Yaa sometimes the lord smiles and you get a lazy/dumb one. 
 Very important to have a dumb PM for an easy life.

Have heard a lot of stories other way round. Want to see if this perspective exists at all or not.

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

Any developers here who realized the importance/value/contribution of PMs? If yes, how so?

Product Manager

Any developers here who realized the importance/value/contribution of PMs? If yes, how so?- Grapevine

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

Let's face it. In some company (read mine) they are the gatekeepers of all things roadmap, obviousness, communication between engineers and business. While in some companies they are nothing but a left over thought acting no more than a typical Program Manager (Google and how Engineers have more say and power in roadmaps).

What are your thoughts on your PM?

Ask Engineers: Thoughts on Product Managers?

Tech Lead

Background: I work in a D2C consumer product startup, we have an in-house website and a growing tech team of 7 people. The whole business team is 100+. I'm a '23 grad from a tier 1 engineering college.

I joined the company back in September when the job market was at the bottom and I had to take a 40% pay cut (21LPA to 12LPA) (while switching (the last company ran out of funding). I was at a higher than avg base in my previous role but the current role is 20% below the average. (15LPA) The company is in a growth stage and lots of processes are yet to be defined which leads to a lot of chaos but I get a lot of freedom as well.

My manager is aware of the whole situation and we had also negotiated a 6-month review for ESOP allotment. My monthly reviews have been going well and we have shipped some good improvements and features over the last few months.

Only PM in the startup, how much appraisal should I ask for at 6 months?

Engineers saying pms shouldn't exist should for once get what they want. Most engineers I know get anxious enough to take leaves once a customer shouts at them lol

Pms shouldn't exist folks should get what they want

Computer Operator

Assume you're currently enjoying your role as a jack of all trades. If your manager come and tell you that you need to choose whether you need to be a 
- Software Engineer
- Product Manager
- Program Manager
- Analyst
- Product Operations Manager

Which one would you choose? And why? 


Note: You're currently contributing to all of this in someway or the other, and the manager wants to ensure that you are also having a good career growth within the company, or you should be ready if you're looking for an external job.

The manager and the team is 100% in on supporting you on any of the above choice. 

[These are not random options, but came up because of the exposure to these domains and the related results delivered]

Selecting a Career

Curious if there are any PMs who started their careers as product designers or sth similar. If yes, would love to know your story. If someone around is has a similar story, would love to hear that as well!

Any designers turned PMs?

Product Designer

Would you rather be an Engineer learning how to Product or a Product Manager learning how to Engineer?

Answer is obvious mate. And it's already in motion. 
 Everyone knows current product management breed is a messed up fraudulent bunch. They will run into poverty if they don't change ways🙂

Founding Engineer

What the devil is PMs business in search solutioning man? They talk to engineers from another team to understand the solution and then explain that solution to another set of engineer/ds team and brainstorm on what the solution should be. The disconnect is massive in this communication gap.
Why d fck should PMs discuss a search solution? Their job was done if they connected 2 engineer /DS team.

Don't get me wrong, they are putting in hard work to build something, but the disconnect is massive. 2 engineers or Data Scientists can identify the problem in a jhalak. God these PMs sitting in between communication makes things go in useless circles and is a massive unnecessary kachara. All because you are trying to earn ur food in a place u barely belong. Fckin mess

PMs in search

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Consultant, Investment Banking went from sought after careers to fads post 2008 crisis when the world realized that these folks are crooks due to their role in propogating the Great Financial Crisis.

Given the backlash tech companies has been getting and global layoffs, will Product Manager also become a passing fad?

Seeing lot of anti Product Manager sentiment on this app off late. Was Product Management also a fad?

Someone here said engineers can become PM but PM can't become engineers. It can't be more correct than this. But reality is, it sounds goods only in theory.  
  
  I asked this same question to my director, why have you hired us when engineers clearly know more about products than us and are capable?  His answered that before the organisation formally created a team of product managers, it was only engineers that were handling product for decades. But that resulted into substandard products being developed, chaotic product release and consistent drop in revenue. The reason being engineers became backlog managers and engineers beging engineers, never focused on business value. Instead, they focused on technical aspect heavily. Engineers never bothered to check if what they were developing will actually sell in the market or not.  
  
 And mind you, this was a product that all of us use in daily lives. The numbers of users in India alone would be millions. So to summarise, yes, engineers can become PMs but generally they stay loyal to their pedigree of BE/B.Tech and become very shitty PMs. They like to have more technical conversations than strategic discussions and hate things that are not quantifiable, subjective. And business facing people here in forum would know, things are always not quantifiable in business planning, market outlook. It is based on assumptions.  
  
 An excellent PM would be someone who is an engineer but knows how to focus on business value of the product, make it customer oriented etc. I had the pleasure of working of one such PM in my last stint and he was truly outstanding. CEO knew him personally and this is in an organization with thousands of employees

Program Manager

PM of 5 years. Same place the whole time. We have a new Engineering Manager. 

