Career pivot q: To PM or not to PM

Question

Thinking about pivoting into product management because I want more influence on the direction product. I'm an owner rn and I kinda hate backlog. I want more strategy work, getting to understand partners, and finding new opportunities to grow the business.

Any experience pivoting into PM from other roles? Curious how your company defines the difference (if at all lol).

ywqd9 · Accepted Answer

PO is just a subset of PM so just change your title on LinkedIn and brand yourself that way. What are they gonna do about it? 🤷‍♂️

pol3nauel0z · Answer

Hi! PM here. If you're trying to go from PO-&gt;PM, your focus is going to have to go from [solution and tech] facing to [market and customer facing] because your goals will be one step above the PO in terms of the business strategy versus tech delivery.

I love it here.

poqwuda8fa1 · Answer

It's a 24/7 job. I do not envy you guys at all. I think whether you're a PM or a PO, its a non-stop one-way trip to burnout-ville. If its not the never ending backlog issues or meetings with customers and partners or calls troubleshooting between sales and engineering and marketing... ugh.

BUT, that really depends on the company and the problems you're able to solve. I think for me, the biggest opportunity was my interest in gtm so I focused on answering those questions. Good relationships with sales also helped open the door for me to PMM. I was not interested in the engineering side of things as much.

LadyinRed · Answer

I came from the fashion world and became a PM via UX/UI and research. It's the best part of the job and the reason why I chose it. I think PM looks different at different companies so when I started, I tried to focus my attention on interesting problems to solve and pose questions to leadership during reviews. Put the ball in their court to leave money on the table, basically.

Then they'd give me "extra projects" to tackle and eventually I became a PM that way. Don't get me wrong, I love working with engineers, but thats because they respect me. If most of my day is spent in meetings dealing with inter-dept politics and swe who don't think I know what I'm doing, I'd be gone in a heartbeat.

u310calfuma · Answer

Some of your co-workers would probably tell you that what you see as spontaneous conversations, they see as disruptions to their focus.  I'm one of them, especially when I'm in a good flow.

Career pivot q: To PM or not to PM

About

Tech

Members