Has anyone here ever regretted becoming a PM? What did you do? I took my current PM opportunity because 1. I wanted to try it out and grab the opportunity when it was presented to me. 2. My previous manager was terrible and I could no longer stand working for him. That said, I was a senior software engineer previously and still like to code for my side projects. My current work is alright and I was told that I’m great at the job in my recent review. But, I am not passionate about the company/people anymore. It’s a large company with a lot of politics. I’m not sure what my next steps should be- look for another PM role, go back to being an engineer or look for a completely new field like design or data science. TC: 215K Yoe: 2 yrs as a PM, 6 yrs as an engineer
The question you need to ask yourself, why you wanted to become a PM in the first place? It is not something that you pick for a career unless you are really passionate about products and leading a team which you don't directly manage is very hard and navigating politics is a minefield. But I do it because launching products is very hard and making products that achieve the product - market fit is impossible. But when it does, it is such a powerful feeling of accomplishment which I missed when I was in the tech role. So, that's my take on it. Sometimes I wonder too if I made the wrong choice but most times it is totally worth it.
Thanks for this! I’m on the same boat. I love the rush of making things happen and launching products. I also enjoy taking the decisions I couldn’t as an engineer. I think I know why I want to be a PM but I am not able to keep the passion last forever.
Try a tech product manager that brings the best of the both worlds together.
DM me, would love to have this conversation. But it's a dead giveaway of who I am and don't want Opendoor knowing
Will do!
I went from Sr. Engineer to Tech. Dir. (Essentially, mega-pm). Pretty quickly, I switched to Principal Engineer lol. Same seniority, minus the PM I hated PM.
Do you enjoy your current role as a principle engineer?
Great move. I love it. All code/build/direction, but with an executive perspective. My day-to-day is basically Tech Founder - I couldn't be more pleased (short of being tech fdr lol)
PM seems like an overrated job. They seem overworked for what they get paid?
Interestingly I think everyone wants to do a PMs job at my work and have fewer things to do as a result.
I get paid the same. I did internal transfer.
Before PM my role and value was clear. I creating things from scratch and solved problems and could see my contributions. At least you could run a test to show my stuff worked. As a PM, I can work my ass off for six months against ambiguity and politics and still not hit the mark because my management got an odd feeling one day. And I occasionally get the random hand grenade from a dev in a high profile meeting whose ego got a dent just because I filed a few bugs on work they did. When things are going well you’re on top of the world but when it sucks it’s the worst. I still don’t know if I will keep doing this for a few more years or change roles but I think about it almost every day now. Bottom line, PM quality of life is too dependent on the happiness of other people.
You nailed it here - When things are going well you’re on top of the world but when it sucks it’s the worst. I am going through that worst phase and am not sure if it’s all worth it. I don’t mind uncertainty but I do miss the constant flow of work from my previous roles.
Any job where you can’t measure your results, the job will be difficult and will be up to perception (often that means politics which sucks). As a PM, you are best off working in roles or projects where you can measure impact and results (with data), once you can do that, it’s a better experience. It’s a tough job though no matter how you cut it.
I hate being a PM. Would much rather be an engineer.
My 2c - PM job is great, if done right. The problem at my company is that the products are executive management driven. So all the hard work I do ends up being for nothing when somebody higher up decides to start/stop a product because they have a feeling to do so.
This is what I feel most PMs experience- all the work is to convince management to let you do the work
Hey OP, nothing wrong in changing back to engineer. Sounds like you would prefer that.
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PMs are redundant. Our org head had gotten rid of all PMs.
Doesn’t Microsoft have program managers who double up as Product managers? Who owns the roadmap for your team?
He's trolling. But Microsoft does have way too many PMs and we end up with lazy devs that have zero accountability and proactivity.