I'm in the same boat. Currently working as a PM at a startup where I joined as an APM right out of College. Got promoted within a year.  
 I feel like I could improve by having someone senior in the team to mentor me but I'm the only one working in the Product team from the past 2 years.

In a similar space as you mate, solo PM in D2C, joined fresh out of college. Its tough :)

Product Manager

Why did I read similar post on Reddit today?

Coz you were wasting time during office hours

And you are wasting time blatantly copy pasting from Reddit ? https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/s/hYtpb9Khww

Software Engineer

I believe 3 YOE in product analytics or dev is ideal to get into an APM role.

Same trajectory as you, but now after 1 year I'm confident in myself

It's not gonna change anytime soon. 
  
  
 Imo the only way to learn is to ship. The more you shop, the more you learn

So I started PMing a year back, 25y atm. Joined as APM right out of college. Sometimes I feel I should've done some adjacent role which would could've helped me in understanding how the industry wo...

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

So I started PMing a year back, 25y atm. Joined as APM right out of college. Sometimes I feel I should've done some adjacent role which would could've helped me in understanding how the industry works. Most of the times I work on feature mindlessly.

Many times lead engineers directly come to me for ticket requirements, all though i can deal with them, from time to time i feel like an imposter.

Anyone else feel like they got into PM too early?

Software Developer

Anyone else feel like they got into PM too early?- Grapevine

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

Hey folks, 

I have been working as an Associate Product Manager full time for the last 1+ year, and everyday I feel that I am not doing something impactful although I do have a lot of work on a daily basis. 

Initially, in my first year of college I explored growth roles and out of fomo being a BTech student tried exploring, tech by doing DSA, Android Development and FE too. Honestly, I was too naive to decide where I should go and coincidentally I got to know about PM and there you go, I went on to do 2 years of PM internships and now 1+ year full-time role. 

I thought, everything would be fine with time but I guess, I have spoken enough lie to myself and now I should move on. 

I have started learning FE from theodinproject.com and I believe, I will be back on track in the next 2 months. 

I just want some suggestions/help from seniors here, on what should be my strategy to get into FE roles? 

It would be super helpful for me. 

Thanks in advance 🙌

PM to FE 😞😞

Started working in a new org two months back as a PM.
while discussing new requirememts with the tech I am always affraid that whatever I am saying is correct or not. As I am not familiar with all the systems.
Sometimes during sprint planning tech will tell me or my manager would say you missed this scenario or this functionality works like this so we may have some issue in approach you are taking.

I feel like everyone is  judging me if I am making any mistake.

No idea how to overcome this , pretty low on confidence now a days and keep on thinking am I good enough ?

Imposter syndrome

Management has tried to underpay us all this time. We deserve to know what is the real salaries for our YOE? 

I am being paid 24.6L CTC / 2 YOE. What about you?

Product Management CTC Thread: How much PMs really make?

You are being paid fairly or above average.

Whenever you a call PM fraud here, they come & put justifications like you don't know business, products built by Engineers are shyt, only PMs can build good products, engineers don't prioritize business needs bla bla.

A data scientist/analytics perspective:
1. When we call a PM fraud, we refer to mainly those who come without a background in either of tech or business. Cool wannabes straight out of college & learnt nothing but attitude over years.
If a PM was an engineer, or analytics, or business or ops, then others first see him/her as engineer/etc & then a manager. That's the right way it should be. 

2. 'Business won't be prioritized' is such a complacency:
Business is bread & butter of Analytics and AI. It is the primary thing we check in interviews, a large portion of the interview focus' on the problem statement and prioritisations.

End note: PMs are hot, but only when they have a solid foundation in stuff they are building. They need to know depths. Anyone apart from this breed are worthless & Indian startups are filled with this shyt
A best PM would be a senior engineer/analyst with penchant for business practicality & customer perspective.

Why of 1st Point? Because how can you manage a team when you don't even know what that team does? For eg: I can tell my PM any random blabbing about why model is working/not & she has no idea to judge my words. Leave AI, with tech pipelines too I can give any deadlines & justify it how would she know? Besides if they don't have tech background they bring in random expectations which is far away from feasibility. Why should any tech guy respect them? They can understand business req, connect with business teams and build better. That's the exact role of a project manager.

Product Manager Worth & their insecure justifications

Founding Engineer

I've been working as an APM at a startup for about 6 months. I kinda fell into the role. Was a developer previously for about a year. So in total about 2 years of industry experience. As an APM, I've not gotten a lot of opportunities to work on hands on PM stuff. My line manager isn't a great mentor and despite having conversations with him to give me more product related tasks, my situation has not improved. 

