I LOVE BEING A PM!!!!
A lil background on me, I came from a Computer vision research background (started at Apple), and I made the choice to switch to a PM. I was nervous about the decision, but I knew in my heart I didn’t want to spend my time scraping and processing data for 3 weeks just so I could spend 1 week or less on training & building. I would go to meetings, and wish I had the EPM’s job (the EPM had a phd, lots of published work, and he was obviously a brilliant former engineer). When it came time for me to find a job in Sept, I had many 2 round cv/ml and dl research interviews lined up, however MS gave me the choice to interview for PM. My second rounds were scheduled in October, and MS gave me a PM offer earlier. Something inside me realized I really wanted to take it, and try something new. I was scared because I had spent so many years in cv research, but I knew PM would fit better in my ultimate goal. Tl;dr I took the job, and I’ve never been happier. I see a lot of post from people asking if they should switch careers. I’d recommend, if you can, take a leap and hope for the best, what you end up with may surprise you.
I tend to think of PMs as navigators. The best ones have themselves worked with and deploying technology, but they now provide a sense of direction on how something should be done. Engineers then bring their talent to make it happen. They need to be able to focus on their work with few distractions. The project fails without those two functions. Of course, it is possible and perhaps frequent that engineers know more than just the technology, but know industry and international standards, frameworks, etc. Just as there are PMs who can do the work of any SDE.
In entire Microsoft I know only TWO PMs who "can possibly" do some useful SDE tasks (have the basic skills), the rest of them just talk and send BS emails! :)
What the heck meme....
I despise people who think PMs are glorified communicators and people who think devs can just be replaced with a million other devs. Both views are terrible and a successful and efficient team requires both. As a PM, try getting your product reazlied without knowing how to build it and as a Dev try getting any business to fund your idea and navigate without industry knowledge or chops to tackle political hurdle. Both are hard and a unique skillset on their own.
Did you say an EPM with a PhD?
Yeam, it’s common practice on teams with lots of Phd’s. I have one too.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing.
If I had a dollar for every time PM sends email with ALL CAPS...
Hi can I DM you ?
What's a day in the life of a PM like?
Mostly they just talk
Send emails and ask for updates