How to get into product management ?
Say you are a spectator and this seems like the next best thing to get into.. is that the right thought? And if you’re a non tech bachelors with an mba degree from tier two college, Is it possible to break in product management? And if you’re seriously considering product still, are the fellowship programs, the boot camps and everything else advertised worth spending money? Looking for answers, personal journeys and anything that can help!
Gosh this is like me. Still confused what to opt- product or mktg. Following
GolDRoger
Stealth
a year ago
Go for marketing, product is gonna get saturated if not already and growth in skill set is highly correlated to company you are working in. In most companies, product manager end up becoming glorifed project managers only.
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I wish you would have marked your questions with some legends (easier to answer). Anyways, here I go -
1. “Best” has many definitions associated with it. If best WLB is your definition or best compensation. Help us define best and people can pitch in.
2. Yes, it is possible at the same time in current macro situation it is slightly tough compared to 2021/22
3. If you’re lazy to do google search, yes worth it.
Else
Everyone is picking content from YouTube, LinkedIn to publish it as “How to break into Product Management”. They don’t even change header to make it unique.
4. Follow the journeys of non-tech PMs on linkedin, you will be able to see islands and bridges.
Thank you for reverting.
1) What I meant as best came from my peers from mba schools and immediate alumni. And best according to me was having a role that would be more challenging and have a better learning curve and of course growth prospects- financially and otherwise than (taking my own example) working in a bank on the sales side.
2. I do understand that the macro situation is tough and have been part of job hunting scenarios. It’s not only tech that has it tough it’s almost all industries.
3. I am not lazy to google rather it was too much googling on my part that lead me to ask a vague question. The most popular ones keep popping up everywhere ads. I have checked the curriculum and compared brochures. The courses are significant investment in matter of both time and money (not all of us make 40-80 lpa here)
4. Would request you to kindly drop some names if you can because my own circle and knowledge is super limited and would love to expand my understanding.
Some of the inputs are purely my experience working across multiple companies from big retailers to desi unicorns. So pls take this as a data point only -
#1 In terms of compensation growth, product is exciting relative to sales. I have my batchmates across sales, ops, marketing and consulting. It may be due to supply/demand constraints, not sure how it will pan out going forward. My personal take on learnings is - In sales you learn dhanda, get the macro picture whereas in product you are still protected but many companies are putting growth numbers as KPI on PMs as well, still field knowledge would be missing.
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DixonButts
Stealth
a year ago
I think it's wrong to try to define "product management" as a role. Anyone with a good understanding of the business, users, product, market etc and ability to fluently converse with engineers and developers will always find a place in a startup/tech company. What the exact role will be however is secondary in my opinion.
Many people can have "product sense" but I think you definitely need product managers who singularly focus on improving the product and customers. PM role imp will become much more important in coming years as most products fail because they never find PM fit and not because they couldn't build the product (that techies focus on).
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I transitioned from Dev(after 5yoe) to PM. There are multiple ways to break into PM. Easiest would be to find a role in your company where you already have good business context. That's what I did .
Understand the role of PM which is to define what problems to solve and what solution to build(but not actually building the solution). It's also a collaborative role as building a great product will need multiple people. This role is very different from traditional specialist roles. You have to really understand the customers and their pain points and context.
No resources.. but few ways
1. Ask PM in your team if you can assist them. Help them with some tasks
2. Create a small product yourself; it can be a blog, website, app etc. Try to launch it and make it adopted. You will learn a ton.
I would say PM's job is of an innovator and most thinking people will find it interesting.
