While hiring I no longer look at numbers knowing it's all just story making. 

I ask the candidate directly what they're experience is like and try to drill down on what they actually built, what kind of hypothesis they had ect.

Product Manager

There was a time when CV gurus on LinkedIn were asking people to "quantify" their wins in their resume. Guess , everyone has gone overboard taking that advice.

How can I reach out for a referral at Swiggy? 😅

Agree. I discount most of the numbers mentioned on my resume

Software Developer

I’m a VP of PM (14yoe). I keep getting CVs of fresh grads (<3 yoe) claiming they’ve incread engagement by 50% in thier internship or that made made the product grow 10x.   Asking them in depth on...

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

I’m a VP of PM (14yoe). I keep getting CVs of fresh grads (<3 yoe) claiming they’ve incread engagement by 50% in thier internship or that made made the product grow 10x. 

Asking them in depth on how they achieved it gets me very generic answers. Which tells me either they are inflating thier numbers or just working on products that have very high PMF to begin with. 

Making big impact always takes time - understanding and solving a problem rarely happens within a day.

They want to feel like they are changing the world with tech within a month of joining the org and peddle this BS to themselves and others.

Stop BSing on Resumes

Stop BSing on Resumes- Grapevine

Someone told me that it is an issue that can be solved by having high agency but it is exactly the thing that is penalized first. You can only affect the locus of your influence but when you need to get work done collaboratively it is mind numbing work.

You need to sell, sell and sell. Not the right ideas always win but the loudest guy who is really chummy with the founders. Most founders can't do any better because it serves their ego. Doing things right means accepting that your throughput of ideas based in gut call is bad for the company. Having a system where meritocratic ideas win while "smart" show-sha people who are all talk and no show are fired straight up.

I have myself witnessed the death of culture when the inner circle does as what they want to, and soon the it turns very toxic for everyone involved. I can tell you that right now I am pretty much sure that 4 people will leave within 1 year, even if they were offered a 100% hike.

High agency means that you can only do the best with the cards that have been dealt to you. But even with high agency you cannot expect to solve big problems that extend beyond your scope of responsibilities.

PM RANT: Launching anything in a big company is an "impossible task"...

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

It takes time to understand and master any domain. You have to do something substantial. Where has the humility gone? Does calling yourself Leader increases chances of getting jobs? It’s mind boggling
And shallow.

Why are 2-3 YOE people calling themselves leader(product leader , engineering leader)?

Welcome to IT Company Discussion's Private Community

I applied for the opening at JPL (Jio Pvt Ltd) in June of last year. Received the interview call on 4th July and concluded the entire process with the final HR round on 17th August (already painfully slow).

This was followed by a period of complete silence from the HR's end, which finally broke on 30th September (after probably 30+ follow-ups) when they gave me a verbal offer and gave me confidence for the final offer release within a few days.

Well, the final offer came on 27th December 2023, close to 3 months after the verbal offer (again, after probably 40+ follow-ups). Joined on 16th January 2024 (due to some emergency), and was treated to a GREAT campus in Navi Mumbai. --And this is probably where everything good with JPL ends.

After spending 2 days, I understand that things are not what I expected from any Product organisation, and that I made the wrong decision. 

Gave myself 30 days to ensure the feelings were backed by more experiences, and I'm not acting impulsively. Day 31, I started interviewing with other organisations, and fortunately was able to get in touch with the HR from another organisation that I rejected for Jio, and they were kind enough to resend the offer letter.

Dropped the bomb on 8th March 2024, startling everyone because people usually don't like leaving their comfortable lives at Jio. My L1 and L2 aligned on a 14 days notice period, but the "smartasses" in the HR department thought its a great idea for me to serve the entire notice period of 60 days, and thus I'm stuck here till 6th May 2024.

Opening the forum for people with any amount of experience to ask questions about the hiring process, the culture, the turn-off, the decision to quit, ANYTHING.

