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Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

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Re: Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

#81

Post by storgendibal »

maxxxxx wrote: post #17
captain_crabs wrote: post #5

General question I've been wondering tangentially related: Engineers: is working [edit: replacing 'under' with 'with' due to replies! good clarification, didn't mean under] with a non-technical product manager a dealbreaker for you? (Do you look to filter out places you'd work at while job searching?) Conversely, have you ever worked under a non-technical product manager you loved? Would you mind sharing details abou…

I think it's OK to start out as non-technical product manager but over time they should pick up some technical knowledge. Some product managers refuse to learn anything technical which doesn't work well in the long run in my view. Same for developers. They shouldn't just wait for requirements but also understand their users to some degree. In the end engineering and product management should develop some competence i…

This is an interesting point. The first several years of my career, I was an engineer working on low level operating system stuff. I later switched to product and my technical chops really helped me earlier in my product career. As I got more senior however, the business, strategy, and product vision components of the PM role became more important and my technical skillset was less "directly" useful. It was more helpful in getting me trust with senior engineers, and therefore transitive trust with executives (because eng directors are often the first people a new exec will turn to to "read" the org in a large company)

Re: Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

#82

Post by yeahitslikethat »

lewislin wrote: post #69
rchaud wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge in building such a community is that PM is a highly sought after job in the tech sector, so any forum or website built around PM discussion is inevitably going to turn into something like Medium, which today is a list of poorly written thought pieces by (mostly) amateurs.

Agreed. Good PMs are busy, and busy ones don't have time to just hang out.

Those who can, do.

Re: Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

#83

Post by peterlk »

rchaud wrote: post #50
polote wrote: post #2

There is clearly a lack of boards/forums/websites dedicated to product managers. But what I miss the more is a website, when we can get valuable insights about best practices. On HN you can get super useful information about any stack/language/framework by reading the comments, but when you are a PM you have nowhere to get that kind of information

The challenge in building such a community is that PM is a highly sought after job in the tech sector, so any forum or website built around PM discussion is inevitably going to turn into something like Medium, which today is a list of poorly written thought pieces by (mostly) amateurs.

Why doesn't roadmap.com fit the bill?

Re: Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

#84

Post by seekingcharlie »

MrTonyD wrote: post #34
rock_hard wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working with more senior PMs is the only working solution I have found. Product Management is a very complex role...there is no straight forward learning path today other than doing the job ,building shit and strong mentor ship!

I couldn't agree more. I had the PM title twice before I worked with some senior PMs at a very successful Fortune 50. What a difference experience makes. I cringe when I think about how incompetent I was in my first two PM roles.

Would you be open to chatting to me as a mentor?

Re: Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

#85

Post by seekingcharlie »

mud_dauber wrote: post #76
MrTonyD wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree more. I had the PM title twice before I worked with some senior PMs at a very successful Fortune 50. What a difference experience makes. I cringe when I think about how incompetent I was in my first two PM roles.

Ditto. My first three stints (albeit with zero help from peers or mentors) were terrible. It seems like you need a couple of epic screwups under your belt before the patterns start to present themselves.

Would you be open to chatting to me as a mentor?

Re: Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

#86

Post by pry86 »

lewislin wrote: post #69
rchaud wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge in building such a community is that PM is a highly sought after job in the tech sector, so any forum or website built around PM discussion is inevitably going to turn into something like Medium, which today is a list of poorly written thought pieces by (mostly) amateurs.

Agreed. Good PMs are busy, and busy ones don't have time to just hang out.

Really? Good developers are busy too. And somehow they have time to hang out too. Look all the available knowledge and OpenSource.

