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Yeah it’s tough when there’s a blanket idea about what specific experience an external hire must have, but the same rules don’t apply if you’re getting an internal promotion. And I guess that’s fair. Better the devil you know etc.
I mean I’ve benefited from that with my own title as a way of recognising my scope and influence even though it’s kind of nonsense when you’re only managing a few people.
Honestly I think in a lot of UK based businesses there's an element of "know your place", I've worked in some places where people delighted in taking the tall poppies down a peg
In terms of what to do next, you have to put what other people are doing and succeeding out of your head. Your 30s are when your friend circle start to peel off in different directions, but my dad always said by the time you're in your 40s some are doing even better and some crash and burn
What to do next? Work out whether you want to succeed here or elsewhere. Whether the skills you need to succeed here are fungible elsewhere, or purely political. Or indeed whether there's a ring of truth. And then work out how to get to where you want to be. Unicorns can be very difficult with high expectations.
Thank you. Wise words.
Imo the middle is the best place to be.
• Good pay, but not the tallest blade of grass
• Last stop for decent wlb
• Low politics, relative to Dir / VP positions
Title increases are overrated. Find a job where you do what you like, and get paid well for it. This measuring contest of who has the most important title is such a vapid and meaningless metric by which to gauge one’s life.
Said like a person with their 30’s well behind them ,but quite right !
32! Looking forward to enjoying my 30s
You are in your mid-thirties, it’s time to exit the hamster wheel and focus on what brings joy to your life. Stop comparing yourself to others.
Are you really going to be happier when you have the VP title in your LinkedIn profile, or are there other aspects you care more about?
Who knows how miserable the big 4 partners are while they are sitting at the hotel bar after their 5th drink because they had a hard day trying to sell another cookie cutter project
Comparison is indeed the thief of joy. And you are right that career success is no indication of happiness.
I think I’ve followed my passion the last 5 years and now that I’m thinking about a family I really want a little more security and a role that allows me to lean into my management strengths. That doesn’t necessarily mean the most prestigious titles, but I have spent a lot of my career trying to be a great manager and coach for my team, and a servant leader for the organisation. Just a bit of a kick in the teeth when you’ve led a team with 4 squads and built a 0-1 product to £2M ARR to be told you’re not senior enough to manage 3 PMs lol.
No offense, but 2m ARR is basically pennys, or whatever the UK equivalent is. No one cares.
For sure. That wasn’t quite the point I intended to make. It was a 0 business and this level of ARR is the signal VCs look for to commit to the next round of funding, so it’s an important milestone in that regard. There are lots of PMs out there with scaling experience but relatively fewer (as far as recruiters tell me) who have had an impact on the 0-1 journey
Ah that makes more sense/is more impressive.
I think it is 'pence' in the UK
I'm near your age. Instead of looking for jobs, I chose to gather some friends to start a business years ago.
Until now, I have 1 successful startup, 6 failed. But even if someday I have to shut down my startup (hopefully never), I still have a product portfolio to apply for some jobs out there.
I think the key thing here is whether you like it or not. If you like it, work feels like play and there might be more ways to apply for jobs than just applying. Opportunities are everywhere. You may ask for a position instead of just applying for what's available.
That's just my world view. I'm a startup founder not a job seeker, but I do hire people (sometimes without posting jobs).
Btw, look for culture too, especially at your age, you don't want to work with people you don't like.
Love this perspective. Congratulations on the courage to create a career you enjoy and for your successful start up!
And 100% on the people. I am not here to waste my time with people I don’t enjoy or respect.
Btw, look for culture too, especially at your age, you don't want to work with people you don't like.
What is the best way to gauge that? (esp during interview rounds)
Once you reach Head level, any move to another organisation will 100% require a step back in title if not salary.
At these levels they are hiring for cultural fit, relationships and attitude which can't be demonstrated in interviews. They want to hire people at SPM then give them 1-3 years to prove themselves and build an internal network before promoting them.
It's not like law or consulting where the person is the commodity - product managers don't actually output anything they are just coordinators.
The best you can do is try and maintain your salary.
