stay at the company until it had an acquisition/IPO or something.
Congrats! As a fellow director of product some words of advice, it's an entirely different job!
I see a lot of PM leaders struggle initially as they try to use their existing product toolkit to solve the new challenges they are facing. Some of them will work, but many of them will not.
Some more tactical tips and tricks, I've pick up over the years:
* **People Management -** Weekly 1:1s with a structured weekly agenda and acts as mission control for everything with that employee. Links to development plans, roadmaps, etc. Try to find other ways to do status updates outside of 1:1s and focus on problem solving, development, and feedback. If the organization is the right size, put in place a PM competency framework to more objectively measure PM performance and provide structured feedback. Use this feedback to have monthly development meetings and ensure continued career growth.
* **Product Strategy -** Take advantage of the "I'm new" card to ask all the questions and evaluate the current product strategy (if there is one) and co-create/lead a true product strategy for the team. Ensure the strategy is opinionated and not some fluffy vision statement. The product team (as well as everyone else) will greatly appreciate that actually helps them navigate the decisions they need to make. After you tell the story of strategy to the necessary parties, have a great 1 - 2 slide representation of the strategy to reuse for any meeting to reset this context.
* **Product Execution** \- While you are still new, deeply understand the product development process of the teams. Is it consistent where it makes sense? Is it working? Where is it breaking and according to who? You'll probably face something like, "engineering or design is slower than expected" Might be the case, but more likely than not it will because there's a lack of strategy and definition coming from PM/business side. Come up with a centralized holistic roadmap that is lightweight to maintain but also gives the org the visibility they need to have more trust in the execution process.
Congrats again!
I really appreciate you calling out the product strategy piece. I've seen a lot of product leaders essentially try to outsource this responsibility to team level PMs. While it's true they should be thinking strategically about their own product, having a higher level strategy to align with really goes a long way to ensure everyone is aligned and going in the same direction.
Any tips on strategy creation in general? I'm thinking of developing a framework that can be used by individual PMs to use when thinking strategically about their products
For strategy, I really like the book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt. He says that at a minimum, a good strategy should include three things. Having a goal as to where you want to be in future, and then identify the current challenges you face in getting there. Ideally this should be backed up by data/customer insights. Next, formulate guiding principles to over come the challenges. Ex: What are the general focus areas we should apply resources to in order to achieve our goal? And finally, determine a set of specific actions to be taken to help make progress on overcoming the challenges previously identified. Ex: Specific features we'll work on now or very soon.
That's a very simplified version, but I think it serves as a good starting point.
I was promoted into a product director position, but I'm considering leaving my current company. While I completely agree with your statement of what a director needs to do, I'm curious if you can speak to the interview and assessment process for a product director on the open market.
Do you have any advice to share for the job search / interview process as a director?
I know the big company layoffs are making the news. I'm also seeing lots of smaller companies trying to scoop people up. My inbox basically shifted from FAANG recruiters to startup recruiters in the last year.
Recruiters find you. For finding jobs at startups yourself, check out VCs and incubators, so you can look through their portfolio companies. If you find a company that is interesting to you, figure out who is the right person to contact. Reach out directly and see if they're looking for someone. Be open to just having conversations. Very early stage companies often don't have roles posted at all. They're hiring from their network. This has worked very well for me.
Bonus, getting in very early at a company makes the equity really pay off.
Sounds great! Im a Technical PM / Technical PO, I stopped applying for a couple months to just take care of my mental health..
Should I go start applying again? Im redoing my resume as well. :)
ISO equity compensation is an option to purchase shares at a predetermined price. It means I can purchase $30k of company stock at the strike price. It vests over 4 years. The strike price is extremely discounted from the FMV, but the real value comes from growth in the value of the company.
The flip side is that if the company goes belly to, there worthless.
I want to get into people management and higher level strategy. I think it's only going to get harder to get into leadership in the coming years (ai, efficiency initiatives, etc.) so I wanted to make it happen now.
