Should I pivot to Product or something else?
Currently a Solutions Architect at Databricks. Curious to know pros/cons on going into Product. Also interested in other attainable career paths for SAs. Mainly motivated by TC at this stage of my life, but also looking for slightly better WLB. TC: 450K | YOE: 6
also, don’t know much about solutions architect wlb but product is hella meetings pretty much no matter where you go so keep that in mind
Lots of meetings (internal with product/eng + customer-facing), not enough time to get actual work done for customers, etc.
That is your actual work as a PM :)
OP, are you aiming for an internal transfer to Product? Seems like an interesting space at Databricks, and you have a good technical foundation for it.
That is one option, but I’d very likely take a near-term hit if I do this internally.
What are solutions architect interviews like? Currently a devops engineer but previously was backend. Sounds like an interesting role to me.
1. Recruiter phone screen 2. HM phone screen 3. Take-home coding test 4. Virtual "on-site" (3-4 1-on-1s, presentation) 5. Call with HM to debrief Process is known to be pretty long (> 2 months).
Thanks!
It depends on your skill set. SA is similar to product from the technical POV, but I would say as a successful PM you also need: - extremely clear, concise, articulate communication skills. Downwards, upwards, and sideways - resource planning, financial analysis, and working out headcount allocation to support growth in the next 1-3 fiscal years - the charisma and negotiation skills to execs for your HC requests to actually materialize - strong understanding of cross-org dependencies, working through the requirements when multiple teams are involved and may have competing goals, and driving alignment - some politics skills due to the heavy XFN nature is also required
This is helpful, thanks @Apple! Of this list, the only thing I don't do currently is build the actual HC plans and PRDs, but SAs at Databricks are very much involved in a lot of the other points you mentioned.
Yes man- go for Product. You have the SA knowledge now- you know how customers react to your product. Now you can use that to build and plan for the feature roll outs. And then in 4-5 years be a Head of Product etc. Go for it- it might give you a more business angle into what it takes to build sellable products
Don’t think about lack of prior exp and all. So many don’t have it and still make it. You have tech arch skills- might in fact play out better for you.
SA to PMT in databricks should be easy right??? You have the most product knowledge. Why would they hire externally?
450K TC for someone with 6 YOE is already ridiculously high.
It’s easy, but I’d need to take a pay cut. So I’m exploring all options this point. Also, why is there a stigma around correlating YOE and TC? I know people that have been working for 2 years and 30 years, both making $250K TC. It’s about what you bring to the table (or it should be anyway, if your company is doing it right).
How are you making $450k with only 6yoe as SA? Did you join super early and you are including the stock growth? Are you L8?
Salary + commission + stock. Not factoring in growth. Can’t say more without revealing too much.
I feel like $450k is way out of range for most SA positions but not too out of range for PM. Thus if you are motivated by TC wouldn’t it make sense to go the PM route OP?
i would think switching to product rn would mean a pretty significant decrease in TC, at least for the short term (next 2 years at least). idk what the long run ceiling for TC is in solutions architect but whatever it is you’re a lot closer to hitting that now than if you switch to product
Assume the ceiling for me is about $550K TC.
if you’re optimizing for tc in next 5 years i think staying in your current career path is better. if you jump to product, i would guess you’d get in at mid-level role at best since you’re coming from diff path which is usually around low 200s TC. it’ll take a couple years of product exp before you getting back to current TC levels. if you can find a product position that matches your current TC level, you’d be beating the odds but go for it.