Microsoft Product Managers
I'm with Microsoft for the last 3 years in Redmond as a Senior Product Manager. We are assigned to a program or a project and asked to deliver it. Sometimes, im not sure if we are just delivery managers. Is there any real Product Management work that is happening across FAANGMULA or is it just masked Project Management or Program Management everywhere? Can't reveal the org or team name. TC = 🥜 + No hikes this year
Yes there are. I’ve always thought Msft has never had real PMs in my view for whatever reason
That is encouraging
how was their requirement? did they required prior pm work to be eligible, im a program lead but doing most pm work (strategy, 0-1 product/service for non tech) except eng coordination. thanks
They wanted PMs with 6+ years experience in launching products. If you are not a product manager in the current role they wouldn't even bother calling you for interviews.
Amazon is "product led", meaning we make the vast majority of business decisions
Yes there are. The problem is that our title is kind of a placeholder, which is a shame, but there are. I work with many talented ones who do real innovation.
Fancy to call your comp 🥜 now a days . What's your total comp range !!
Microsoft PMs have a bad rep in the industry for not being “real”
Raises a big question on our employability else where in a real product company.
I can tell you as a laid off MSFT PM…it’s extremely hard out here rn with 4 yoe
In Amazon, most often than PMs are just stakeholder managers. One needs to talk with a hundred folks across the globe to to slightly increase the size of a button on a page that nobody visits
Lol. Sounds familiar. 😃
Unless you are principal or higher you aren’t gonna design a feature from scratch. First, Microsoft in its history is almost never a first mover. Meaning by the time they get to delivering a new feature there’s already an example out there to emulate. (Not hating, this generally can be effective in the long run, if maddening) Second, Microsoft has a large bureaucracy in pdm space. Just to get through it for a new feature you have to have principal+ names attached. And third, you have to ask yourself: are you REALLY qualified to be designing features for the cloud? Do you have experience working as an end user? If it’s cloud, Do you have architect experience and know the pain points? Do you live and breathe the latest in the industry? Most PDMs under principal I’ve worked with are project managers/program managers at heart. That’s fine, but they excel at executing and things like requirements gathering. Not product direction and design
Thank you for the elaborate and an accurate depiction of the state of affairs of MSFT PMs.
These points are so dead on. Also, MSFT is driven only by engineering, which is its greatest downfall IMO. The lack of accepting the creativity and know-how others can offer leads to the company always copying instead of leading. Of course, some will quickly say “BS, we’re leading everyone into the future with AI.” Releasing a shit product first isn’t the definition of leading.
Really depends on the org and the product. In our org all PMs are doing the actual Product Mgmt and there is clear push to move away from any program mgmt or project mgmt activities.
I work in a software org at Broadcom and there are zero projects, I almost miss some good ol project management. Delivery follows an agilish model but is all over the place and execs have unrealistic expectations. I also noticed there are too many teams and people which slows down delivery instead of speeding it up.
Really a sad state 😞