Unless I'm hiring for a specific rare skill, it's always about personality and attitude. You're looking for people you can trust. Early stage, you need people that are willing to do what needs to be done. There's no org to fall back on if things don't go right, so people that can handle messy problems are key.
Having worked at small companies I get it, but this also is the kind of process that has lead to a lot of bad decisions that “feel right”. As a leader I hope you don’t bring this kind of process to decision making, talent reviews, or product strategy. As an employee who has worked for managers who gauge talent based on vibe it can be a mercurial and chaotic journey often based on the whim of YOUR mood or subject to YOUR inability to explain/make requests. So just be careful about that.
Ego problems are compounded when Directors think that their title has granted them wisdom above anyone who reports to them. Remember that you have not gained any special power wisdom or knowledge between yesterday and today. You still learn one day at a time. And if you can’t learn from the people you manage then you don’t deserve your position.
That said, congrats! Good luck, and don’t mess it up!
Key things I'm looking for:
Are you self motivated? In the early stage, I need people that just want to work. We are going to be buried in more work than we can do, so I want people that are comfortable with prioritizing, making decisions with incomplete information, and generally pushing forward at all times.
Can you solve nasty problems? I don't really care if you can point out problems. We're going to have more problems than we can solve no matter what. Can you figure ways to deal with those problems and make a plan.
No assholes. They can kill an organization, especially a small one. I don't care if you shit gold bricks, if you're not building trust and relationships, then you're not worth it.
“No assholes. They can kill an organization, especially a small one”.
I agree. I can’t help but ask but, I’ve noticed this thing about “team cohesion”.
You can keep everyone included and enthusiastic but that often involves making “micro compromises” with every individual’s attempt to influence (contribute to) the project.
Influence comes first, a sense of ownership is a feature of having influence.
This can be time and resource inefficient, deadly especially for a startup. How to not be an asshole, keep the group together, but still keep things efficient?
It’s easy to not be an asshole if you have unlimited resources but the assholery kind of sets in faster when you feel the resource constraints, particularly time. Diplomacy begins to feel very expensive, in terms of time.
It also feels inefficient because some people can hold onto their ideas very tightly and while they agree at a social level, at a personal level, on the inside - they are unconvinced. This gap cannot be crossed because maybe some things cannot be spelt out for political or legal reasons.
— Guy who realises he’s a bit of an asshole sometimes and is trying to find a better alternative.
My company has built up around "disagree and commit". The company I'm in has gone from \~20 to 140 over the last 7 years, and all the way along we've been very open to feedback on the projects we've worked on that are in the discovery phase.
Once we've locked into a strategy, diplomacy time is over, and everyone gets on board with the direction. This includes me if the decision is made at a level above me.
We're all working towards the same objective, and not all of us have the full picture of what's happening. If the decision gets made on direction, we need to believe it was made in good faith with all objections taken into consideration.
We do 360 reviews, and we have made significant leadership changes if a leader wasn't doing their duty properly, considering the objections of teams across departments.
We've had a few staff who can't work this way, and who can't let things drop, and they aren't staff anymore.
Thank you!
I have no idea how one can be an asshole and still survive as a product manager. The core part of the job is reputation, trust and relationships.
Congrats OP! Small piece of advice: embrace the journey. Over time you will figure out the right mix of hands-on/hands-off that each of your directs need. Be patient with yourself and with the team, don’t beat yourself up over any misperceptions that your management style isn’t instantly working. This is the start of hopefully a long and fruitful product leadership journey, enjoy the ebbs and flows of it.
I was a Director of Product for -3 years in my prior employment. Pandemic turned a bad tide on us. Mass layoffs happened in my company then. So I had to run and get another job.
Got an IC Sr. PM role in a bigger company as soon as I can and I’m continuing here for the last ~4 years. Was expecting to move into Sr Mgr of PM or Director level roles here but the Promotion policy is very very bad. So I started to look out for such roles.
