Who left Product and is happier?
Just got promoted to senior after 2 years as a PM. It's fun but so much work and overhead. I'm considering going back to analysis or engineering.
Posted Aug 27, 2021, 12:43 AM UTC
5341
I’m thinking about this as well. I’ve been a PM for 5 years and now at a big tech company thinking it would get better every year. However I find myself hating all the bureaucracy and just general process of documentation, getting alignment, needing to always “be on”, cycle of planning, constantly needing to explain “why”. It’s tiring. I’m actually considering switching to data engineering maybe next year.
24
"Being on" all the time is tough. I fantasize about a job that has some days of coasting lol
16
Honestly I think this depends a lot on your personality and industry.
Top tip: do PM in a slower/more regulated industry and you'll find the burden to be always on/react quickly disappears because things just move at a slower pace. Lots of opportunity to coast ;)
10
Great point. Sounds like I should leave software :P
3
I'm really curious about this as well. I've been a product manager for 5 or so years, but I've really been thinking about switching to software engineering to focus more on solving the problems rather than just finding the problems and letting the engineers solve them.
23
Getting back into programming would be fun and I'd like to be a better engineering partner to product. But I've always viewed product as solving problems too. The problems happen to be about people, business and value
11
Same here. Only 3 years in but somehow it seems more appealing to "just" solve problems instead of hoping that others will do it well and in time. As a PM it feels like you rely on so many other people to show up to meetings (prepared) and to do their work properly.
6
The one good thing about product is that it's like a master key to basically any career in tech.
Alike, you can pop out for 2 years into something else and people will be glad to take you back.
Give something else a try if you want
18
Actively campaigning for a service design role
6
What’s that?
5
its using user research to uncover service opportunities for businesses. For example, proposing and mapping out things like think reduced wait times or automatic callbacks for customer support or a text message sign up flow instead of a web registration.
3
That sounds super interesting. Should it be supported by estimations/calculations of current cost/time of manual processes?
1
Echo most of these comments of the tiring grind. I find I need more autonomy- actually looking to buying my own small biz. PM is good training ground for general management (I hope).
6
Like a couple of others here, I took time off but did not leave the role. I had been promoted up to the role of director and was struggling. Not performing badly, but just not enjoying the role. My company was reorganizing and I took the opportunity to leave rather than switch to another organization (due to the nature of the reorg, I had access to a really good severance offer that not many got - I could walk away on good terms with a year+ of salary).
I had been very close to leaving anyways, but this gave me the space to take some time off and really think about what I wanted. I realized I really enjoying just building product. The role I had been in was all people and escalation management and politics. I know that's part of the PM role, but that is all I was doing and it was very quickly turning to burnout.
So when I was ready for my next role, I used that carefully evaluate the opportunities. I was able to move up (now in a Sr Director role) where I actually do a lot of product work every day. Part of that is because I own a new and somewhat small service inside a massive organization, but as the product and work grows I get to build a team. Right now I'm just enjoying being kind of an IC with a Sr Director title and pay!
5
I left a VP of Product role (it was at a startup, so there was some title inflation) to try out working in the non-profit world. That wasn't right for me. I'm now back in product as a consultant and I'm much happier. It's a different type of role and it took a while to get the first contracts, but it combines the tactical with the strategic without a lot of the overhead and people management of being in house and feels more entrepreneurial because I'm more responsible for my career growth.
4
Oh wow— are you with a consulting company?
1
I have one contract through a consulting company and another directly with a client. I found both on Upwork. My experience with Upwork is it's a mixed bag. There are a fair number of companies looking for product management, but it can take some work to get to a contract. They often don't really know what they need, or they say PM but they mean UX, etc., but it's also the only place I've gotten any traction. I had no luck with the PM consulting companies, but better luck with custom software developers who want to add a PM to their team.
2
moved up to executive level and im happier, but i still like product a lot. but i see the advantage in just focusing on vision and letting other people manage delivery
3
What are you an executive in?
2
i went from pm to cto to ceo
5
I moved to a Sales Engineer position a couple years ago. It wasn’t because I didn’t like Product—I just wasn’t in a good position at the company to do what I needed to. I had trouble finding another PM position so I jumped to sales. I’m happier now because I have a great team, great managers, and it’s a good product to sell. I’m surprised how much down time I have when I’m not needed for sales engagements. In Product, you are the bottleneck and there is no possible way to do everything. As an SE, I do my discovery, prep a demo, make technical recommendations to customers, and I move on. I also deal with bullshit salespeople internally which is a classic challenge but it’s manageable.
I do really miss Product though and hope to get back to it some day, but with sales I am treated well, I can relocate with no drama, and I’m doing similar things. It works for me right now.
3
Oh wow. Any tips on getting into Sales and being successful? I have thought about it. I am highly incentivized by goals and a carrot, and also helping people solve problems.