Re: Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

#87

Post by pts_ »

cmuguythrow wrote: post #63
opportune wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't think PMs can really burn out / grow to hate your job as easily as developers do (unless you just have low performance). Also their skills don't transfer as easily. I see people with the title of "PM" (not product though) I work with making more than me who just click through the data visualizations/backend I made and turn that into reports to management... why would anybody give up that job when 1) the…

Because I see this sentiment (PMs have easy jobs and don't really do anything) a lot on HN, I want to offer an anecdotal counterpoint: I am a PM in San Francisco and most of the PMs I know personally work extremely hard and add a good deal of value to their companies. I realize that as a PM I am biased towards thinking I provide value/work hard, but I can safely say I have never heard of anyone working in a PM role a…

That sentiment comes from the culture of shitting on everyone other than managers, when anyone is capable of working hard or not.

Re: Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

#88

Post by bshoemaker »

StevePerkins wrote: post #26
captain_crabs wrote: post #5

General question I've been wondering tangentially related: Engineers: is working [edit: replacing 'under' with 'with' due to replies! good clarification, didn't mean under] with a non-technical product manager a dealbreaker for you? (Do you look to filter out places you'd work at while job searching?) Conversely, have you ever worked under a non-technical product manager you loved? Would you mind sharing details abou…

20-years in the industry and counting, and I've never even MET a "technical product manager". I have met a handful of people who somewhat thought of themselves as technical. Because they did a touch of Visual Basic or something in their first job out of school, before immediately washing out and pursuing a non-technical career. Some of those guys liked to talk loudly about how much they're "one of you", and "get it",…

You sound insufferable

Re: Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

#89

Post by jypepin »

captain_crabs wrote: post #5

General question I've been wondering tangentially related: Engineers: is working [edit: replacing 'under' with 'with' due to replies! good clarification, didn't mean under] with a non-technical product manager a dealbreaker for you? (Do you look to filter out places you'd work at while job searching?) Conversely, have you ever worked under a non-technical product manager you loved? Would you mind sharing details abou…

From my experience, a PM being technical can not do harm, but as a PM you work with multiple people: both front end backend engineers, data analysts, designers and maybe sales/ops/etc.

You can't have a background in every talent you work with, so for me as an engineer, if you don't have a technical background, no big deal.

What's important in your behaviour is, as some other comments as stated:

- Don't fake it. If you don't know, say you don't know, it's ok.

- Be (honestly) curious, and do everything you can to understand how things work. You don't need to understand how a specific database scales, but if a specific product connects to 3 different databases, understanding why, and what that implies technically is very important.

- Being honest and curious will build trust with your team. You also need to trust 100% your team. If someone tells you that something you thought would be easy is in fast hard, don't question. Ask questions to understand why and get more context on how your product works. Don't ask to make sure the person is not BS'ing you, ask to know, out of honest curiosity.

- Be on top of 100% of your product. Nobody else should know your product better than you. If you own a complicated onboarding flow, you should know exactly, by heart, all the different steps, situations, how someone gets to what steps, what happens when someone signups with a wrong email, etc etc.

All those previous point are true for engineers, design, data and every other role on your team. You are the CEO of the team. That doesn't mean you have authority, but that means you work with VPs that bring expertise, from it, you make strategic decisions on where to bring the team. So you don't have to have a technical/design/data background, but you need to be broad and curious enough to understand what everyone explains you and what to do of those.

The worst PMs I worked with were the kind of PM who would not make such efforts, ask repetitively the same questions or make the same wrong assumptions because they don't know their products and don't understand / learn / remember when you explains who/why something is hard/not worth it/not possible. The ones that come and say "but why don't you just drop mongo" (see sibling comment).

Re: Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies

#90

Post by bryanmccarty »

polote wrote: post #2

There is clearly a lack of boards/forums/websites dedicated to product managers. But what I miss the more is a website, when we can get valuable insights about best practices. On HN you can get super useful information about any stack/language/framework by reading the comments, but when you are a PM you have nowhere to get that kind of information

It's already been mentioned by a few others, but just calling out Roadmap.com again. I actually help manage the community. So, if you have any feedback or things you'd like to see improved, send it my way. I'm always trying to make the site more functional and encourage meaningful conversations.

Also, as a side note, we put up a monthly jobs thread on the 1st of each month (and it's pinned as the first question on the homepage). I just put up the February one this morning.

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