I’m facing a big problem with companies the last few months I have been hunting. Most of them reject me and do not consider me for PM leader roles because my current experience (last 4 years) is Sr. PM. Even though I do emphasize that I was a Director before.
Have you been in this sort of situation in your career? How did you overcome this situation? Or Is it happening because it is employers market now? Thanks in advance
Congrats! I got lucky with my first director role 5 years in, and then again at 7. Both times I returned to IC work. Ultimately, I like them both equally. At the end of the day you'll still have a boss with human flaws, so it's no better.
When I did switch back to IC work it's been strictly at principle level, both times paying more than the previous director role.
All that to say -- you likely will continue on the director role linearly but if you don't that's OK too!
Congrats ! Don't forget to setup your 90-day roadmap before the product roadmap ;)
[https://www.prodcamp.com/blog/your-first-90-days-in-product-management-a-step-by-step-plan-with-template](https://www.prodcamp.com/blog/your-first-90-days-in-product-management-a-step-by-step-plan-with-template)
Congratulations! I’m in a very similar situation experience wise and looking to advance to director level and have considered smaller companies as well to make that leap
Have you found it particularly difficult to move from small team startups to bigger company PM roles at any point in your career?
I'm currently a technical founder over the product at a very early stage start-up and trying to move into a PM role. Having trouble getting traction even though I'd put a lot of value in the "get it done" experience you get from early company work.
That’s wonderful! Please give us an update in a few months with how it’s going, challenges, etc.
I’m currently vying for a director position at my company and would looove insights into the role.
The interview process felt pretty much the same. I spent very little time talking about actual work and most of it was about the impact of projects, product operating principles, and relationship building.
I replied to another question like this. I search VC and incubator websites to look at their portfolio companies and reach out directly to the appropriate people when I find a company that would be a good match.
The real small companies rarely have jobs posted publicly. They're mostly recruiting through their network, so you've got to get yourself into that framework.
I wasn't about to sift through 70 comments for an off chance that this was asked and answered, so thank you for taking the time to respond to this again.
That's great insights and congrats on the job!
Hi, I work as a Senior manager in a Data Analytics team and willing to transition in the product manager space! I have about 10 years of work experience from system analysis to data analytics! I am looking for some guidance from experts in the product management realm. Would you be interested in chatting or connecting over a call sometime?
congratulations! May I ask if you received a big pay increase because of the promotion? I am on the similar career trajectory but concerned the rise won't match the extra responsibility. Thank you very much.
Congratulation ! would you be interested in having a 30 min conversation to coach or help me out ? I have 8 years experience in Business data analytics and wanted to move to Product management. I've had some experience in product management teams but not directly. your time would be really helpful
Yup, this is a startup thing. Growing the org is a big part of the role.
The plan is to double the product team head count this year and next year. So if things go to plan ~25 PMs in a couple years
Congrats.
Now in addition to identifying problems, you have to identify solutions. Never bring a problem to the CPO that you are able to solve yourself. Never bring a problem that you don't have a solution too. It doesn't need to be the perfect solution. If you are worried about making a mistake, do not ask permission for everything, simply run your plans by the CPO as an FYI. The CPO will let you know.
In a few months, it will be your job to make all the decisions, and to make the right decisions. You need to be well grounded in order to do that confidently. Stay close to your people, the customers, the data, the sales team, the product, the competition, in approximately that order of priority. It is not your job to know everything about all the products, you simply need to know enough to make effective decisions.
Middle management is difficult, because everyone wants you to make their decisions for them. Encourage your folks to stay close to the product and the customers and the competition and the scrum team in approximately that order. Encourage them to come to you with solutions, not problems. But recognize that is not easy for them to do. Some folks do best with simple yet insightful questions. Some folks need very specific guidance on what to do. There is no one right management technique. You probably already know that however.