1
The main thing companies are looking for are 1) Can you give a good demo, 2) Can you speak to customers comfortably, 3) Can you sell the product without bullshitting. You probably have experience doing these things if you are having conversations with customers and internal people. There’s just a learning curve towards the sales environment, especially when dealing with internal people with their own roles and incentives. But it can be fun when you figure out what a customer needs, put it together to look nice, and see them light up during the demo.
1
Trying to exit and do some micro business /FIRE
2
Not me, but others at my company. Plenty of people try it for a year or two and find it's not for them. No shame in that.
2
I took two years off and went to grad school. I thought I was happier before actually working in academia and realizing I’ll have to live in Iowa to teach for a very modest living (no offence, Iowa).
But, it was definitely worth to have time and space to reflect on why I was unhappy in my last few PM roles. When finishing grad school (completely unrelated to PM), I had a much better idea what to look for and what type of PM role I need to avoid stuffing down depression. You might just be in a company that’s not the best for you (or for the world, which is often aligned).
2
I'm trying to get into PM, so still new in this area. Whatd u say are some pros and cons being a PM?
1
That's sort of like whispering, "will all the hearing impaired people please raise their hand?"
-11
I left product in May and am now interviewing to get back into it. I was relieved at first, like really relieved to leave. I was mentally and emotionally exhausted. The problem is, every position seems so dull now, including my current one, in comparison to being a PM. I will go back in with better prioritization skills and boundaries as to not burn myself out again.
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In another role… In supply chain. I think if I worked in strategy or digital transformation somewhere else I’d be a lot happier and wouldn’t miss being a PM as much. The supply chain role I am in is highly specific/specialist-esque, so it is all about execution as opposed to strategy.
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PM experience translates to most things IMO.
I started out of college working in Contracts, govt contracts to be exact (8 months). Wrote contracts for SaaS after that (1.5 years). Then became a PM (1.5 years).
So after the PM experience I was able to do a lateral into Subcontract Program Management (my real role is “sr. subcontract manager”, monitoring execution of scope and cost for a couple large subcontracts). Anything that is a “management” role vs a “specialist” role (I.e. Account Manager, Subcontract Manager, Financial Operations Manager, Operations Manager) involves more oversight and execution, and the product mgmt experience is really attractive to them. Most people get our jobs confused with program mgmt, or think that PMs do program mgmt (we have to in some roles, but they see us owning a roadmap and cross-functionally coordinating to achieve an objective which is VERY transferable) with the added benefit of seeing that we think very strategically and thus can “manage” things better (like execution).
IMO I haven’t found this to be true personally. I am naturally better at strategy, and cannot bother to be in the weeds on one thing (such as one large subcontract) and one thing only. My “process improvements” so far in my role have been innovation ideas for automating most of our jobs (lol), designing an enterprise-level electronic subcontracts management system, leveraging agreements with suppliers for enterprise level savings, etc. That isn’t my job role at all and am kinda of failing at my current job because I’ve left it behind to pursue other things at the company without their consent lol (but good contributions)
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This! Same situation here. I took a year off and did something else but I’m going back at a much more senior product role with a better perspective and approach.
Oh wow! Good for you! I hope it works out, and I hope you can post an update for us? This is an important subject to discuss, burnout and tactics to take to prevent it. I think it is good to take a step back and learn, then come back refreshed.
I am also getting a more Sr. role. It is so exciting, and the $ is so great! My salary will increase by $31K in this truly terrible economy lol (I am in the midwest). It is certainly a driving factor!
The burnout was primarily due to the "multiple hats" in a B2B organization that I wasn't prepared/equipped/supported for.
Though I am entering a tougher role this time, I had the experience to get buy-in from the hiring teams that I needed X people to support me for pre/post-sales, customer management, integration, product support, marketing across multiple timezones, etc.
It took me a while to understand what I could have done better in my previous role, and what I should have expected and requested to avoid burnout.
I hope to not encounter the same problems and if I do, I should be able to react to them better in this new role.
Haha I did that in May too. Left a PM job for a business analyst job that paid a TON more... and already bored...
Are you going back to PM?
My old company keeps asking me to come back haha. That place gave me anxiety attacks and I had to take burnout leave though.... so maybe not...
I wouldn't be surprised if I do something similar. I enjoy the work a lot because it's challenging and rewarding. But it's becoming really draining. Taking some time from product would be good and let me evaluate how much of my life should be my career.
Yeah, I’m definitely kind of on the fence at times about going back. The company I am interviewing with is pretty known for work-life balance luckily, though.
I will say some of my PM lack of balance was self-imposed. I had absolutely no boundaries, prioritized EVERYTHING and gave everyone answers RIGHT NOW. I had a lot of more Sr. PMs that didn’t do this (still worked more than 40 hrs a week, just not as bad), so I wonder if life could be better as a PM now that I have been able to observe my bad behavior.