How to get to partner level at Microsoft (L68) or other executive jobs There is a very valuable post on blind about an interview process for engineering leaders from last year: https://www.teamblind.com/post/Interview-Cycle-Facebook-M1-Google-L7-Microsoft-L68-and-Local-Public-Company-dRQmWtbh This my attempt to give back for product management leaders â PM â in the same way. Itâs long, but hopefully will help others as there is very little for the more senior folks. My background: immigrant from Europe, came to the US over 20 years ago with limited language skills. No bachelor or masterâs degree, left university to cofound a company during my 2nd year. Company is still in business today, employing about 30 people with my cofounder as CEO in Europe. Prior US jobs include system and network design in IT and service providers. Did a 5-year stint in Microsoft during early 2000 as a PM. Few startup positions ranging from a Director of PM to VP with a small staff of 5. Last few years Sr. Director at Tier1 technology company but not FAANG. No coding experience, managed global teams up to 20 people. Perceived by upper management as technical with business acumen but could never get the VP promotion at a public company. Had a manager change at my previous company where the new boss was a super dick. It was clear itâs not going to work and what I perceived to be a great comp was going to go away. Time to state the last TC when hired: 280k/84k/138k (base/bonus/annual RSUs when hired). However due to stock appreciation and RSU refreshers in the 3rd year my W2 was over 750k. The first step was to change my LinkedIn status to âopen to new opportunitiesâ and get recruiters to reach out. Over 3 months I had 4 opportunities (and 1= screeners) to practice my interview skills. 3 for a VP position in startups, 1 SVP in a startup that just landed $200m in funding and if I would get an offer, I would probably join them. Prep included practice behavioral questions, including the Amazon leadership principals (more on that later), paid and free mock interviews with 3 different coaches and PM folks I found on Slack, reading various interviews and watching Youtube videos. Couple nuggets: Amgen CEO interview in HBR: https://hbr.org/2004/07/a-time-for-growth-an-interview-with-amgen-ceo-kevin-sharer 20 years of PM experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i69U0lvi89c Books: https://amzn.to/3aWdoOd https://amzn.to/2SrIiHC https://amzn.to/3fbKGw7 https://amzn.to/3aW27xh https://amzn.to/3aUKfCP https://amzn.to/3bXVLyP https://amzn.to/3fbxjfi https://amzn.to/3d8YPIr https://amzn.to/2VVIwsG https://amzn.to/2VXgKMA For everything you read/watch/listen to, write notes and ask yourself â if somebody asks me a question like this, how will I respond? And yes, I read all of these prior to my first interview. Before each interview I would get the list of people I am going to be talking to and research them. Where they live, what jobs they had, what are their hobbies, what blog posts they made, I would watch any presentations they did at conferences etc. That research created list of targeted questions, showing I did my due diligence and understand not only what the company does, but what these people do specifically. Also, even when a recruiter reaches out to you, they will ask for a resume. I customized my resume for each job, matching my experience with their requirements. This is where the initial call with the recruiter is critical as you get to ask details about the job and customize the resume before sending it. In some cases, you highlight business results, in others patents and technical abilities, in other cases process improvements etc. Keep in mind at this level your personality and approach are as important if not more than your actual skills. You will be dealing with shitty situations on daily bases and who is around you to help really matters. SME expertise and core PM skillset are given. You need to have it as every other candidate will. There is tremendous competition for these jobs. You need to be yourself, direct, open, confident and there must be a fit. Itâs much more like dating IMHO. Once you found a match it will be love at first sight. For the 3 VP jobs it was pretty standard. Meeting head of ENG, sales, marketing, CFO and CEO as the first and last interview. I got 1 offer out of that, 50 people startup but the TC was risky: 195k/20% bonus/1% of the company. They tried to convinced me the 1% will be 8M at least in less than 10 years as the CEO had a prior $2B exit but that is crystal ball talk and as far as I know nobody invented one yet. For the SVP job the interview consisted of talking to the founder, CEO and a board of directors member. Very interesting conversations with the founder and board member. There were concerns about my experience with scaling a company (plans to go from $50M to $200M in 5 years, ownership of current products, UX, PM, scrum masters etc.) This job was going to be much more about organizational structure and business. I made it to the final 2 but they have selected a guy who was SVP at a public company before â heck that is my goal! Next was finding the jobs I would actually like. I selected a Unicorn startup, a public Tier 1 company with successful IPO in last 18 months â profitable and growing, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and FB. I would tap into my network and look at their internal job postings at certain levels. There are very few â no surprise there â for example Microsoft only had 2x L68 and 10x L67 at that time for PMs. At FB I did not find any match. For the startup I got to the new SVP as the job was for a VP of Product and it was clear there is no love and I would not want for that guy. For the public company I had few calls, seems there was some chemistry but they changed direction in the middle of the loop and told me the job is no longer available. Both Amazon and Google had Director level positions that were a good match, Amazon had a GM role that was even more interesting but had been open for 6+ months (not a good sign and this is why using the internal posting is very beneficial to see the details). Microsoft had L68 role that I really liked. For all of those I would get the name and email of the hiring managers. Next I have researched them as stated above and look at who I know from their circles. I would call shared connections (if any) or at least reach out on LinkedIn asking how well they know the hiring manager. Again, the more details you get the better. I would reach to the hiring folks directly with an intro email, my customized resume and usually I would drop a name of someone they know and worked with in the past as someone they can ask about me. 100% success in getting replies! Google however put me on âregularâ loop with people outside of the actual team I wanted to work on. Feedback was âgood analytical skillset, good PM core skillset and management/people skills but not Googly enough i.e. big pictureâ. Disappointing as I never wanted to work on Ads or other consumer shit anyway (my background is B2B/enterprise) yet Google was one of my preferences. Amazon and MSFT it is. For Microsoft, same approach to the interviews as for the startups. Research each person, know what the team does. Be ready to answer your own questions i.e. when you ask âwhat is the roadmap for your product or best option to grow the existing revenue to XYZ?