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As others have mentioned, avoid startups, unless they are one of those unicorns. You have moved to product and project management. You know, every guy wants to
by raincom 11y ago
As others have mentioned, avoid startups, unless they are one of those unicorns. You have moved to product and project management. You know, every guy wants to transition from programming/coding/engineering (all those individual contributors roles). Where have they moved to: product management (if they got MBA from any school), project management (with PMP and CSM certified scum master). Some have moved to engineering leadership. Once you transition to these roles, you can't jump out the way a programmer can: you need to find another full time at an established company.
In many companies in the states I have worked as a consultant, product and project managers don't have direct reports. If I were you, I avoid becoming a project manager (PMP, SCM) like a plague, unless you see lots of upside financially in the short turn.
Even for a job as a product manager in the states, you will have hard time getting offers/interviews form established companies: these companies have lots of qualified local candidates for product manager roles.
If you were a graduate of an elite school, try your connections, thats the way to get your foot in the door.
I have avoided becoming a project manager: every mid-career guy without hands on is a project manager these days. Some have become consulting architects for VMware, Cisco, if they can talk tech. Others have got evening MBA from Columbia-Haas etc: even here, all these guys are planning to become C-level execs. But what I see now in the valley: Columbia-Haas MBA does not cut, except to become a senior product manager. Thats the case with Kellog, Chicago Booth, etc; I had seen a kellog MBA with prior experience as a product manager, working as a contractor for a startup.
Are you trapped? I don't know. What I can say is this: you have too competition to get a product manager role at top tier companies.
- leafwein 11y agoThanks for the detailed answer. Are those top tier companies promoting product managers from within? They are advertising product manager jobs, so I assume they are looking externally. Or are they hiring overqualified people into those jobs since there is so much competition?
- raincom 11y agoI used to work for an enterprise social company in 2011. I happen to find a folder of resumes for product manager and interview feedback--on a common windows share. And this enterprise social company is not top tier at: all those candidates had MBAs from US schools. Even this company was selective wrt which MBA one had: Kellog vs Cornell Johnson. What this tells me is this: the bay area market has too many MBAs (morning program, evening program, weekend program, etc). So, companies are selective when they got lots of candidates. GE Software in San Ramon is a good place to look for a product manager role. Their pay is not that great (no RSUs, just salary + bonus): it is a bad place to work for some people. But it is a great place for other kinds of folks. GE has too many CIO's, CTO's, Senior Directors, Directors, etc, compared to other companies: so, many guys called "GE boys" play all games to move up. They got too many leadership programs too. You need to be local for these jobs or at least you need to have someone push your candidacy for the job, then come onsite for interviews. Are they promoting product managers within? . Usually, Intuit has such a program wherein a fresh college grad can move from software engineer role to associate product manager role, etc. So, some companies do promote internally.