Ah! Little relatable

Product Manager

Ah! Little relatable- Grapevine

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

Note - I am a product manager too

4 out of 5 product managers will act all high and mighty of themselves, bragging their way as if they run everything going on in the company, flaunting their business degrees and being utterly disrespectful towards their team( dev design qa name it), 

Recently started going to office so the attitude I am seeing is very transparent and more visible (more with the higher experience folks)

It makes me wanna leave this hyper inflated role, thinking of I will end up like them scares me, and you have to do is speak out jargons in meetings day in day out and have a English accent of Shashi Tharoor.

Recently my manager told that this is a role where you have to very representable or very visible and act in floor as if you are the busiest person on earth and I seriously some PMs in company doing that, they walk so fast in floor as if they will fall off or would be better to have 4 legs.

I am done with this product management shit

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

Product Management

I’ve been insufferable at work since 2-3 months now. Total time at my company- 6mo 21 days. Profile - Product Management 
My engineering team seems to be taking no ownership and always have their brahmastra ready that it didn’t come from product’s side. QA again is so great that I have to sit and thoroughly test each release end to end. 
My manager- he’s quite interested in taking my career fwd as a project manager. (I am not) He’s a total asshole and is quite concerned with start dates and end dates of tasks ( mind you, I am not the one actually writing the code but somehow the dates are my responsibility). He totally micromanages and somehow keeps blaming me for each small thing.
Examples:
- My engg team isn’t taking ownership: “you aren’t keeping them motivated enough”
- This isn’t a last minute change : “Do you attend standups? You aren’t communicating well”
- The QA tested and approved it, hence we released it. : “But did you test it? “
- Here are the release notes. : “This looks too jazzy, did you copy from GPT”
- Here are the release notes. : “This looks too basic, did you not copy from GPT”

I could go on forever. 

Gust: I am quite unhappy and is causing me unnecessary stress everyday. Also I don’t feel there’s a solution possible

Should I rage quit?

Coding is like solving 2+2 but coders take pride in the fact that you do it in English but I can do it in Sanskrit.Iykwim. I have coded for two years and as long as you're well versed in a language it's like making simple additions and subtractions in that language. Still coders make mistakes because they're lazy and incompetent like the rest of us . 80 percentage of coders just solve basics and still act like it's a big deal . Product Managers are not special I get it but coders are not special too just by knowing a language. It's like a bilingual person shitting on someone who knows just one language. When we all know if you're brought up in a certain way it's very easy to speak in two languages like we all do in India.

Why do people shit on product managers

I know Grapevine is full of young and ambitious people that either planning to get into Product or are already working as a PM. I don’t aim to discourage any of you. Moreover, if you need tips to break into Product I would be happy to help you.

I personally feel that knowing what you are doing is going to doom is better than normalizing it.

So I will convey my experience in simple words, how I hated every single day of it, why did I still stick around for 4 years, why product decisions are random political bullshit, why you should not let anything that happens get under your skin and affect your morale. Finally, few words for sociopathic Head of Products.

Lesson #1: Go through all stages of grief at once. Accept that product culture is broken and accept that it will not get better. Finally, you can’t fix it or improve it.

Lesson #2: Ratings are political bullshit. 
I can tell you the years I was rated worse I was probably working harder and better at my job. It just depends on the results you get in the last month before ratings and whether your DOP is vocal for you.

Lesson #3: Last piece of advice: do not let your Product years lower your self esteem or sense of self worth.

Also, some words for sociopathic Head of Products. F’ you.

You Must Get Out - My Experience of 4 Years In Product

Heavily second this. I’m a tech focus generalist who stumbled upon PMing after multiple startup exits. Absolutely bonkers role with no role definition, metric ownership, impact driving. Anyone who disagrees, is lying to themselves. What I can define PM in Indian / many valley based companies with Indian founders -> glorified bhains charane wala.

Opinion on this! Doesnt seem like a sponsored ad since he has listed all the competitors so..

Software Engineer

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Anyone who works there/has heard something about the company about its culture/product market fit/runway etc?

Any leads would be appreciated 😄

Does anyone know about the product culture at Jar?

**The Good**

Let’s start with the positives, even though they are much better documented. It’s pretty easy to “fake it till you make it.” I am not alone in feeling the imposter syndrome. Yet, a huge part of being a PM is just asking good questions, learning, listening, and trying to be impartial. Coincidentally, that is exactly what you should do when you don’t know what you are doing—just try to learn. 