AMA: Quit my job as a Product Manager at Jio within 2 months

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

A lot of folks working at startups seem to be "passionate " about their job. Some of them possibly, truly are. Some foolishly reverse engineer this passion because they're paid really well and they've been doing a good job and it's good personal PR to say "passion".  A few reality checks.

1. Your cool Bangalore lifestyle is a result of investment risks/bets taken by VC's .

2. Your salary is as much about the market demand as it is about your " passion " and talent.

3. Startups will generally lower the bar for hiring processes to meet their demand for talent. Why need so much talent? Because the startup  needs to spend that 100M$ Series C that just made them a unicorn. That's how they convince the VC to give more money. "We are going to 2x revenue by 2xing our salesforce and buying 10M$ worth of Saas that will increase our productivity by 5x. " And boom ...100M$ transferred into you SVB bank account.

4. You are as replaceable as a garbage bag on your dustbin. The HR is probably flirting with 10 other like you over linkedin.


5. The "values" this startup apparently espouses are mostly nothing but a honey trap and positioning to lure talent.

It's great to have a nice tech job that pays well and allows you to gloat on twitter like a techbro but don't let it fool you into getting an inflated sense of entitlement. You're probably living on borrowed time....and money. :)

" Passionate " Startup folks

Transitioning to an SPM role (IC for now) in a new org soon and wanted some advice from the ones who’ve been there and done that (SPMs, VPs, Directors)

What are some absolute must-do things in the first 3 months to set the groundwork for success?

What are some common pitfalls to avoid?

Any good resources that helped you, please share :)

Advice from Product Leaders

The job market has dried up for senior product roles. Do you think the situation will improve soon? What's your overall outlook of product management as a career beyond 10 years? Do you see yourself doing this for another decade?

Asking mostly from a supply and demand point of view. Also, has seen that the role is becoming more and more vague and replaceable.

Context: Leading a 6 membered product team in a series B funded company. Managing the ceo/cpo opinion differences, moving to wfo from remote, high work pressure and too much reporting. I have been working with series A, series B companies throughout my career.

To people with 10+ years in product management, what's your outlook for the future?

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

its advertised as minj CEO role but what is the reality?

Why is Product Manager becoming dream career for many?

I'm seeing so many posts where startup employees are cribbing about things like layoffs, work culture etc etc. Doesn't seem like they have perspective on everything it takes to build a startup. I've built a failed startup myself and have immense respect for founders who are grinding it out there in such difficult recessionary circumstances. 

And then you have so many of the engineers and PMs cribbing about basics without talking about important things like learning growth, building for the future etc. Why such myopia? I work at a big tech and envy the speed at which startups move, the big responsibility everyone gets to handle, the fast career growth. All these things are being cribbed about. They crib about founders wanting more. Their job is to ensure success, not to give lifetime jobs to entitled people. They have more headaches you can imagine. In my small startup I had a million headaches. I can only imagine how hard it must be to run larger ships. Is everyone joining a startup these days looking for a get rich quick scheme?

Why are startup folks so entitled?

If you can’t run a business that lets people have a normal life then you’re the one who thinks they’re entitled to employees. 
 Businesses must take risk, employees don’t. Stop your whining that people won’t support shitty business plans

Growth Manager

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.

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

What are some of the tried & tested ways to get shortlist from big tech firms in Product domain ? Have applied to their portals multiple times but hardly got any response, despite good profile and experience

Best way to get resume shortlisted in big tech firms for PMs

Hey folks!
Lately I have a feeling  of stagnation in my career as a PM. I started as an APM, got promoted and then after a switch back as an APM ( better work).
What are your thoughts on how one should look at progressing?

How to advance in PM careere

Associate Product Manager

I'm a product manager myself and I've been noticing this mentality.

Founders of pre-PMF stage companies, having raised tons of money in the bull market in a last couple of years, have hired tons of resources with no clarity and vision whatsoever.