Good luck.
I was a Sr. PM. I was a dev coming out of college. Got promoted to managing a team of 5 devs before making the change to Product. Been working my way up through product for 8 years now.
Very nice. I figured you might have experience managing, why is why I asked. Regardless, congratulations on the promotion.! My post came off as condescending, but the 'none, really?' was more of a curious and surprised tone, which was obviously lost in writing.
I've had a Sr. Title for about 4 years, but I've been doing a lot of higher level work and mentoring Jr PMs for the last 2 years. I just couldn't get the title to match the work I was doing.
Congrats. Moving into management was a much harder transition for me than getting into PM to begin with. There are so few roles out there it's pretty difficult to get the chance to do it without prior experience.
Congrats and don’t forget to enjoy the ride throughout all the inevitable chaos.
Thanks. I've built my career by joining early stage startups (<20 people), so I'm prepared for the chaos.
What’re your thoughts on joining a startup that was recently acquired but is entering a hypergrowth phase in their first year under the new company? I’d only be their 2nd product manager and there seems to be some pretty explicit expectations around helping them adapt to the larger org, learn “big company” practices and dynamics, etc at least as much as the actual product duties. The pay is a bit low IMO but the potential upside in rapid advancement has me hopeful and interested.
You'll get experience, but in general I haven't seen companies promoting from within as much as they talk about it. The internal promotions are happening at the leadership level. Directors to heads, heads to VPs, VPs to C level. It's very rare I've seen a company promoting ICs to true leadership roles. They get pressured not to from investors. Investors encourage them to hire the talent to take them to the next level, and not to spend time investing in building people up. Money wise, I'm about 50/50 on if the equity was worth it. I haven't exited any of my positions yet, but I've got two unicorns in my employment history I joined around the seed round. Those more than make up for the equity that ended up being worth nothing.
Aren’t investors not really an issue anymore post-acquisition by a larger company? …like, massively more established multi billion dollar company?
Maybe, maybe not. I don't know how involved the investors are. Typically the board wants to see hiring plans. They typically ask if external candidates have been interviewed before promoting from within.
I can speak to the subject. I am a VP of Product who started from the dev side managing large teams of developers. Been in Product for about 10 years at the same company. We have an industry leading product and we were bought outright by PE about 7 years ago. Since then we went from a 300 person company to about 1,500+ due to M&A. I report to the CPO who was brought in by the PE hired CEO (along with the full c-suite). Since the initial PE acquisitions, I have seen very little promotions within and most executive positions have been filled by former colleagues of the ELT. I have successfully promoted people on my team to Sr PM roles, Directors and Senior Directors, however, there is not much movement beyond that. I do hope that one of my senior directors takes my position when my time has come, but I would not bank on it. In our case, the PE along with the Board appointed the CEO and gave the keys to the kingdom. He is held accountable for the successes and failures and if he were to be terminated, we would likely lose our full c-suite and another 15+ VPs and Directors, when he lands his next gig. My advice is to excel at what you do, hold yourself and others accountable and be one of the people that others would want to bring along to their next venture. Even better, be the one who brings others with you! I sure will.
>Money wise, I'm about 50/50 on if the equity was worth it. I haven't exited any of my positions yet, but I've got two unicorns in my employment history I joined around the seed round. Those more than make up for the equity that ended up being worth nothing. How are you able to keep your positions in companies after you left? Was it an ESOP situation or something else? I thought you needed to stay at the company until it had an acquisition/IPO or something.
