When choosing product management as a career

For aspiring and leveling up product managers

What’s up, everyone!

Here are few things I wish I had known a little early on in my product management career. Of course, unlike any other profession Product career is also going to be a bit of trial and error and experimenting with which areas/ problems excite you to work on.

If one thing I have learned over the past 8 years working as a PM is this —

Not every problem you work on as a PM will be exciting but your best work will be come out of the ones you are passionate to solve. Product Managers must fall in love with the problem.

As I was thinking through this — few questions stood out to me that I wish I asked myself when starting my career.

Nazuk Jain

• 👉 Why do I want a career in product management?
• 👉 What world problems get me out of bed each morning?
• 👉 What are the prospects of PM in my city, state, country?
• 👉 What PM required skill set aligns with my individual skills and passion?

👉 Why do I want a career in product management?

Product management is *hot* field these days. The success of product-led tech companies (where the key strategic direction questions are product team-led) has ultimately led to the rise in product management jobs.

• But there can be a lot of misinterpretation of the role. such as the title itself “product manager” but in fact, early PM career is an “individual contributor(IC) role and not of a manager.
• So my question is what aspects of product management attract you? and what are some things you think you may not like? Explore the things that you may not even like in this profession.

You can go as broad or narrow on this question.

• Industry: The way I think about this is product management role exists in various industries; such as Healthcare, Financial Services, and Technology, Real Estate, High Tech companies, Electric Vehicles (EV), Automobile Space, Electronics, E-commerce, Blockchain, just to name a few.
• If you pick any of these, you can go deep and further segment the industry into few domains. Example: Financial Services, and Technology, — if you narrow this down, you will see that some companies, focus on simply Payment products making payments locally and cross-border simplified and easy payments (Paypal, Venmo, etc) then you may find some companies focus on other areas in finance such as brokerage, lending (student loans, home loans, car loans), financial asset management, Venture capital payments funds. You get the point!
• Understanding the role: Having a clear picture of what a beginner-level product manager role looks like vs. how it evolves as product managers advance to the next level in their career.

👉 What world problems get me out of bed each morning?

Doesn’t have to be this dramatic, but it kinda does.

• Compensation & Management: When first starting out you may not know where you want to go; and may take up a job where the hiring manager seems nice and pay is good, which is absolutely fine.
• But for the long term, I wish I had this realization bit sooner that money will no longer be a driver that will get you out of bed each morning and get you excited about solving the problems unless you believe in solving the problem yourself.

You must be connected to the mission of the company and overall the problem it is solving.

👉 What are the prospects of PM in my city, state, country?

Some Industries will be *hot* in your area, whether is your city or country and some will be saturated.

• Explore which ones are hot now and which ones have future aspects of growth?
• If you don’t find many job prospects of product management in your city, this might something to look into deeper.
• What technologies are *hot* where you can be a PM and help solve?

👉 What PM required skill set aligns with my individual skills and passion?

• For example: As a PM you will work cross-functionally with a lot of teams and will need to be great at communication and be diplomatic.
• You will have a lot of visibility as THE product manager working on the project with a lot of responsibility. Some people enjoy this and others don’t.
• To be a world-class Product Manager — PMs must make a conscious effort to combine their innate talent with the skills required at the job.
• For example, if you have an eye for good design then work on products that have a visual element like B2C products.

I hope these questions provide some food for thought.

Also, Check out this post I did for conventional and unconventional paths to product management

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