What should I do? Will I be able to land another APM or a PM job elsewhere?

Need advice for APM.

Assistant Manager

I feel like startups have unreasonable and unnecessary self induced pressure at times. I am working as an APM at a gate management startup and all I feel is pressurized even though the release gets delayed whether due to faulty implementation or dev or qa or requirement change from business side which the PM has no control over. While all this is happening you are left to wonder where did you lack? Was it at Product Management or at Project Management because clearly both are not happening properly.

It's weird how so little at times is in your control and yet how all the blame you have to take because primarily it was your job to think it all through.

PMing through and through

Associate Product Manager

I have recently joined a startup as an APM (My first PM role) and my manager is teaching me the bits and pieces of Product Management. The issue is, while he's helpful and experienced in this field, he sometimes talks to me in a very condescending way which kinda hurts me. I agree that I have a lot to learn and getting a job as an APM is a big thing, especially when you've been in a specialist role for all your life but I still don't get the point of patronizing your juniors. I'm trying to get better at writing documentation and specs but I get very disheartened after every spec review meeting I schedule with him.

Any tips for handling this? And what are some ways to get better at writing documentation and specs?

How to deal with a condescending manager?

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

I have recently joined a startup as an APM (My first PM role) and my manager is teaching me the bits and pieces of Product Management. The issue is, while he's helpful and experienced in this field, he sometimes talks to me in a very condescending way which kinda hurts me. I agree that I have a lot to learn and getting a job as an APM is a big thing, especially when you've been in a specialist role for all your life but I still don't get the point of patronizing your juniors. I'm trying to get better at writing documentation and specs but I get very disheartened after every spec review meeting I schedule with my manager. 

Any tips for handling this?

Just wanted to know people's experiences who have made this switch or even just general things i or anyone should know. 
Apart from the obvious change in work, Is the salary structure the same? Etc.

And just for context in my specific case I'm almost closing in on 4 years of experience in software development.

Switching from software developer to PM

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

Had started my career as a android developer for 2 years. Was fairly good at it. Went for a MBA from IIM K and joined a fintech startup as a PM. Around 5yoe PM now

Keep regretting on and off how life could have been as a developer. 
1. Crazy salary- esp after covid. Almost every org ways way more to a dev than a PM
2. Lot of options in job market - Unlike PM where demand is far less than supply
3. Specialised role - unlike PM where there is literally no entry barrier
4. Hard skill - unlike PM where everyone keeps questioning the need of the role
5. Chiller life - unlike PM where failures are yours but success is team’s

Does anyone else feel the same?

Sde to PM. Regrets

I don't see pm working in team, rest everyone like engineers, designers and analyst tend to work together.
If you are a senior PM how does you feel

Does the pm role gets lonely down the line

Hey folks. 
I am a PM with 1 YOE. 

I make a lot of unforced errors and have been in bad situations because of poor communication too. Although, I try my best to communicate everything and anything. The founder just hear me speak and not to hear specifically. 

I am gradually feeling, that maybe I am not good enough to survive in this role. 

On the other hand, I am pretty much interested in finance. Am above average in hard skills named as Financial Modelling, Financial Statement Analysis, Deal Structuring and Valuation Techniques. I read pre IPO papers to understand more about industries and sectors. Do financial modelling for the same companies to check if I am on the right track or not. 

How can I switch to a finance role maybe?  Or what other fields should I explore to get out of this. I have graduation in BTech. 

P. S. - Need some serious help. Thanks in advance.

[THREAD] Thinking to Switch from PM role

Im a Product Manager 1yoe in a SaaS startup.
I had a good experience in the first year. I got to build a product 0-1, competitor analysis, work on creating prioritization frameworks, UAT, content marketing, wireframing.

However, since January the compamy started their stabilization phase, and PM's are now taking care of Sales and lead generation(Content, Ads etc.). The nail in the coffin is we are getting dragged to follow up renewals( Customer Success) 🤢

Im currently motivated to building something new, and it feels like we are being dragged into everything as the company does not want to hire. With no pay hike or any adfitional benefit.

Please advice. Should I look for a new job?

Need advice

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.

Hi guys, need your help

I want to switch to the backend dev role, have pm experience of about 3yr 

So what should be the plan?

Inter company switch? Or any new company will consider my cv?

Anyone else feel like they got into PM too early?

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