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Ask HN: Move to product management at 35?

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

#111

Post by kwang88 »

neofrommatrix wrote: post #60
kwang88 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering is in higher aggregate demand (there are more open eng roles as the ratio of Engineers:PMs is high, and the minimum qualification bar to be an engineer is higher ie you need to know how to code at a bare minimum. You also generally speaking can always add more engineers to a mature tech product as they can fix bugs, tech debt, etc and help the business overall). As a result, my personal anecdotal observat…

This ++. I've been working with engineers all my life, and a lot more senior engineers. I've seen engineering careers plateau after a certain point - plateau at either architect level positions or worse, as a senior software engineer. Longer term, a PM level position opens lot many doors (and especially, if you have an software engineering background).

Definitely can be true, although I think that there are a lot of potential paths.

My advice would be to determine what is driving you to want to shift from Engineer => PM. If it's purely money, there are alternatives that don't require leaving coding (job hopping wisely, moving into certain types of management tracks, consulting on the side, switching into industries that pay SWEs ludicrous salaries such as quant finance if you can). Similarly if you're looking for more influence/reputation – all of that can be had as an engineer if you're somewhat thoughtful about your path. However – if you're looking to transition out of coding because you're more interested in the business / sales / working with people (which was my story) then it's a great switch.

Good luck!

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

#112

Post by siddhant »

jogjayr wrote: post #87
tigershark wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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?

Younger developers are more likely to have learned their trade using the latest thing whereas older developers have to do their job and invest time in learning the latest thing.

Is there a correlation between "do their job" and "learning the latest thing"? I've often heard that the best advice is to use the most boring/stable tools which tend not to be the latest and the greatest but which focus on getting the job done.

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

#113

Post by isostatic »

_d8fd wrote: post #107
muzani wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think Product management is more people facing than project management. You can't really build a product without talking with the customer or talking to other departments especially sales/marketing/customer service. They know what the users want, what the bounce rate is, what metrics the company is lagging at.

>> You can't really build a product without talking with the customer or talking to other departments especially sales/marketing/customer service A friend of mine works at a large enterprise company on a multimillion dollar software project. Their dev team has never spoken to a customer or product manager (there is a PM team, they've just never spoken with the devs). It also takes them a long time to ship software. I…

On the contrary it seems predictable. Product managers tend to come from the agile way of working. Enterprises do waterfall. I suspect there are layers and layers of formalised specs, but no real understanding of what the customers want (rather than what they say they want), by the pm or the devs

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

#114

Post by wojt_eu »

itronitron wrote: post #96
lulmerchant wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always understood that one of the most important pieces of the PM role is to act as a sort of negotiator between design/development and all other stakeholders. Customers and everybody else in the business all want their own things, and all have their own priorities. The good PMs that I’ve known have kept those people happy, managed their expectations well, and mostly shielded design/development from their demand…

35 is a good age as it increases the likelihood that the PM will have parenting experience which provides the benefit of improving expectation mgmt, negotiation, and communication skills to a non-technical audience.

I've read how being responsible for family make employees plan their work better because they want to get home for the dinner, how it makes them more responsible or loyal – but that's the first time I hear about parenting experience directly affecting management skills. Some similarities are obvious now that I think about it – you want to help them grow and flourish. You set expectations and put boundaries while avoiding micromanagement and try not to spoil internal gratification with bribes. Well, except firing – you don't fire kids early due to lack of culture fit.

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

#115

Post by jogjayr »

siddhant wrote: post #112
jogjayr wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Younger developers are more likely to have learned their trade using the latest thing whereas older developers have to do their job and invest time in learning the latest thing.

Is there a correlation between "do their job" and "learning the latest thing"? I've often heard that the best advice is to use the most boring/stable tools which tend not to be the latest and the greatest but which focus on getting the job done.

Which is fine at your current job. At your next job they're more likely than not going to be using the latest thing though so you'll need to learn it.

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

#116

Post by jogjayr »

timr wrote: post #73
tigershark wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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?

Because software development generally doesn't reward experience. Technologies change with the wind, and a new grad has just as much experience on the latest JS Foo Framework 0.1 (released yesterday!) as someone with 20 years of industry experience. In addition, older folks say negative things like "don't use JS Foo 0.1 in production...it was released yesterday, and there are battle-tested frameworks to do the same t…

> the marginal difference in efficiency is offset by the young turks' propensity to work long hours while being paid in snacks.

I don't know if this is true. Even just with my meager 6-7 years of professional experience I can do things now that would've been impossible for me when I was starting out as a professional. Experienced devs aren't just more efficient - everything else being equal, they're more capable along all the axes you can measure a software engineer on.

Additionally if an experienced engineer has non-sucky people skills they can even turn your junior engineers into seniors with mentoring and example-setting. Which means you'll be employing a senior engineer for the price of a junior engineer, at least until they learn their increased value and ask for a raise/move on. /s

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

#117

Post by dcldcl »

neofrommatrix wrote: post #62
xab9 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say it's none of my business, but may I ask you why would you like to change?

