Hi, I am a first generation Latina living in the US working as a Senior Product Manager at Amazon, I feel I am stuck at this point of my career mainly because I do not know how to navigate politics at Amazon. I would like to see if anyone would be willing to become my mentor. I have been trying to move to a more technical position for the past year but I have not been successful at it. I have an engineering degree and a master's in science plus 7 years of experience. TC 240k#product
In same exact position
L6 to L7 is one of the hardest jumps in pm. If you’re talking about pm to pm-t, it really depends on the org. Or are you looking more for a general mentor for pm in general? What type of mentor are you looking for?
I am looking more for a mentor in general. My parents have never worked in corporate nor in the US so I am finding hard the corporate life as well as advancing my career in PM
Look at successful product managers around you and try to see the things they do that make them successful and imitate their positive traits At the end of the day you should focus on building impactful things that will create an impact and then make a lot of noise about your wins
Can your manager help you navigate politics?
I honestly do not trust my manager, it seems they are trying to do that themselves so I don't think they can help me.
My experience with politics - try to avoid it. Just be too good at the craft of PM that they can’t ignore you. Ship winners (or write up lessons learned) and write email blast announcements including your VPs, quantifying the impact, thanking the team. Don’t get into the squabbles. Focus on delivering business value. No one can ignore business value or they risk looking bad.