Fellow reminder to my dev and PM friends

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

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.

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

Experienced Product, Tech, Sales, founder folks of GV, what would be your one piece of advice for a new APM/PM (1-2 yoe) in the industry, that would help them in the long run. Feel free to also let us know any mistakes you made as a Product guy, early in your career.

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.

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

Lately I am seeing a lot more people talk about the fact that being a PM is a sub optimal strategy for an eventful career in Tech. However, let me remind you that people in tech tend to be predominantly engineers and they like the people skills needed to be good at making Products for actual humans. I have personally witnessed PMs be great at talking to various teams in Engg, Design, Analystics and Operations. They are so good at talking that they forget that they actually need to work and not just speak all the time. I feel that PMs are all talk but now work and just chill around the foosball table all day. Once in a while they will go and flirt with that new chick that joined their team. In case the joke wasn't clear, "PMs are the cesspool of Tech". 😂

This is not a question for the cocky new grad in the overvalued startup, but for the few seasoned PMs that still reply out here. Where do PMs go after they peak? By peaking I mean arriving at a GPM or Staff PM position at the top 10-15 companies (you can do your own ranking here). Nobody has the true statistics but I will use the assumption that 75% (debatable) of those who peak, will get laid off within 2 years from their ‘peak role’. The remaining will be able to progress into DoP and VP in the same top company or another in the top 15. Where do they go then? I am pretty positive, from experience, that they don’t go any up. Do they go down the ladder of new startups for titles and ending up in the worst ones after being laid off 4-5 times? Do they quit all together? Do they open a farm? Do they start their own startup? Comments and thoughts folks!