What are the mistakes you made? What do you think you did well? What could you have done better? What is the most difficult aspect of the job? What would you hope others understood about the role?

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

Your experience being a product manager

Product Manager

Your experience being a product manager- Grapevine

To folks who have loved working with a Product Manager at any point, what are some of the most important traits you admired about them?

Was it the personality/smartness, or their passion for work or something else entirely?

In my quest to understand what it takes to be the BEST Product Manager.

Product Owner

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Product managers are a divisive bunch. Ask us what we do, and most of us puff our chests and babble about Steve Jobs, PMF and god-knows-what. The rest slouch and mumble something about writing JIRAs.

Curious about how non-PM folks view us - both good and bad!

What do you think of Product Managers?

With over 10+ years of experience in Product management within the insurance and Fintech sector, I’ve realized that product management is still not understood/defined well as a role. I’m open to all sort of queries.

Ex-Policybazaar Product Head #AMA

"How do you look after any program from start to end that comes to you? How do you prioritize? What was the product process you followed?"

I explained the exact thing that i have followed in my previous company as a PM intern but the interviewer did not like the answer (maybe my structuring was wrong or maybe my way of communication). 

I want to understand from the experienced folks - how would they approach this question if they were asked this in an interview?

If this question is asked to you in a product management interview. What do you answer?

**The Good**

Let’s start with the positives, even though they are much better documented. It’s pretty easy to “fake it till you make it.” I am not alone in feeling the imposter syndrome. Yet, a huge part of being a PM is just asking good questions, learning, listening, and trying to be impartial. Coincidentally, that is exactly what you should do when you don’t know what you are doing—just try to learn. 

And honestly, it’s really fun. People like to harp on the challenges and skills you need to be a PM, but I feel like no one talks about how enjoyable the job is. You’re in the middle of strategy, business, design, and customers. Every day is about solving problems. It is hectic, yes, but it is also very rewarding. 

There’s another thing: people like you. It’s shallow to admit it, but the truth is, as a PM, you are delivering value to your company and stakeholders. People appreciate that. 

**The Bad**

But let’s not sugarcoat it; it’s exhausting. Even if you’re an extrovert (which I am not), spending hours in meetings, collaborating, and navigating requirements is exhausting work. The pressure can be overwhelming.

When you do badly, it all goes badly. When things are in sync, being a PM feels almost easy. But when the wheels start to come off, it is brutal. Deadlines get missed, you screw up MVPs, you piss off stakeholders, and you feel backed into a corner. It really isn’t fun to let down other people, but it really sucks when you let yourself down. Since so much of the PM job is interacting with internal and external stakeholders, your successes often feel hidden while your failures feel public. A lot of times, it’s because of things outside of your control too.

And then there’s the hard part: saying no. You have to say no a lot as a PM. Often, it is to people that far outrank you, like your CEO. There are countless books written about this topic, but no one is open about the fact that saying no kind of sucks. It feels good to give people what they want. Even though saying no is the right thing to do, that doesn’t make it easy or fun.

What are some truths (good and bad) about product management that noone talks about?

Welcome to Business Roles's Private Community

I am PM with around 5 yrs of experience. I’m struggling to take my skill to next level. always receive feedback from management that output isn’t good, mostly that UX isn’t good. what can I do to improve my work?

1. Read books ? 
2. Study successful products from outside ?
3. Listen to podcasts 
4. Work with great product people? but hardly these exist 
5. leave this field altogether?
6. Just have patience and keep learning everyday?

Can experienced people share what has worked out well for them? or point me to some directions?

How to up your game as a Product Manager?

Software Engineer

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, I'm currently working as a Product Analyst at a promising startup, where I've been working on enhancing product delivery processes, keeping a check on deadlines (part of PMO), and driving client adoption for the past 1.5 years. 

Here my primary responsibilities involve conducting data analysis of projects and tickets, identifying trends and patterns, and providing insights to inform product decisions. However, I'm not directly involved in the core decision-making processes that shape product strategy.

This is my first job and I feel there will be nothing specific that I will own in project management and/or process excellence, there is nothing much to grow in this field, and pretty much anybody can replace this task, *please correct me if I'm wrong. 

I'm particularly fascinated by the prospect of building solutions that will directly impact our clients hence the real world, developing innovative product strategies, and bringing impact to the business. 

I have some questions and seeking guidance. Insights, personal experiences, or any guidance will help me a lot. Thanks in advance.

- Should I consider pursuing a product management role?
- Or should I step toward product strategy? 
- If I need to get into product strategy, how can I do that? is an MBA a must for this kind of role?
- Or are there other avenues that might be more suitable for my current skillset and experience?

Looking for answers and guidance on my career.

Product analyst

Hey folks,
I'm wondering what kinda role I should pursue next after product management. 
I'm done with this role, works vary from company to company and team to team. It's tough to make people understand the difference between pre-PMF products & mature products, and how the metrics impact vary across the spectrum. 
And this completely changes the equation of your appraisal or your promotion as well. 
I don't see myself working in the same kind of role after 5 years.
So I'm wondering what kinda role I should look out for?
My general interests are more analytics & strategy centric. What do you guys think??

Where to go after Product???

Data Analyst

I want to understand if this is common for folks and is there a way to tackle it.

I have recently moved my career from Talent Acquisition to Product Management Internally in my organization. My New Manager has also very recently joined the team. I see him barely investing time in understanding the skillset I hold and whenever there's a time of taking some responsibilities he will give it to others. I have been doing some operational work for the past 1 month now, majorly with excel sheets and coordination. 

I want to start working as a Product Management Professional and not as an operational Guy !

Open to suggestions on how to take this up !

Early days as Product Management Professional

I see a lot of mock videos which covers your core product questions (product design, metrics, improvement etc) but I am curious on how to create product stories for the products that I worked on in my current job. What is the interviewer expecting when he asks about the products I worked on? How should I structure it?
This question is open for any product interviews where the candidate had a prior product experience.

Experienced product manager interviews

Folks, let’s create a thread on what are some of the most frequently asked questions we face in product management interviews. Let’s follow this template:

Company name
Question asked 
Role/role seniority

Hope this helps the community!

Product Management common interview questions

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

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.

Advice for PMs!

How difficult is it to get into Product Marketing? Is the role fun or monotonous? Asking cause I want to understand how to transition into this role.

Switch to Product Marketing

Partnership Manager

What are the expectations? 

Assuming someone for SPM roles

How are product management interview are happening ?

Analyst

Hey. I have close to 6 years of Experience in Sales and Customer centric roles but recently I have developed an interest in Product Development. For reference, I have an Engineering degree in Computer Science and MBA as well. 

A few questions for clarity: 

1. Is it possible to make this transition into a Product role at this stage of my career? 
2. If I want to teach myself the skills of a product manager, how should I start and what resources should i refer to, to begin with that can start the learning process?

Transition to a Product Role

Customer Success

Inspired from @salt post in Product Managers channel.

What was the most important learning you have had as a Product Manager?

Growth Manager

I see a lot of product managers come from an engineering background. They have worked for a few years as an engineer before making the transition. I want to understand the factors that led to the to make the switch. 

Also, how has that turned out after moving to product management? Did you find the things that you were looking for?


PS: It is also common knowledge that PMs are paid less than engineers.

Engineer turned PMs

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.

Your experience being a product manager

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