I'm currently working at AWS as a L6 PM-T ES and just got a verbal offer to join MSFT as a Principal PM 65. I have 10 YOE in Solutions Architecture and 5 YOE as PM. 8 YOE in total in Amazon. My TC back in April was $278k and now after stock drop is at $238k. Amazon has been low balling me for the past 2 years on both pay and career growth/promo. I've seen lots of posts on Blind about how hard it is to get a PM job, people trying and failing on lots of interviews, so I was not very optimistic when I started to apply for jobs. Got some recruiters proactively reaching out and had initial chats with companies like google and MongoDB, however due to hiring freezes the conversations were put on hold. Applied to very few jobs, a handful, then got contacted to start the process at MSFT. Got through the process, it was the only interview loop I've done and today got the good news. One thing that help me A LOT was the fact that I've done over 100 interviews in Amazon. I can't stress it enough, be involved with interviewing as much as you can as it'll help when you're on the other side being interviewed. When it was my turn I interviewed like someone who would impress me if I was the interviewer, and it worked. This is what I did the week before the interview loop started: 1) Write down in detail 2 or 3 stories in a narrative with measurable situations, actions and, most importantly, results (i.e. how much % in WoW/YoY adoption/revenue the action you took delivered?). I had 2 very good stories and use them in several occasions to demonstrate the value i could bring to the table. 2) Don't use STAR only, use the "U-Shape - man in a Hole" strategy described on this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU6BVxtGd5g (the guy is an engineer but the strategy works for any role). 3) This is a great playlist , watched it the week before to help me prep: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcMv0LrPMqFUjPzGYFyquwxbkMyx81GGD I'm not sharing this to brag but just to help other PMs and share my experience.
Congrats!!! Trying to switch from PMT to outside Amazon, but hitting a few walls from a recruitment perspective. You ok if I DM for some insights on your journey?
Sure, no problem
Great accomplishment, best wishes! Good to see you sharing the resources that helped you!
Principal PM (65) at MSFT is similar or arguably lower than L6 PM-T at AMZN. See levels.fyi.
Potentially similar, but definitely not lower. Most of the L6 PMs I know that moved to MSFT did so as L64. The ones that did as L65 had very specific expertise (AWS to Azure for example).
According to this it doesn't look to be similar or lower at all: https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Amazon,Microsoft,Facebook&track=Product%20Manager
Weโll done!!! Thanks for the resources
YOE?
It's pretty much in the first paragraph
You wrote too much
Thanks for sharing
Thanks for sharing. Just wanted to know how to handle those questions you might have never actually experienced? I felt myself less confident when facing this kind of situation, eventually it led me to a failure :(
Microsoft is one of the most useless companies you will end up working for.
Provide a comparison with stats between Amazon and Microsoft. Just saying on the fly doesn't work.
I am not here to do such research. By virtue of being Microsoft I can tell you it is pretty awful. No work gets done as the entire time gets wasted in politics and being too nice to others and doing exec presentations the whole time and prettying the decks and newsletters.
Thanks for this
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Whatโs the new TC at MSFT?
Around $370k