If you want to go straight to another head or lead role, you would need to have a big public profile or own a profitable startup outside work or have something else unusual about you.
Once you reach Head level, any move to another organisation will 100% require a step back in title if not salary.
At these levels they are hiring for cultural fit, relationships and attitude which can't be demonstrated in interviews. They want to hire people at SPM then give them 1-3 years to prove themselves and build an internal network before promoting them.
This has not been my experience at all. SPM -> Management was the biggest hurdle to cross, and promotions to management are extremely rare.
Once you have management experience, the title can change at any given company, but you've got the prereqs. You're not going back to an IC to hopefully get a promotion back to management.
And what are alternatives?
I did move from Head of PM -layoff. To senior PM but kept my salary. Still I feel I never grow - now staying 2-3 years in a risky startup is not great (I am 40 now).
I consider leaving the PM route but to where?!
Title is mostly being at the right place at the right time. Since you got to Head of Product at your small start-up, consider working more cross functionally so that you can bridge the gap between product strategy and business strategy. Should be easy for you with your consulting background. This will allow you to build relationships with the board. Network with your VCs on the board. If your current company is doing well, you can help them fundraise so you can build out your team more and grow the business. If your current startup doesn't scale up, the VCs would be a great option to help your next product leader role. Maybe you could be a successful VC too?
Great tactical advice. Thank you.
Very very similar and I feel the same. As smart or smarter than many of my friends. I understand tech, business, lead teams, constantly learn, deal with uncertainty. Still in Senior Mngt position. I am tired and disillusioned from PM.
I am currently evaluating other options and clearly stating in interviews the desire to grow my career- no luck so far. Open to sales, delivery, consulting etc
Ah, I’m really sorry to hear you’re in the same boat. I really believe in being high agency and not blaming circumstances or lack of luck, but sometimes it’s tough. (Particularly when right place right time can make all the difference to one’s career trajectory!)
I watch my peers who are Directors and VPs and Partners in other industries and I’m still cranking out in the middle, even though I know I’m just as smart, just as competent and probably a lot more conscientious than many of them are. I don’t love that I’m feeling a little bitter about it.
Mid 30's seems to be the time for this. I was one of the "lucky" ones in my friend-group and have been in senior positions since my late 20s. During my 30s I spent far too much time burning myself out and my friends in jn/mid positions spent too much time worrying about their career.
Fast forward to now and everyone is more mature, seems we all value & worry about quality of life vs title/prestige. Both the really high-flying folks and those at mid-level. Like, this worrying-about-career-progression shit isn't even a thing anymore. Even those heading for jackpot are doing it just so they can get the hell-out-of-dodge.
Thanks. I do know I have to stop comparing myself to others and this is some helpful perspective.
The title bit of clearly for my ego, and I need to let go of that. A good part of it is that I just want to be paid well — I’m not talking FAANG well, just a comfortable amount — so I can afford to have a family.
For context, neither of us has parents who can support with childcare (mine live in another country and his single mum passed a few years ago), we can’t afford not to work full time but nursery / kindergarten is a pretty huge sum. Until we started crunching the numbers I was more relaxed about seeing how things went; trying to have a baby has really put some urgency on wanting to be able to provide.
The title itself doesn’t carry as much prestige in product as it does in other parts of the organization. In fact, I would argue that the product organization is relatively flat if you decide to focus on developing a skill set instead of achieving title then overall you are going to be much happier. IMHO you could go out tomorrow and become CPO of a startup that fails and how much further did that get you?
The real flex in product is 1) Are you actually a great PM? 2) Did you work on any cool Products? 5 years from now would you have rather said, “ I was the PM for YouTube or I was the CPO of AdGarggle?
A genuine laugh at AdGarggle. Totally spot on with the flex being working on good products. That’s what we are all hoping to do, I think?
I will offer an opposite point of view and consideration for you that hasn’t been mentioned by others:
– deep down do you feel that you are exactly where you need to be? - are you placing an arbitrary higher expectation then you need to by comparing yourself to your peers who have a higher title than you are? - What does it mean to detach yourself from these surface level titles/compensation and instead of focussing on the fulfillment/personal goals from the jobs you’ve been in?
