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Ask HN: Product Managers, how did you get there and what's your background?

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Re: Ask HN: Product Managers, how did you get there and what's your background?

#41

Post by sksareen1 »

bdickason wrote: post #34
bdickason wrote: post #33

Almost every PM I've met has an odd/alternative background but the consistent traits I see are: 1. Curiosity 2. The ability to think in a structured/organized way 3. A clear understanding of users, their problems, and how to solve those problems 4. Ability to understand coworkers and motivate or influence without authority I would argue that the above aspects can come from any discipline. I've recruited Pm's (via int…

Forgot to add - many larger companies offer a junior pm program to help people transition into a PM role. I work at oculus and we participate in Facebook's 'rotational pm (rpm)' program. Applicants have little to no product experience and are sometimes right out of college or other times come from different fields or backgrounds. Once hired, rpm's rotate between a few teams and are assigned a full time PM mentor who…

Also IBM, and I believe MSFT to an extent

Re: Ask HN: Product Managers, how did you get there and what's your background?

#42

Post by todd_sherman »

I'm a PM at Snap Inc (formerly Snapchat). Before that, GPM at Twitter.

how did you get there / background

For me, engineering was the path that led to being a PM. I was a decent developer, but always found myself more interested in what we should be building opposed to how to build it. Background includes BS computer eng, masters in systems eng and an mba. Did software dev for years and gravitated toward roles that increasingly positioned me for PMing while getting those last two degrees.

"junior product" positions

There are junior product positions, just very few. Google/Twitter have an APM program. At FB it is the RPM program. There are many paths that lead to being a PM. Look for stepping stones and be persistent. I know PMs that were previously a software developer, product marketing manager, project manager, technical program manager, designer, etc. If you are able to take on one of those roles at a company that also has PMs, you can probably work towards a transition.

skills

In terms of skills, this thread on Quora is good, especially Ian McAllister's response: https://www.quora.com/What-distinguishes-the-Top-1-of-Produc... Keep in mind that different companies will put more or less weight on a particular competency. e.g. Google requires PMs to have a technical background will ask technical questions, facebook does not. Facebook will ask a lot of questions around data, experimentation, data-driven decision making, etc. because they are a very data driven culture.

Re: Ask HN: Product Managers, how did you get there and what's your background?

#43

Post by gcb0 »

zzalpha wrote: post #27
ernestbro wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's project management- not product management

Eh, that line is fuzzier than it looks from a distance. Product managers are responsible for dealing with roadmaps and timelines. Managing expectations is necessarily part of that job. Add in agile practices where the PM may also be a PO directly managing a backlog and the line gets fuzzier still. It's part of what makes that job so challenging, as you have to wear so many hats. It also makes the job very difficult t…

all fortune 500 companies I worked on that had only PM doing both jobs it went like:

PM promises some project worked out with a designer that only knows the how to wireframe generic screens, both lack understanding of the product and tech. usually because the PM just moved from another place 3 months ago.

PM show up every day at standup and fail to understand the current priorities, push the new project, the enginners see how pointless but easier than real priorities it is. Then remember it is a fortune 500 company so the easier the better. Everyone works on the useless project, try to explain the product to the PM but he will have none of that, after all the wireframes are done! Agile is actually used as an excuse "don't worry, we will iterate later". The PM will now disappear until close to the deadline when you will get constant meeting invites to assess progress, which will never be the standup. Project goes live shoved into actual product and it is a complete failure but everyone mentions it on their accomplishments so management starts to see it as a success. Everyone involved gets a promotion. PM moves over to help troubled team. Some engineers stay and are tasked with maintenance. A year later execs see the numbers and blame the current team, labels them as a troubled team so they get a new PM (remember they had none because the other one left to help another team labeled troubled).

And that's the circle of life in a fortune 500.

Re: Ask HN: Product Managers, how did you get there and what's your background?

#44

Post by mezod »

bdickason wrote: post #34
bdickason wrote: post #33

Almost every PM I've met has an odd/alternative background but the consistent traits I see are: 1. Curiosity 2. The ability to think in a structured/organized way 3. A clear understanding of users, their problems, and how to solve those problems 4. Ability to understand coworkers and motivate or influence without authority I would argue that the above aspects can come from any discipline. I've recruited Pm's (via int…

Forgot to add - many larger companies offer a junior pm program to help people transition into a PM role. I work at oculus and we participate in Facebook's 'rotational pm (rpm)' program. Applicants have little to no product experience and are sometimes right out of college or other times come from different fields or backgrounds. Once hired, rpm's rotate between a few teams and are assigned a full time PM mentor who…

thanks for the insights and the offer, I won't bother you for now but I'll stalk you on twitter :-)

Re: Ask HN: Product Managers, how did you get there and what's your background?

#46

Post by totalrobe »

Got there (although I never feel like I'm "there", always trying to improve) after 2 years of grunt work, a little bit of career planning, and a lot of luck. I'm currently a PM in a global trade software vendor.

