How to grow into a ‘Director of Product’ role? Profile: 12 YOE total, 4 YOE as a PM, TC: 140k Not targeting any FAANG in particular.#productmanager #product #pm
Director role at faang is L8. It will take 15+ 20+ years of solid performance. Also pays over million dollar current price.
Microsoft director is principal level, that's L65, and it pays about half a mil/year. But usually folks with 12-15 yrs work-ex reach there.
Work with your manager to move into a senior and then management role. It's easiest to do these at your current company. From there you just have to make the company a lot of money as a manager while increasing your responsibilities.
Breaking into a people management role is going to be your biggest barrier. A lot of PMs never get there. Ways to get a leg up: build experience as a mentor, get involved in team building and coordination where there are opportunities, take informal leadership roles on projects where you need to manage the outputs of other people, etc. Over-deliver on real business impact consistently. If your company has any kind of leadership training program, try to get into it and use that as internal leverage. The typical route for this is going to be PM to Sr PM to Lead PM or Group PM or PM Manager (typically a player-coach role) to Director over 10-15 years. Expect to spend a few years at least in Lead role before moving to Director(especially at faang) and understand that Senior PM can be a terminal role and many folks never break into the lead level, let alone director. Typically this is a role a lot of folks want, with a high bar for who gets in and a comp package to match. You need a plan for your career to get there, you need to work harder than everyone else, you need to consistently deliver results, and frankly you need to just be more talented at soft skills, strategy, and general PM skills than most of your peers.
In PM titles mean little. Especially when it comes to Sr PM, Sr PLM and Director. It's more of the work you do and less of the title. I have seen Directors own small modules in a product and in some cases, Sr PM / PLM own an entire product or product portfolio. But in huge org, PMs and PMM are much more structured. So it all depends on the company, the size of the org etc.
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It will take some time. First grow into Sr. PM role and then you will find your path to the director role. There is no magic potion, you create your own way with more responsibilities and having impact.
Thanks! Any specific interview prep resources for director of PM roles that you are aware of?
Yes DM me, I can share some material.