You deserve everything that you worked hard for and to be honest, for someone in the mid-30s getting to a senior manager or Director level is a huge accomplishment that 90% of people you will meet in your age range could only dream of being in that position from their careers. You are also wise to introspect on your values and future lifestyle to determine which career choices would be the best. Focus inward, think of the long game and you will find that there’s more to this job than just the things we can slap a label on. Also, yes, we do not come to conclusions about our abilities based on the company we chose to work for.
hi, I received the similar feedback as well, if I were you, I would ask them to explain the "haven’t managed a portfolio of products" part. Have you managed a portfolio of products?
Yeah, I’m speaking to another hiring manager and will enquire further. I always thought portfolio experience in the truest sense was more the director level role, whereas Lead / Group PM is certainly a wide scope — getting more into systems thinking and wider trade offs — line management for others but I guess it’s a messy distinction. What is one person’s product may be another person’s feature.
At the moment I’m looking after everything: consumer-facing app, client portal, clinical portal (it’s a health tech) but it’s not a very mature organisation so it’s not fair to define it as “portfolio management” at this stage. Just isn’t messy enough.
I admit I skimmed through your post but what I can say is that you need a different set of skills to move further into leadership. I recommend the book "What got you here won't get you there".
It's not strictly about product but a book about general career advancement into leadership.
Thanks. Ordered.
PM isn't big4/consulting in a sense that you either go up or out. Most (like 80-90%) of the SWEs/PMs peak at senior IC level. I have a friend who's been L5 in Google for over 5 years, and that is more of a norm than exception.
It's just one role you went for. keep interviewing till you find the role you want.
I would not be too worried about getting promoted, especially as a PM in my experience, because most promotions to Head are pure luck anyway and has nothing to do with experience or skills. At least in everything non corporate. In startups / scaleups it's pretty common that they just promote the person of the pool who is the longest there or who they like the most (meaning the yes man). Stopped caring about promotions a long time ago when the people with 0 leadership experience and not even the best IC got promoted left and right just because the person above them went somewhere else and they were the next in line in terms of tenure.
Just to add I've had two interviews recently with 12 years experience where they've said I'm not a Lead and they want to move me to senior, after advertising the roles at Lead level and obviously starting from a position of thinking my CV is lead level.
There's two possibilities here - either I have actually gone backwards in my career or they feel able to do this because of the market.
Either way I pulled out of both roles. Wasting everyone's time like that doesn't really bode well for the firm.
OK, gosh. Good for you for knowing your value and not wasting anyone’s time.
I think the job market is a factor at the moment. You can get more bang for your buck because there are so many capable candidates.
I also know from my own experience that the more mature an organisation gets, the higher the standard for the same level becomes, at least within a scale-up environment.
This feels like I could have written it. I don’t have an answer but it hurts when I see less smarter people climb up the ranks faster than I. For instance, my colleague who has no good sense of product management and was promoted over me. Answers in roundabout manner, doesn’t clearly execute on things, doesn’t understand tech. In this case he developed good relationships and greased elbows with people in power. He literally hasn’t released anything substantial at least not as much as I, but politics helped him. I’m looking elsewhere but it’s extremely hard given the economy. I get rejected from firms whose own PMs have done less and are less qualified than me at least as per their LinkedIn profile. I’m expecting something better only next summer.
The title itself doesn’t carry as much prestige in product as it does in other parts of the organization. In fact, I would argue that the product organization is relatively flat if you decide to focus on developing a skill set instead of achieving title then overall you are going to be much happier. IMHO you could go out tomorrow and become CPO of a startup that fails and how much further did that get you?
The real flex in product is 1) Are you actually a great PM? 2) Did you work on any cool Products? 5 years from now would you have rather said, “ I was the PM for YouTube or I was the CPO of AdGarggle?
🍿
Tech unicorn where they don't value your previous experience? Hmmm. Sounds like revolut.
Honestly product management is a mixture of ability but being in the right place in terms of company culture, ability to maximise your skills, and a buoyant market to be rewarded