Don't have to do work but can still get and claim a lot of credit

i think the diverse knowledge that PM's need to have because they have to work with different teams is what makes this job attractive

Consultant

Yes. But diverse doesnt grow on trees right? When will you have diverse knowledge? When you are actually into the industry doing real work for several years. PM role is not a student's job out of college. That's exactly what makes them dumb and unfortunately get called frauds 🙂

Founding Engineer

Money + Less tedious than consulting  
 What else

Software Developer

When I was doing engineering, all the students were desperate about getting into consulting jobs. Now when I am about to graduate from MBA, all the students are crazy about PM roles. There is a cra...

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

When I was doing engineering, all the students were desperate about getting into consulting jobs. Now when I am about to graduate from MBA, all the students are crazy about PM roles. There is a craze among both post grads and graduates about PM. Large shift within 5 years. Any thoughts?

Craze of PM

Craze of PM- Grapevine

Recently my company posted an opening for a PM job (5+yoe) on LinkedIn and i got final year engineering students from Tier 1/2/3 institutions in my DM asking for a referral for the job. 
I was like wtf at least first get 2-3 year of  any corporate experience and then think about moving to PM role. Why are freshers preparing for PM job out of a sudden

Why is there a sudden rise in craze for PM job

Almost every other post about PM function is as eye opening as this. What do you guys think?

PM future seems bleak?

Product Manager

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)

I believe Product Management is a really toxic role

Welcome to Business Roles's Private Community

Hello grapevine folks,

I am a 2024 batch btech Cse , general male candidate from IIIT( 10 year old).

Class 12th - 97% (ISC)
Class 10th - 96.4% (ICSE)
Btech Cgpa - 9.415 (till 6th sem)

I am thinking of giving CAT next year but in dilemma that should I go for work experience or not . As iims do prefer people having work experience. 

And what percentile should I aim for getting admission in old IIMs.

Thanks in advance.

MBA Guidance

Today a poll was conducted in my WhatsApp group for people who are planning for ms by the fall 2025 at US that wha roles are they targeting post their masters and majority of them are voted for product management so I want to ask is the product management is becoming new norm or it's just fomo among engineering grads like it was for software development 2-4 yrs back. Also what's the future of PMs in terms of salary, growth with advancement in AI tools

The PM trend

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

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

Hi guys, 
I have between 5-6 years of experience in engineering role (QA/Test automation). However over these years I have found the role to be unfulfilling due to the growth, impact and visibility. 
I have been considering going for a full time executive MBA (In India/Abroad) to switch into a PM/Strategy role. 
Wanted to understand if this is going to be really worth it, considering I will have high chances to start again at an entry level position? Or is this common to do post MBA?

Worth shifting into a PM role after 6-7 years of eng experience?

Software Engineer

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

I am currently working as a management consultant with a top firm (MBB, Kearney, Strat&, OW equivalent). I'm considering switch to PMM roles. On paper, both PMM and management consulting have some overlap in required skillsets (strong communication, problem solving, stakeholder and project management) but it is still not a popular MBB exit for consultants. Want to understand what's the industry expectation wrt PMM roles and if management consulting experiencd will be valued.

Any further insights from PMM or product/ growth folks will be highly appreciated. TIA.

Switch from consulting to product marketing

What is the future scope of the PM job role...will it still be relevant after 10 years, Is going to IIMs spending close to 25 lakhs in this economy to get into a PM job role justified??
Context: I know many people will say you don't need IIM to break into PM, But considering I'm a 25 Male, from tier 3 college...currently working as a product designer with 8 lpa...so I think the only way to reach 25-30 lpa in hand by 28 is by joining IIMs

Is getting into IIM to get into PM role justified?

Currently an APM in B2B from tier 1 college.
CTC: 21 LPA
Exp: ~2 yrs

Should I go for an MBA? If yes, then:
- Indian MBA vs Abroad
- 1 year vs 2 year

Goal is to progress rapidly in my career and get a stable job with good pay and WLB in a reputed company. Finally retire in 15-20 years from now with a hefty corpus.

MBA to climb the ladder as a PM

Product Management

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

Indian. I am a SDE (backend) currently. ~2 yrs exp. 16 LPA and I work 40-50 hrs a week. I like where I am, but I am not feeling the zeal for tech anymore. Probably will do a MBA down the line (thinking abroad, not sure) 

Looking for equal or greater pay, similar WLB, new domain. Should I switch to PM and try a hand at it? 

Am I aware of the reality or living in my own isolated reality?

Switch to PM?

Hello! I am an entrepreneur who has 4+ years of relevant experience as a business analyst and of Product Manager. I am looking for a PM opportunity, as I could not scale my venture.

My experience was majorly focused in the growth domain with e-commerce and SaaS projects. I have completed a couple of PM courses to brush up my knowledge.

I have applied for 200+ companies in the past month, but did not hear back from anyone.

Kindly share any advice so I can upskill myself more effectively. 
Also please share some insights on how I can get referrals from my network.

PM - Skill enhancement/ Career growth

Tier 1 MBA, 5 years of consulting plus corp strategy experience, 2 years data science exp pre MBA. Current ctc around 45.

Speaking to friends etc in the PM roles, I've developed an interest in the role. And would like to give it a fair shot. Just can't seem to figure out how. Any pointers would be really helpful.

Those of you who managed to break into a PM role after upto 5 years of non-PM work ex, how did you go about it?

Strategy & Operations

Need a feedback. Are PM roles drastically reducing?

What is the future scope of the PM job role...will it still be relevant after 10 years, Is going to IIMs spending close to 25 lakhs in this economy to get into a PM job role justified??
Context: I know many people will say you don't need IIM to break into PM, But considering I'm a 25 Male, from tier 3 college...currently working as a product designer with 8 lpa...so I think the only way to reach 25-30 lpa in hand by 28 is by joining IIMs

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