â you can expect the interviewer to turn it around and answer âWhat do you think/would do?â For Amazon itâs the fucking written exercise and studying the 14 leadership questions. Reading The Amazon way book that is boring as fuck, Bezosâs biography and creating a spreadsheet with sample questions for each leadership story and 2 -3 answers for each. How is this not driving anyone crazy is beyond my comprehension. The usual screener calls with hiring managers and onto full loops. Amazon pulled a fucking stunt on me where after the initial set of interviews they reached back and âdowngradedâ the role to L7. They said itâs not due to my interview performance but business needs. I always had doubts about working for them, but was thinking AWS is better. Not it is not! That left Microsoft, which I have rejoined as a boomerang employee after 14 years at the L68 GPM level. TC: 850k (the comp is complicated and includes future growth of MSFT stock and itâs the number you get over the next 4 years that includes 100% on target bonus, RSUs with 10% growth, sign up in the first 2 years etc.) As I stated above these jobs have 100s people trying for them. Internally and externally. You need to stand out, show you are the best fit, will have otherâs backs when shit hits the fan and can provide bigger value than they are going to pay you. I hope sharing my experience and approach will help others. Now AMA, will try to respond as often as I can. FAQ: Q1: Did you have a mentor? A1: No, I found most are not worth it. But I always observe people I admire and respect and ask them why they made such and such decision, comment during a meeting etc. Be life learner. Q2: Can you be more specific about the teams/skillsets you have? A2: No, I created a throwaway account just for this post. Itâs easy to find details, I want to prevent that. Q3: What is next for you? A3: Not sure, I am in mid 40âs with 2 kids. I was thinking about becoming an Angel Investor/joining a VC but I may just retire and volunteer as a teacher/coach. Assuming I can keep this job for next 5 â 8 years ď Q4: What skills are critical for PMs to grow? A4: Make yourself interchangeable with your ENG leads. Be able to run a bug triage as well as make and explain tradeoffs. Own the product, revenue growth and all mistakes. Create relationships with sales so when you say 80% NO to new features, they are not upset but view as just another day in the paradise. Q5: How do you justify getting paid 4x over your IC PMs? A5: See above note about value. Anyone, even on the lower level and especially at smaller companies can command almost any salary as long as they have data to show that the profit they bring is 5x or more of their value. For example, if you are a Sr. PM and propose a new product/business and it works, not only I can make you a director, it will allow you to ask for things you want, from new TC to extra vacation, corner office or working remote. Q6: How long did the process took? A6: From the changing my LinkedIn status to getting the MSFT offer about 8 months. At higher levels it is not uncommon to have multiple rounds of interviews spaced out weeks out. Getting time with CFO, CEO etc. on the same day is very unlikely. You meet at airports, hotel lobbies, dinners etc. Mainly applies to startups, not FAANG. Q7: Do you have to be a maniac to get this level or higher? A7: A FB director once said to me: âAnyone above the director is a maniac, whether they admit to it or not is another story.â I guess there is a bit of truth in that. I just hope I am maniac for the right reasons and have it under control. We all say that, right? ď Q8: Can you provide more details on the comp? A8: No, not really as MSFT communicates the comp over the next 4 years with some projections. You actually get a very nice power point, customized for your role with scenarios outlined. #career #tech #executive
đż
tl;dr;
You are at CEO level already in writing mail.
Good information. Interesting to see the Amazon affiliate links. Is that a side gig? đ
Never miss an opportunity.. đ
How do you identify affiliate links ?
Nice, that's my post that you referenced! I love that you're giving the same treatment to PM roles. It really shows that at these levels it's very similar skills and attributes coming into play.
Great post OP. Is the TC for Redmond?
No, another major msft location in US. But I was told the col adjustment for Redmond would be only about 3% higher
Great post but your writing is a torture to read, yet you made it. Can you be my career coach ?
Not really, as you could get from my post I don't really believe in "coaching" learn from those around you and have determination and you will make it
Nice post
How many reports for that level of comp at Msft? Ballpark is good... Great post thanks.
Congrats! I'd think that most people at this level would find the next job via connections you've made in your career... but you did it through LinkedIn? Did you reach out to your connections?
FWIW, I wrote the post that the OP linked to. In all cases except G, the process started with an executive sourcer reaching out to me. For G, I literally just filled out their online form and a recruiter then contacted me the next day.
Tech Industry
Yesterday
3792
I do tech screens at Google. AMA
Ask Blinders
19h
836
Why Pronouns shit captured US ? I donât see this anywhere else
Cars
Yesterday
1850
Cyber truck killer: Chinese version of EV truck
AMA
Yesterday
2963
I have worked at TikTok US core tech for 3 years. AMA.
India
14h
2811
Why is it so G*damn difficult to move money out of India
Dude this is a super lengthy message to read. Lot going on. These are some serious writing skills. Excellent post.