They started 2 months ago and at first they seemed like they were very happy to learn our process and products. Then they soon started to manipulate the Engineering team which was very cooperative earlier.

It’s incredibly demotivating. We are a small startup, and the culture isn’t great but seriously no need to be so dismissive of other people’s efforts and feelings. They are just fucking rude. No other word for it really. The problem is that they do NOT get the product side of things so you can’t explain anything to them. They start to physically roll their eyes when you go anymore product than the word “PRD”.

I have never had to deal with someone like this and it’s really stressing me out as they are involved in effectively every project I work on. Advice that isn’t “quit” will be appreciated.

I should also clarify that when I say “product limitations” I really mean how much effort goes into getting things right, the delays are shearing the roadmap apart.

why do Software Engineers act so rude? How to solve this in my team?

As a Product Manager, why do Software Engineers act so rude?

Software Engineer

No, I'm not talking about the job market. That's dog shit -- barely any vacancies, and engineers earn 25%ish more. 

However, in a world with 10x better Co-Pilots and other GenAI tools, problem identification is going to be every employee's moat. 'Tech-Enabled' Business PMs will have the brightest futures. There's already a rise in PM-led vs Eng-led startups. This will become clearer 5-10 years down the line.

Also, supply-demand is not as skewed as you think. Everyone thinks this job is easy, and hence, a bunch of folks are aspiring PMs on LinkedIn. I believe quality PMs are still rare (personally have a long way to go).

Would love to hear more. I'm young in my career and maybe naive but this is what I feel.

Unpopular Opinion: It's a great time to be a PM

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

Need a feedback. Are PM roles drastically reducing?

There has been a huge influx of posts dissing roles like Product, Marketing, HR etc. by Techies.

Every other post, or comment is made by them undermining the value of other depts and these cuties think business runs just by their sub-par code.

I understand that their delusion stems from the fact they get paid huge salaries by loss making companies. Which is bound to crash sooner or later. 

Rant over.

Why are Techies so delusional?

Interesting POV. 
  
 Nassim Nicholas Taleb mentions an interesting advice. If you don’t know what to do, follow what the smartest people in your generation are doing. 
  
 These are almost exclusively fulfilling and financially attractive opportunities 
  
 According to him, in the 1990s Lebanon, the smartest kids in undergrad went and became Economists. In the 2010s, the smartest kids became Software Engineers. 
  
 Perhaps, their ego does not stem from the money but from competence.  
  
 However, true charisma is merging that competence with warmth. And for that, you must eliminate the ego.

Founder

Sometimes PMs want to change the flow of way things working. They often say it's a small change and will not take much time. They see things on high level, but they don't see what are the logics behind need to change and what are DB migration required and sometimes it is not possible to change because many things dependent on it.

Developer issues with PMs

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.

Sharing some reflections on this:

1. Product is not a function with a large hierarchy / multiple levels in the ladder. Managerial responsibility comes in very late in the product career and the spans are typically small (relative to other functions like engineering, sales, operations). This also means a steeper funnel to the top and only a handful VP Product roles in the industry.

2. Product is centered around technology and digital consumer trends, both of which are fast changing. This requires constant unlearning and relearning. But more critically, this also means that previous knowledge/experience hits a plateau on marginal value beyond a basic threshold (where you have developed some essential product semse and skills).

3. Product managers are also much higher-paid vs other functional peers, at comparable years of experience. This means that a PM gets to a very high salary (say, 1+ crore) by the age of 40 (15-20y into their career). Tech functions in non-tech companies (like FMCG, banking) cannot offer that kind of pay, meaning salary growth beyond a point is limited to tech-first companies / limiting addressable market for lateral moves.

All of these considererd, how should PMs think about the longevity of their careers? Unlike traditional roles, this does not seem like a "retire at 60" job. What would be the realistic age one should plan for, at which career growth and salary growth will stagnate? What are ways in which a 80%ile PM can extend their career (eg: also taking up engineering management or P&L responsibility or growth function etc., to increase scope)?

PS: this post is not for the top 5-10% PMs. They will always find roles at VP level etc, this is for the 50-90%ile bucket of PM talent.

Longevity of a product career

Will commend you on a very well written and well articulated post. 
  
 Options for the future will be apparent at ~40.  Most peak roles will be achieved between 45-50. 
  
 Possible exits: 
  
 1. Running Category roles at companies which have a broad canvas, multiple product categories. 
 2. Deputing for and eventually running a P&L or a LoB. 
 3. Sales or more critically Customer Success.  Don't shy away from revenue responsibilities. 
  
 Engineering is a sharp left turn imo.  It's not an overlapping skillset at best and don't see how that is part of a PMs likely roadmap.

Sales Manager

Investor

And I always thought that's what PMs do 🤭

Do anyone else think PMs aren't very good at the things they are supposed to do.
It is evident from failing products across industry.
Any views??

Any developers here who realized the importance/value/contribution of PMs? If yes, how so?

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