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$475k TC for a product manager role? I am clearly doing something wrong in my career.

by javajosh 3y ago

scarface_74 3y ago
It’s not what you do, it’s where you work.
- granshaw 3y ago
  This x1000
Aurornis 3y ago
$475K was their old compensation, prior to being laid off. Great product managers are very valuable. Having someone who knows the customers and the market inside and out helps a company focus their roadmap on the highest value features and products. If you're paying 50 engineers and their managers to work on products, having one highly-paid person dedicated to scrutinizing every last detail of the roadmap to make sure you're not wasting time on the wrong features will produce an efficiency gain. I think the issue is that there are a lot of bad product managers out there, so chances are good that most people have never actually worked with a good product manager. Product management is a vague position where quality is hard to measure, so a lot of people end up in Product Management because they know how to speak charismatically and present themselves well in meetings. Anecdotally, the recent downturn has forced a lot of companies to take a closer look at these highly-paid soft positions. Among my personal network the number of engineers who got laid off is much smaller than the number of product managers who got laid off, despite the fact that I know far more engineers than product managers.
- janalsncm 3y ago
  Small nitpick, $475k was their prior total compensation. Maybe half of that was salary, the rest stock.
- zucked 3y ago
  As someone who drifts in and out of PM roles, this. The very nature of Product Management is quite squishy in practice. I don't have a scientific number on this, but in my experience out of a group of 10 PM's, there are 1-2 great ones, 2-3 decent ones who will likely be great if they keep at it, and the balance are people who want to work in "tech" but only have soft skills. The commonality in the best PM's I know is having more than a passing knowledge of the domain they work in.

$475k TC for a product manager role? I am clearly doing something wrong in my career.

scarface_74 3y ago

It’s not what you do, it’s where you work.

granshaw 3y ago
This x1000

Aurornis 3y ago

$475K was their old compensation, prior to being laid off. Great product managers are very valuable. Having someone who knows the customers and the market inside and out helps a company focus their roadmap on the highest value features and products. If you're paying 50 engineers and their managers to work on products, having one highly-paid person dedicated to scrutinizing every last detail of the roadmap to make sure you're not wasting time on the wrong features will produce an efficiency gain. I think the issue is that there are a lot of bad product managers out there, so chances are good that most people have never actually worked with a good product manager. Product management is a vague position where quality is hard to measure, so a lot of people end up in Product Management because they know how to speak charismatically and present themselves well in meetings. Anecdotally, the recent downturn has forced a lot of companies to take a closer look at these highly-paid soft positions. Among my personal network the number of engineers who got laid off is much smaller than the number of product managers who got laid off, despite the fact that I know far more engineers than product managers.

janalsncm 3y ago
Small nitpick, $475k was their prior total compensation. Maybe half of that was salary, the rest stock.
zucked 3y ago
As someone who drifts in and out of PM roles, this. The very nature of Product Management is quite squishy in practice. I don't have a scientific number on this, but in my experience out of a group of 10 PM's, there are 1-2 great ones, 2-3 decent ones who will likely be great if they keep at it, and the balance are people who want to work in "tech" but only have soft skills. The commonality in the best PM's I know is having more than a passing knowledge of the domain they work in.