They continue to ignore they're building a product nobody wants. They barely talk to users. On top of it, they hire Product Managers thinking it's a silver bullet and will solve PMF issues.

It's founders responsibility to figure out PMF and not anybody's else. You need to get in the weeds and not throw money at problems.

It just doesn't end there. These companies with average talent pool and the kind of culture that sets it top-down because of these average founders, expect PMs to own everything and fix everything. Everybody from Tech to Marketing shrugs off from the responsibility expect PMs to tell what needs to be done. This chutiya mindset of 'sit and wait' until a PM tells let breeds more inefficiency as output becomes slower as nobody is incentivised to think and take decisions. Also, everybody enjoys doing what are being told because no consequences if things blow up.

Hire competent people across functions and get involved in product building. It's already too late to fix it if this resonates with you.

PM roles have made startups with average talent pool more inefficient

Unfortunately this is the reality in most companies in the world. It's not just pre-PMF startups.  
  
 That's just how things are in corporate. 
  
 I was lucky to be working in a pre-PMF startup where engineers took more responsibility. And they themselves planned out the tech debt and optimised APIs/queries, etc.  
  
 And I know I'm not gonna find such set of engineers ever again.  
  
 Best thing to do is to make peace with it and do whatever you can to make the best product 😀

Hey everyone, excited to be doing this AMA!

A brief about me, I work currently as a Director of Product at an Indian unicorn startup 

About my career: 
- Did my undergrad from IIT and then masters from an Ivy league school
- Have been in product for almost 10 years now - across 2 Indian unicorn startups and a publicly listed company

Would love to take questions on what it means to be a PM, growing within the role, building your career, and other things :) 

Will be back here at 4 pm and start replying
Shoot away!

AMA 🎙️: Hey all, I am pmsprint, Director of Product Management at a Unicorn in India!

Hi guys, I am about to graduate in a month(Btech,NIT-Civil). I am adept(skilled) in data analysis, Product roadmapping, Feature prioritisation, UI/UX etc. I also have a PM internship experience. The problem is I am unable to land any product analyst/  APM full-time roles. Any suggestions, guidance will be of great help.


Thanks guys,

Stop BSing on Resumes

Discover More

Product Managers on

by Karilyn Lee

Gojek

PM RANT: Launching anything in a big company is an "impossible task"...

Product Managers on

by Isaiah Denver

Stealth

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

Misc on

by Jordon Vernon

Freelancer

Why are 2-3 YOE people calling themselves leader(product leader , engineering leader)?

IT Company Discussion on

by Karilyn Lee

Sprinklr

AMA: Quit my job as a Product Manager at Jio within 2 months

Indian Startups on

by Matilda Lee

Stealth

" Passionate " Startup folks

Product Managers on

by Kendall Lee

Startup

Advice from Product Leaders

Product Managers on

by Jordon Vernon

Udaan

To people with 10+ years in product management, what's your outlook for the future?

Product Managers on

by Coy Nadeen

Swiggy

Longevity of a product career

Indian Startups on

by Kendall Lee

CricPe

Why is Product Manager becoming dream career for many?

Indian Startups on

by Jordon Taye

Amazon

Why are startup folks so entitled?

Product Managers on

by Kendall Hyrum

Gojek

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

Product Managers on

by Kalan Denver

DealShare

I believe Product Management is a really toxic role

Product Managers on

by Aaron Lee

Stealth

Best way to get resume shortlisted in big tech firms for PMs

Product Managers on

by Kalan Vernon

Startup

How to advance in PM careere

Indian Startups on

by Kendall Lee

Stealth

PM roles have made startups with average talent pool more inefficient

Product Managers on

by Blair Carmden

Nykaa

AMA 🎙️: Hey all, I am pmsprint, Director of Product Management at a Unicorn in India!

Product Managers on

by Jordon Lee

Student

Landing a PM role