And honestly, it’s really fun. People like to harp on the challenges and skills you need to be a PM, but I feel like no one talks about how enjoyable the job is. You’re in the middle of strategy, business, design, and customers. Every day is about solving problems. It is hectic, yes, but it is also very rewarding. 

There’s another thing: people like you. It’s shallow to admit it, but the truth is, as a PM, you are delivering value to your company and stakeholders. People appreciate that. 

**The Bad**

But let’s not sugarcoat it; it’s exhausting. Even if you’re an extrovert (which I am not), spending hours in meetings, collaborating, and navigating requirements is exhausting work. The pressure can be overwhelming.

When you do badly, it all goes badly. When things are in sync, being a PM feels almost easy. But when the wheels start to come off, it is brutal. Deadlines get missed, you screw up MVPs, you piss off stakeholders, and you feel backed into a corner. It really isn’t fun to let down other people, but it really sucks when you let yourself down. Since so much of the PM job is interacting with internal and external stakeholders, your successes often feel hidden while your failures feel public. A lot of times, it’s because of things outside of your control too.

And then there’s the hard part: saying no. You have to say no a lot as a PM. Often, it is to people that far outrank you, like your CEO. There are countless books written about this topic, but no one is open about the fact that saying no kind of sucks. It feels good to give people what they want. Even though saying no is the right thing to do, that doesn’t make it easy or fun.

What are some truths (good and bad) about product management that noone talks about?

I bet most users here are engineers but who are the other professionals? 
You can mention something like “Role @ Industry name”. Mention company if you’re comfortable 

I’ll start.

Program Manager @ BFSI

Diversity in Grapevine

You will see mostly   
    
 > 95% Techies   
 > Most staying in Bangalore   
 > Most staying near HSR layout   
 > Most earning 25 to 30 LPA min 
 > Most wanted to become APM/PM with 0YOE and expecting 1CR per annum cash component

Founder

[Thread] What is the one thing you could add to PM, so that it doesn’t become the HR of jokes?

Every vendor which sells such bots and every PM who doesn’t test it are to be blamed for such fiasco

Software Developer

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

1. They are the most overpaid people in India.
2. They have no work life balance and they don't even know what it means.
3. They think they are the best at everything, but they can't do anything right.
4. They are always complaining about their job and how much they hate it.
5. They are never satisfied with their salary or benefits package.
6. They are always looking for new jobs because they think they deserve better than what they currently have.

Would you like to add anything else here?

Software Engineers as seen by a Product Manager...

PM as seen by Engineers: 
 1. Doesn't do anything other than throwing random jargons 
 2. Can't explain what they do other than say how they are not Program manager or something else

Met a PM from IIT / IIM with 4 years of experience. He is working at a  well know soonicorn at a salary of 17  lakhs per year . He used to draw 30 lakhs per year in his last role before we was laid off . Interesting Times ahead

PM Salaries Have Crashed.

A minute of silence to all the grapevine polls where salary expectations are so high 😁

Growth Manager

Product Owner

Razorpay probably has the most overrated engineering culture from the outsider's perspective. Everytime on Twitter there's some npc telling how Razorpay is a dream place to work at or how Razorpay engineering is the holy grail.
From inside it's hilarious that someone could even think of those things. There's no learning path, especially in payments business unit for engineers who are forever stuck in ad hoc tasks. There's no long term plan, no roadmap, just PM and EMs shoving down and hocs.
Even in terms of learning from peers, there are so few charters where someone works with a lead, mostly it's just slogging it out alone in an ad hoc or some bug fix.
It's almost always an eternal cycle of never working in impactful projects -> never get assigned one, because there are so few -> get average reviews -> again being asked to work on "impactful projects".
 If anyone is under 3/4 yoe they should stay away from razorpay for their careers sake.

Razorpay engineering - a rant

Share your 2 cents keep it short and to just 1 advice!

Drop one solid advice for someone who wants to be a Product Manager! 🦄

Welcome to Business Roles's Private Community

As a PM I would say it is to delivery high quality product in less time. 🕰️

What is the biggest problem you face in your daily job? Please mention your role as well.

1. High pressure on timelines- business and top management shits on you if you don’t deliver on time
2. No power to control the outcome- engineers don’t listen to you neither does the design or analytics team, you end up begging for resources
3. Too much politics- business or a senior PM can steal your bandwidth anytime
4. Lack of recognition- if it succeeds business did it, if it fails it is product teams fault (engg never gets blamed for shit)

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