I cannot ask for advice and counter with a "none of your business" when asked questions. That's not how any of this works. Thank you for your question. I can probably write an essay on this, but here's a TLDR version. I do like coding, and will definitely continue working on my side projects. Although programming pays quite well, I'm not sure of the long term payoffs of continuing as a programmer (unless you are one…

IME if you are going to product for the "money", I think in the long run you're more likely to be disappointed than hit VP of Product. There's just fewer spots in product vs engineering. I think it's much more driven by chance and other factors.

But from an overall career experience, it will likely open new doors for you. Whether those doors are the ones you want remain to be seen.

I also think the vast majority of PM roles are just implementing some Director/VP of Product's wish lists rather than doing much strategy on your own. And hopefully you encounter good product direction, but IME that's few and far in between. Moving up has been much more about adherence to the company's vision/politics than good products/tech.

Plus there's also the interesting dynamic of overall eng/PM relationship within a company. Those can vary from very good to pretty darn toxic.

I don't mean to discourage you from trying. I learned a lot of doing it... but I think it's a tougher path. Depends on your personality and interests. Often it's much more a people job than a tech job, even for very techy products.

To be fair, the product role is also much more varied from company to company (than eng). You may find a place where it is more about the tech and less about company politics.

My bigger question for you is are you at the stage of your (personal) life where you can afford to take a chance on your career. Switching back may not be as easy as you think... especially if you truly embrace the product side (and also depends on what part of tech you're in).

While it may be okay at your present company, IME it's very easy to end up in a wierdo trap of having your feet on two different ships heading in different directions.

I've also got some funny stories about engineering managers who think I've been infected by some disease due to my time in product.

Source: I started my career as engineering IC for several years, moved to product for several, and have now returned to engineering IC for several.

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

#118

Post by dcldcl »

neofrommatrix wrote: post #60
kwang88 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering is in higher aggregate demand (there are more open eng roles as the ratio of Engineers:PMs is high, and the minimum qualification bar to be an engineer is higher ie you need to know how to code at a bare minimum. You also generally speaking can always add more engineers to a mature tech product as they can fix bugs, tech debt, etc and help the business overall). As a result, my personal anecdotal observat…

This ++. I've been working with engineers all my life, and a lot more senior engineers. I've seen engineering careers plateau after a certain point - plateau at either architect level positions or worse, as a senior software engineer. Longer term, a PM level position opens lot many doors (and especially, if you have an software engineering background).

Do you encounter a lot of frustrated/unhappy older engineers?

It's worth analyzing why they plateaued (or why do you think they have).

If they gave up on learning, well that's a sad, but good explanation.

If they found themselves satisfied with what they were doing, that's not necessarily right or wrong.

Do you believe they were in an environment where they are well supported and well managed?

Moving to product is worth thinking about; but it's not a silver bullet either.

While you can pick up experience in tasks not typically done in engineering, the things that can limit a person's career is partially independent of their work experience (in terms of the task they are actually supposed to do).

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

#119

Post by kunalspunjabi »

35 isn't old in the slightest. In fact, it's a very ripe age to get started as a Product Manager. Even if you were 90, there'd be nothing stopping you (other than your own limiting beliefs and maybe other people's perceptions of you) from being successful in the role. It's not like PMs do manual labor :)

Personally, as a developer-turned-PM-turned-Product Lead, I can ascertain that a lot of the advice on this thread is largely sound. I will also add that when you first start out as a PM, you will make a lot of mistakes, especially if you come from an engineering background (like me).

By the way, I'll be teaching a 10-week course on product management with Stanford Continuing Studies starting next month (April 2018).

https://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/courses/professional-...

It's fully online and much less expensive than a certification program. The goal is to teach you the ins and outs of product management and really prepare people for the role. Not kidding, I've spent hundreds of hours and a lifetime of learning into creating this course....it's the best course on product management out there, and the one I wish I had available to me when I graduated 15 years ago.

Here's a preliminary Syllabus: https://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/courses/professional-...

Classes start the week of April 2nd, registration opens March 5th, and the class is limited to 45 students. Even if I wasn't posting this, I am told there's a high likelihood it'll fill.

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

#120

Post by kunalspunjabi »

kunalspunjabi wrote: post #119

35 isn't old in the slightest. In fact, it's a very ripe age to get started as a Product Manager. Even if you were 90, there'd be nothing stopping you (other than your own limiting beliefs and maybe other people's perceptions of you) from being successful in the role. It's not like PMs do manual labor :) Personally, as a developer-turned-PM-turned-Product Lead, I can ascertain that a lot of the advice on this thread…

And in case you're curious about my story:

I started my career as an engineer, but from the beginning, I was always curious about the 'why' and driven to build products that solve real-world problems.

I started a company, but it failed, primarily because we never reached product-market fit. That was a hard lesson to learn. I then decided that I wanted to pursue a career in product management, but with no prior experience in the field, found it surprisingly hard to break into this elusive role. After more than 100 interviews over the course of 2 years and almost at the brink of giving up, I was able to break into the field. That was my big break and I haven't looked back since. I have held executive level positions in Product management, led the conception, execution, go-to-market and growth of products like Treat by Shutterfly (previously called Tiny Prints Greetings), Bills.com, Debt Navigator, Freedom Debt Relief, and FreedomPlus. I am a contributor to Mind The Product, have spoken at conferences like Product Camp Silicon Valley and am an advisor to a few companies.

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