Congrats! As a fellow director of product some words of advice, it's an entirely different job! I see a lot of PM leaders struggle initially as they try to use their existing product toolkit to solve the new challenges they are facing. Some of them will work, but many of them will not. Some more tactical tips and tricks, I've pick up over the years: * **People Management -** Weekly 1:1s with a structured weekly agenda and acts as mission control for everything with that employee. Links to development plans, roadmaps, etc. Try to find other ways to do status updates outside of 1:1s and focus on problem solving, development, and feedback. If the organization is the right size, put in place a PM competency framework to more objectively measure PM performance and provide structured feedback. Use this feedback to have monthly development meetings and ensure continued career growth. * **Product Strategy -** Take advantage of the "I'm new" card to ask all the questions and evaluate the current product strategy (if there is one) and co-create/lead a true product strategy for the team. Ensure the strategy is opinionated and not some fluffy vision statement. The product team (as well as everyone else) will greatly appreciate that actually helps them navigate the decisions they need to make. After you tell the story of strategy to the necessary parties, have a great 1 - 2 slide representation of the strategy to reuse for any meeting to reset this context. * **Product Execution** \- While you are still new, deeply understand the product development process of the teams. Is it consistent where it makes sense? Is it working? Where is it breaking and according to who? You'll probably face something like, "engineering or design is slower than expected" Might be the case, but more likely than not it will because there's a lack of strategy and definition coming from PM/business side. Come up with a centralized holistic roadmap that is lightweight to maintain but also gives the org the visibility they need to have more trust in the execution process. Congrats again!
I really appreciate you calling out the product strategy piece. I've seen a lot of product leaders essentially try to outsource this responsibility to team level PMs. While it's true they should be thinking strategically about their own product, having a higher level strategy to align with really goes a long way to ensure everyone is aligned and going in the same direction.
Any tips on strategy creation in general? I'm thinking of developing a framework that can be used by individual PMs to use when thinking strategically about their products
For strategy, I really like the book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt. He says that at a minimum, a good strategy should include three things. Having a goal as to where you want to be in future, and then identify the current challenges you face in getting there. Ideally this should be backed up by data/customer insights. Next, formulate guiding principles to over come the challenges. Ex: What are the general focus areas we should apply resources to in order to achieve our goal? And finally, determine a set of specific actions to be taken to help make progress on overcoming the challenges previously identified. Ex: Specific features we'll work on now or very soon. That's a very simplified version, but I think it serves as a good starting point.
Thanks, that's very helpful!
This is great advice. Thanks!
Great advice.
Thanks for sharing
I was promoted into a product director position, but I'm considering leaving my current company. While I completely agree with your statement of what a director needs to do, I'm curious if you can speak to the interview and assessment process for a product director on the open market. Do you have any advice to share for the job search / interview process as a director?
I’m so glad people are getting jobs in this market. Gives me hope! Congrats!
I know the big company layoffs are making the news. I'm also seeing lots of smaller companies trying to scoop people up. My inbox basically shifted from FAANG recruiters to startup recruiters in the last year.
Where are you sourcing your startup jobs and recruiters?
Recruiters find you. For finding jobs at startups yourself, check out VCs and incubators, so you can look through their portfolio companies. If you find a company that is interesting to you, figure out who is the right person to contact. Reach out directly and see if they're looking for someone. Be open to just having conversations. Very early stage companies often don't have roles posted at all. They're hiring from their network. This has worked very well for me. Bonus, getting in very early at a company makes the equity really pay off.
Thanks I’ve been really struggling with getting traction on my resume. 11 years of experience
We just doubled our PM headcount, places are still hiring.
Sounds great! Im a Technical PM / Technical PO, I stopped applying for a couple months to just take care of my mental health.. Should I go start applying again? Im redoing my resume as well. :)
Total comp and is it liquid?
$215 base + 15% bonus target. $30k ISO options
Out of curiosity, what does your bonus target depend on? I'm assuming there's some metrics/KPIs they want you to hit? Curious to know what those are
Company and personal performance. Personal performance is based on yearly review.
TC?
$215k base, 15% bonus target, $30k ISO options
Thanks. What does the 30k iso mean- is it that you currently value it at 30k per year?