After working in the same industry for 2 years in an entry level operational capacity, I was headhunted by my current company who was looking to build out product in that area. Although I was very unmotivated during college and my degree in cognitive psychology is worth the paper it's printed on, I had programming experience and was self-learning on web development at the time. A combination of basic understanding of systems and software development, deep industry operational experience, and obvious enthusiasm for the job was enough to get hired.

While there are some direct paths to Product Management (often Business Analyst), most I've met seem to come from operations or development depending on the industry.

My advice for all of us that weren't top 1% at elite colleges and thus don't qualify for the PM path straight out of school is:

- Folks that know and care about the Tech AND the Business are unicorns are valuable and unique. Many technical folks I've worked care more about the stack they work with than the business problems that will make the company money. Many functional folks don't care about the tech. Pick an industry and work in a dev or operational capacity while learning the other side of it and absorbing excessive amounts of domain knowledge.

- Put yourself out there (LinkedIn, Medium, HN, whatever) as a domain expert.

- It's easier to make a horizontal move: another role in the same industry or the same role in another industry.

- Not everyone will be happy as a PM. There can be a lot of pressure to deliver yet you often don't personally implement anything. Communication skills are more important than technical skills.

Re: Ask HN: Product Managers, how did you get there and what's your background?

#47

Post by RickS »

jmathai wrote: post #31

PM @ Google. TL;DR -- The ability, innate or learned, to reason about products is extremely helpful. Being good at working with others, conflict resolution and prioritization are critical. Best tip is to begin working on these skills and start framing yourself as product centric (on LinkedIn, within your company, etc.) and make the leap when it feels doable. -- My career was mainly in engineering. I started while I w…

> reason about products

Can you elaborate on this? It's unclear sometimes how much a PM's job is about delivering a predetermined product, vs how much is the PM themselves hypothesizing/strategizing about changes and improvements to the product.

Re: Ask HN: Product Managers, how did you get there and what's your background?

#48

Post by aswin8728 »

PM @ McKinsey & Company (New Ventures group)

-Background in software engineering and human-centered design. The best product managers I've been around have a mix of technical, business, and design talent, with the strong PMs excelling in at least two of the categories. -Understand the difference between good and bad products. Actively examine products you use on a daily basis, both physical and digital. E.g. why is my shower setting designed this way? why did I push on a door that needed to be pulled? To flex this muscle, read "The Design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman and check out Tony Fadell's tech talk on product design. -Be a people person. You need to be able to communicate product ideas clearly to everyone from marketing to HR to engineering (obviously). -Be entrepreneurial. You're the "CEO" of the product, so you need to know the product/service inside out. Everything from the software stack down to the marketing materials to the help center articles should have been on your radar at some point in the release cycle. -Protect the engineers. Don't let management demand too much and be vested in their success.

Ping me if you have any other questions :)

Re: Ask HN: Product Managers, how did you get there and what's your background?

#49

Post by Sarki »

sksareen1 wrote: post #40
Sarki wrote: post #20

Junior positions I think not, especially as a Product Manager (well depending the size of your structure) is supposed to have lots of contacts, all the time, even when he's overloaded with tasks. I know I wasn't in the same role, just mentionning what I witnessed regarding Product Managers where I worked in the past.. Having been a Product Owner for a couple of years in a 10k+ employees international company, just to…

As an Associate PM moving into full ownership of a product i.e. full PM role, this is the most accurate description of the job I've seen yet. I like to describe the job as sitting in between the cross functional areas (Marketing, Sales, Dev, Exec/Management, Finance, and a whole lot of more logistical groups) to: 1. Own and sculpt the product roadmap and vision by working across the functional groups and 2. Keep ever…

Glad to see that my understanding was correct, also congratulations on the new role :)

If I may give you one huge hint on your product's SWOT at least functionally speaking and especially in a global market: Ask your delivery teams, basically they're your eyes and ears on the harsh reality of the trenches.

After being a Product Owner I became a Global Delivery Consultant, and you can't imagine how much insight you get from the guys if you find the right mean.

Personally the best approach I took was a give and take quarterly worldwide meeting with the delivery experts and their top management to list the good the bad and the ugly from their own perspective (in any aspect of the product) while product management was providing insights on what was coming and a light update on the looks of the ongoing development schedule.

I can guarantee you that 3 Regional Delivery Heads telling you that feature XXX must be reworked is invaluable info and something you can't get from sales, support teams or even your own feeling. Added bonus: They will provide you with realistic business scenarios and expected behaviors and would be interested in taking part of the validation process for you.

Likewise, delivery guys will be more relaxed as they will be aware of the development fitness ahead of the official schedule and therefore won't sale features at risk (they're in projects all the time, they have to deal with the unexpected on a daily basis).

Because Delivery Teams are the closest to the product they are the first ones to proof it, support it and also bridge all the gaps for your customers. The rest is only paperwork and planning.

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