Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Move to product management at 35?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 133 posts

Re: Ask HN: Move to product management at 35?

#31

Post by bredren »

crazygringo wrote: post #4

My $0.02, having been a PM for many years: Read Cracking the PM Interview [1] (for an overview of the job, not the actual interview tips) and The Lean Startup [2] (for general philosophy). 35 is a great age for a PM, especially since PM's often start elsewhere -- maturity is a plus here. I'd say there are 3 main ways into it -- as an engineer, who starts to do PM-type stuff on a team where there's no PM. As a designe…

Also served as a pm for 5+ years.

I recommend you build and release your own product start to finish. This helps you get exposure to parts you got to avoid in your engineering role.

I see product management as a producer role which includes the successful release and iteration. This is best learned by doing and if you don’t have a team, you be the team.

Re: Ask HN: Move to product management at 35?

#32

Post by vgy7ujm »

cocoa19 wrote: post #20
vgy7ujm wrote: post #5

Willing to give up on coding? Do you love presenting stuff to big audiences? Are you good at selling? Then a PM role might be right for you. If you love coding/technology or don't have good presenting/selling skills then stick to engineering... my $0.2.

Presenting and selling skills are learnable. It's more about whether you like it or not. You can join toastmasters to improve your "soft skills".

you can get better, but it's almost impossible to be as good as a natural if you don't like those things.

Re: Ask HN: Move to product management at 35?

#35

Post by crispyporkbites »

nomorecode wrote: post #34

Thank you for asking this. I’m 38 and trying to make a move to product management. I’ve been a front-end developer for years but I’m just not good enough at what’s become front-end to keep up and maintain any kind of work-life balance. It’s not fun anymore.

Why do you think being a PM will be any easier?

Re: Ask HN: Move to product management at 35?

#36

Post by danielblazevski »

muxator wrote: post #17
crazygringo wrote: post #4

My $0.02, having been a PM for many years: Read Cracking the PM Interview [1] (for an overview of the job, not the actual interview tips) and The Lean Startup [2] (for general philosophy). 35 is a great age for a PM, especially since PM's often start elsewhere -- maturity is a plus here. I'd say there are 3 main ways into it -- as an engineer, who starts to do PM-type stuff on a team where there's no PM. As a designe…

> Also, if you want to be a PM then you'd better enjoy meetings, slides, people, and communicating & convincing all day long, day-in day-out. Leave me in my room with my beloved keyboard! I can sense other likely-minded beings over the wire. No slides, no meetings, no politics. Only the austerity of code, measurements, technical merit.

No meetings, no politics? Lots a dev jobs have both don’t they, especially as you become more senior and/or want to drive change in how things are done.

Re: Ask HN: Move to product management at 35?

#37

Post by yellow_postit »

dnautics wrote: post #19
vgy7ujm wrote: post #5

Willing to give up on coding? Do you love presenting stuff to big audiences? Are you good at selling? Then a PM role might be right for you. If you love coding/technology or don't have good presenting/selling skills then stick to engineering... my $0.2.

what if you like both? Asking for myself since I'm transitioning to a product ownership role. To be fair, i've only been coding professionally for 3 years (nonprofessionally for ~20), but in my current role I rescued two products, have done technical demos and customer engagement.

If you like both then find a technical product management role. Products with heavy ML or data science components can benefit greatly from PMs that can code, mock, and do ad hoc analysis.

Re: Ask HN: Move to product management at 35?

#38

Post by johnmax »

when i hired product managers, the most critical point I looked at was “building something that users love”. If you can prove this, you are ahead of average (of course you also need some standard stuff, including communication skills, but those are more common).

the above is related to intelligence (understanding activity numbers) and emotional intelligence (understanding the user).

thus, it would be good if you can polish up your skills/presentation of yourself in that area

Re: Ask HN: Move to product management at 35?

#39

Post by tigershark »

iamphilrae wrote: post #3

Surely your age will assist you here (I’m 35 too). Unlike software development which is typically a “young mans game” due to the constant need to learn the latest thing (I know, sweeping generalisation), Product Management requires significant past experience of products. As a developer, I’m sure you’ve worked on many successful and non-successful products, and have a good insight as to what went well and not. I thin…

“Unlike software development which is typically a “young mans game” due to the constant need to learn the latest thing”

Why? As an old developer you don’t need to constantly learn new things?

Re: Ask HN: Move to product management at 35?

#40

Post by oblio »

muxator wrote: post #17
crazygringo wrote: post #4

My $0.02, having been a PM for many years: Read Cracking the PM Interview [1] (for an overview of the job, not the actual interview tips) and The Lean Startup [2] (for general philosophy). 35 is a great age for a PM, especially since PM's often start elsewhere -- maturity is a plus here. I'd say there are 3 main ways into it -- as an engineer, who starts to do PM-type stuff on a team where there's no PM. As a designe…

> Also, if you want to be a PM then you'd better enjoy meetings, slides, people, and communicating & convincing all day long, day-in day-out. Leave me in my room with my beloved keyboard! I can sense other likely-minded beings over the wire. No slides, no meetings, no politics. Only the austerity of code, measurements, technical merit.

It depends on what you want. If you want some sort of "purity of code", that's great.

If you want more (especially control), you'll never have it. Except for your side projects.

Post reply on HN