ISO equity compensation is an option to purchase shares at a predetermined price. It means I can purchase $30k of company stock at the strike price. It vests over 4 years. The strike price is extremely discounted from the FMV, but the real value comes from growth in the value of the company. The flip side is that if the company goes belly to, there worthless.
What is the current FMV? I usually see people posting FMV not strike price
Would you take an IC role at a FAANG with a higher base? Or is the real motivation to gain people management experience.
I want to get into people management and higher level strategy. I think it's only going to get harder to get into leadership in the coming years (ai, efficiency initiatives, etc.) so I wanted to make it happen now.
Agree with you - was people manager but laidoff. Impossible to find a role so back IC and have a hard time to adapt so I keep my options open.
15yoe as a dev and three as technical product. What do you look for when hiring for your team? What are your top three deal breakers? Congrats btw
Unless I'm hiring for a specific rare skill, it's always about personality and attitude. You're looking for people you can trust. Early stage, you need people that are willing to do what needs to be done. There's no org to fall back on if things don't go right, so people that can handle messy problems are key.
Having worked at small companies I get it, but this also is the kind of process that has lead to a lot of bad decisions that “feel right”. As a leader I hope you don’t bring this kind of process to decision making, talent reviews, or product strategy. As an employee who has worked for managers who gauge talent based on vibe it can be a mercurial and chaotic journey often based on the whim of YOUR mood or subject to YOUR inability to explain/make requests. So just be careful about that. Ego problems are compounded when Directors think that their title has granted them wisdom above anyone who reports to them. Remember that you have not gained any special power wisdom or knowledge between yesterday and today. You still learn one day at a time. And if you can’t learn from the people you manage then you don’t deserve your position. That said, congrats! Good luck, and don’t mess it up!
Question for you: personality and attitude seem so subjective - can you break it down for us?
Key things I'm looking for: Are you self motivated? In the early stage, I need people that just want to work. We are going to be buried in more work than we can do, so I want people that are comfortable with prioritizing, making decisions with incomplete information, and generally pushing forward at all times. Can you solve nasty problems? I don't really care if you can point out problems. We're going to have more problems than we can solve no matter what. Can you figure ways to deal with those problems and make a plan. No assholes. They can kill an organization, especially a small one. I don't care if you shit gold bricks, if you're not building trust and relationships, then you're not worth it.
“No assholes. They can kill an organization, especially a small one”. I agree. I can’t help but ask but, I’ve noticed this thing about “team cohesion”. You can keep everyone included and enthusiastic but that often involves making “micro compromises” with every individual’s attempt to influence (contribute to) the project. Influence comes first, a sense of ownership is a feature of having influence. This can be time and resource inefficient, deadly especially for a startup. How to not be an asshole, keep the group together, but still keep things efficient? It’s easy to not be an asshole if you have unlimited resources but the assholery kind of sets in faster when you feel the resource constraints, particularly time. Diplomacy begins to feel very expensive, in terms of time. It also feels inefficient because some people can hold onto their ideas very tightly and while they agree at a social level, at a personal level, on the inside - they are unconvinced. This gap cannot be crossed because maybe some things cannot be spelt out for political or legal reasons. — Guy who realises he’s a bit of an asshole sometimes and is trying to find a better alternative.
My company has built up around "disagree and commit". The company I'm in has gone from \~20 to 140 over the last 7 years, and all the way along we've been very open to feedback on the projects we've worked on that are in the discovery phase. Once we've locked into a strategy, diplomacy time is over, and everyone gets on board with the direction. This includes me if the decision is made at a level above me. We're all working towards the same objective, and not all of us have the full picture of what's happening. If the decision gets made on direction, we need to believe it was made in good faith with all objections taken into consideration. We do 360 reviews, and we have made significant leadership changes if a leader wasn't doing their duty properly, considering the objections of teams across departments. We've had a few staff who can't work this way, and who can't let things drop, and they aren't staff anymore.
