How to become a Product Manager?
Hoping to become a Product Manager in a big N or unicorn tech company and I'm just looking for some advice from the blind community on where to start the transition. Currently a Canadian resident working at an oil and gas company with 1.5 YOE in business relationship management, project management and general analytics work. Also worked full time tier one tech support while I was a student for 4 years. Any help would be appreciated! TC 105K
Transition to Product is not easy if you aren't a PM at your company or dont have a MBA. The best route to get a PM role at one of the big companies is to first transition into a PM role at your current company and get that experience on your resume. You will get calls from recruiters if you have PM experience on your resume.
Right now there are no product roles at the company but I'm hoping to make the transition within the year. Would you recommend joining a smaller startup for the experience and then moving to FAANG?
Product experience at smaller startups can be valuable, both from a learning and responsibility perspective. If you have one of the bigger companies in your sight for future try targeting startups or smaller companies in the same domain so you have relevant PM experience. In general PM skills are transferable thus domain knowledge is not absolutely required but off late I have started seeing a lot of companies hiring PMs with relevant and specific domain expertise, may be outside Google or FB who hire generalist PMs. Ofcourse there is nothing to say that you should not directly target PM roles at bigger companies. Check out the APM (Associate PM) roles at the bigger companies. Those roles dont expect you to have PM experience and will serve as a good base to get you started in the PM world at bigger companies.
Be a bad engineer, get PIP'd and then just don't leave.
yikes 😂
Best career advise I got was, if you have a goal (i.e. PM) everyday you spend working on something different is a waste of time - If your company doesn’t have a PM role, and that’s what you want to do then move to a FAANG ASAP and start working towards internally moving to the PM job family. Moving to a startup for PM role will be hard! You would have to do the same thing, jump to a role where you can deliver and then work towards moving to PM internally. The problem is that Big Tech has more PM roles opening than startups do, so Big Tech seems your best bet here. Good luck!
eye opening advice, thanks! I think you're right, if the opportunity doesn't exist then I should move to somewhere that does so I can start working towards the goal. No worries about the tough road ahead, I think I'm pretty scrappy. Would you happen to have any recommendations on FAANG companies that would be looking for the experience I've gathered so far?
I’d recommend AMZN for two reasons. One, we go after more industries than the rest of the FAANG, and I’ve seen Oil and Gas executives joining my Org; two, your skills tie exactly with Program Management, so look for L5 PgM roles and you will be in a good spot. PgM is close to PM, but with a horizontal focus on assisting the org instead of a vertical focus on driving a product. Relationship Management (Earn Trust), analytics/BI (dive deep) both tie to the role. I’m actually moving from PgM to PM, so there you go! I think it’s a good path. Lmk how you do!
Product School?
Looks promising, I'll check it out. Thanks!
That's the one I had done before my transition a couple of years back. It's good to get you acquainted with the important things required for PMs, but when I had taken it the content was very focused towards B2C PMs and for mostly cloud based products (not on-prem/standalone products). I work in B2B and a lot of the things taught by Product School did not completely apply thus do some research before joining it, but it was still a great course to take to get started.
I would shoot for a healthy earlier stage company before a FAANG or Unicorn. The issue is you’re going to need mentorship and any company growing incredibly quick isn’t going to be able to give that to you. I would search for Associate Product Manager positions and rotation programs. I know Facebook has/had one, Dropbox did as well. In that regard, you’re basically learning the ropes for a 2-3 years before you’re able to go out & apply for larger roles.
Nice 👍🏼
dang, that's a good perspective. I really only ever thought of getting into a fast growing company so that I'd be forced to learn quicker on the job. Thanks!
Lots of great advice and strategies above. In addition to that stuff, I'd recommend reading cracking the pm interview and Swipe to unlock. Cracking explains what the pm role is all about and the interview process. Swipe breaks down all the key tech concepts you need to know assuming you don't have a cs degree
Your assumptions are correct, I do not have a cs degree. I've read cracking the pm interview but haven't heard of swipe to unlock, I'll go purchase it soon. thanks!
Start by asking yourself hard questions. Why do you want this? What is it that you think is desirable? What do you think makes you a good fit? And what relevant skills do you bring to the table?
100% this! I've started mapping this out to see if I'm truly a good fit and if I want this. Just curious, would you happen to know how tough it is to get into the APM program at Google?
I would start by getting into a FAANG doing anything (project manager, program manager, business manager). Then work in the company towards switching. If you have no product experience it would be hard to come in as a product manager
that sounds like pretty solid advice, thanks!
Switching job ladder in FANG is not as easy as you think. Most require you to have strong statement of support from pm managers and you would also have to re-interview