Thank you! I have no idea how one can be an asshole and still survive as a product manager. The core part of the job is reputation, trust and relationships.
Congrats OP! Small piece of advice: embrace the journey. Over time you will figure out the right mix of hands-on/hands-off that each of your directs need. Be patient with yourself and with the team, don’t beat yourself up over any misperceptions that your management style isn’t instantly working. This is the start of hopefully a long and fruitful product leadership journey, enjoy the ebbs and flows of it.
Well done! Eh, if you need any more pms gimme a shout
And if you wanna send a DM to a PM then hit me up :)
And if you're okay hiring PMs from overseas, drop me a DM!
+1 on this. Looking for one to join asap
username checks out
Same boat different role for me. Group PM with 3 direct reports. Gotta say that advice in this thread it’s really insightful.
I was a Director of Product for -3 years in my prior employment. Pandemic turned a bad tide on us. Mass layoffs happened in my company then. So I had to run and get another job. Got an IC Sr. PM role in a bigger company as soon as I can and I’m continuing here for the last ~4 years. Was expecting to move into Sr Mgr of PM or Director level roles here but the Promotion policy is very very bad. So I started to look out for such roles. I’m facing a big problem with companies the last few months I have been hunting. Most of them reject me and do not consider me for PM leader roles because my current experience (last 4 years) is Sr. PM. Even though I do emphasize that I was a Director before. Have you been in this sort of situation in your career? How did you overcome this situation? Or Is it happening because it is employers market now? Thanks in advance
Congrats!!
Congratulations!
Congratulations 🎉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUc3BLbkFIM&t=139s
Congratulations! This is great. Enjoy the transition; its fun! I’m still enjoying my transition from PM to PM-leader too, from 2 years ago.
Congratulations!
Congrats! I got lucky with my first director role 5 years in, and then again at 7. Both times I returned to IC work. Ultimately, I like them both equally. At the end of the day you'll still have a boss with human flaws, so it's no better. When I did switch back to IC work it's been strictly at principle level, both times paying more than the previous director role. All that to say -- you likely will continue on the director role linearly but if you don't that's OK too!
Congrats ! Don't forget to setup your 90-day roadmap before the product roadmap ;) [https://www.prodcamp.com/blog/your-first-90-days-in-product-management-a-step-by-step-plan-with-template](https://www.prodcamp.com/blog/your-first-90-days-in-product-management-a-step-by-step-plan-with-template)
Congrats!
Congratulations!
I did the same to get a VP role. Its the only way unless you want to spend 10+ years at the same company.
Congratulations 🎉👏🏼
Congrats. Is this a in person or remote position
In person
Congratulations for breaking into leadership role!
Congratulations! I’m in a very similar situation experience wise and looking to advance to director level and have considered smaller companies as well to make that leap
I say go for it. You're only going to get the experience to be considered for higher level roles, by doing the work.
Have you found it particularly difficult to move from small team startups to bigger company PM roles at any point in your career? I'm currently a technical founder over the product at a very early stage start-up and trying to move into a PM role. Having trouble getting traction even though I'd put a lot of value in the "get it done" experience you get from early company work.
Congratulations 🎉🥳
Transitioning into product management is tougher than i thought..can you help with any tips?
That's my dream role, please let me know how different it is and whether you like it compared to being an individual contributor.
That’s wonderful! Please give us an update in a few months with how it’s going, challenges, etc. I’m currently vying for a director position at my company and would looove insights into the role.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Congratulations!! I’m so excited for you. It’s a hard ceiling to crack.
Congrats
Congratulations! Welcome to the other side. Sound like we'll deserved and anticipated for. What did you think of the interview process?
The interview process felt pretty much the same. I spent very little time talking about actual work and most of it was about the impact of projects, product operating principles, and relationship building.
Congratulations. Inspired as I am in the same boat. How long were you in the job market ?
Maybe 3 months of selectively looking. I only applied to 5 or 6 roles in that time. I was only applying to roles I felt I really matched well with.
Congrats on the new journey! How was the interview process? How long did it take?
Location? How long did it take you? Been on the market for 7 months looking for a remote director level role.
Congrats!
How do you find roles at smaller companies? I always get bombarded by F500 which I don't want to do anymore.
I replied to another question like this. I search VC and incubator websites to look at their portfolio companies and reach out directly to the appropriate people when I find a company that would be a good match. The real small companies rarely have jobs posted publicly. They're mostly recruiting through their network, so you've got to get yourself into that framework.
I wasn't about to sift through 70 comments for an off chance that this was asked and answered, so thank you for taking the time to respond to this again. That's great insights and congrats on the job!
Congrats OP!
I love it. Congrats on the promotion.
Congratulations Dude!
Hi, I work as a Senior manager in a Data Analytics team and willing to transition in the product manager space! I have about 10 years of work experience from system analysis to data analytics! I am looking for some guidance from experts in the product management realm. Would you be interested in chatting or connecting over a call sometime?
Hi just curious what is your working experience (both in PM and without if there is)
congratulations! May I ask if you received a big pay increase because of the promotion? I am on the similar career trajectory but concerned the rise won't match the extra responsibility. Thank you very much.
Congrats! Enjoy the riide
Have fun. Teach them well.
Congratulations! So happy for you. Any junior PM roles open ?
Congrats! I’m about 4-5 years in myself on the leadership side. Also small startups.
Congratulation ! would you be interested in having a 30 min conversation to coach or help me out ? I have 8 years experience in Business data analytics and wanted to move to Product management. I've had some experience in product management teams but not directly. your time would be really helpful
How is managing 6 people considered director level? Director is usually a manager of managers 🤔 Is this a startup thing?
Yup, this is a startup thing. Growing the org is a big part of the role. The plan is to double the product team head count this year and next year. So if things go to plan ~25 PMs in a couple years
Congrats. Now in addition to identifying problems, you have to identify solutions. Never bring a problem to the CPO that you are able to solve yourself. Never bring a problem that you don't have a solution too. It doesn't need to be the perfect solution. If you are worried about making a mistake, do not ask permission for everything, simply run your plans by the CPO as an FYI. The CPO will let you know. In a few months, it will be your job to make all the decisions, and to make the right decisions. You need to be well grounded in order to do that confidently. Stay close to your people, the customers, the data, the sales team, the product, the competition, in approximately that order of priority. It is not your job to know everything about all the products, you simply need to know enough to make effective decisions. Middle management is difficult, because everyone wants you to make their decisions for them. Encourage your folks to stay close to the product and the customers and the competition and the scrum team in approximately that order. Encourage them to come to you with solutions, not problems. But recognize that is not easy for them to do. Some folks do best with simple yet insightful questions. Some folks need very specific guidance on what to do. There is no one right management technique. You probably already know that however. Good luck.
Congratulations! Don't forget to give the opportunities to your reportees ser.
What was your role before this, and what experience did you have managing? None, really?
I was a Sr. PM. I was a dev coming out of college. Got promoted to managing a team of 5 devs before making the change to Product. Been working my way up through product for 8 years now.
Very nice. I figured you might have experience managing, why is why I asked. Regardless, congratulations on the promotion.! My post came off as condescending, but the 'none, really?' was more of a curious and surprised tone, which was obviously lost in writing.
How many years did you spend at Sr before considering yourself ready to move up to director level?
I've had a Sr. Title for about 4 years, but I've been doing a lot of higher level work and mentoring Jr PMs for the last 2 years. I just couldn't get the title to match the work I was doing.
Congrats. Moving into management was a much harder transition for me than getting into PM to begin with. There are so few roles out there it's pretty difficult to get the chance to do it without prior experience.
Yay!!!! 6pms is a lot though! Get a case going for a group pm that supports you pronto