Career moves in product, from your next role to your own company
The Product Careers work group answers product career questions in group chats. The advice covers choosing a next role, reviews and promotion, and moving into product or out of it to found a company.
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Questions Answered
What to check before you accept your next role
Decide what the next role has to do for you, then check the offer against evidence: the actual weekly work, the company's growth and a real opening at the level you want.
Title or company: how to compare the two offers
Compare what you would own in year one, whether the company is growing enough to create more scope, and who will teach and sponsor you.
Switching career tracks or going deeper: run a trial first
First work out whether the problem is your company or the work itself. If it is the work, test the new track on a small scale before you give up the depth you have.
Stay and fix the job, or leave: make one clear ask first
Make one specific request to change the job, with a date to revisit it. Leave if the company has no credible path to the work you want.
Before you quit to start a company: what to test while employed
Use the months before you resign to gather evidence: a customer problem heard firsthand, someone paying for the smallest useful offer, a runway date and a cofounder relationship that has survived a missed deadline.
PM, designer and product engineer: who owns which decision now
Tell the roles apart by the decisions each one owns. The overlap starts in discovery and prototyping, and someone still has to make the investment call.
Getting into product management from another function
The most reliable route is internal: do PM-shaped work alongside a product team until you are the obvious pick. Without that path, bring evidence a standard candidate can't.
The tech careers product leaders would bet on as AI does more work
These product leaders would bet on roles that own an outcome: the economics of an AI feature, the rules and evaluation behind it, or the choice among competing prototypes.
Getting good with product numbers: definitions, daily reps and a prediction log
Start by saying exactly what a metric counts, then get daily repetition on your own product's numbers and a way to check your predictions against what happened.
Preparing for a performance review starts months before the meeting
Most of the work happens in the months before: ask for specific feedback, keep a log of your work and learn who might object before your manager has to defend you.
What changes at each level, and how to build a promotion case
Each level means owning a bigger problem with less supervision and more influence across teams. A promotion also needs the organization to have a role at that level.
A first 90 days plan: learn the mandate, then make a few calls
Use the first month to learn why you were hired and what customers experience, then by day 90 make the few decisions you have enough context for.
Startup equity for early employees: what to ask and what to plan for
Work out what percentage you own and what you would receive after investors are paid, then make sure the offer still works for you if the equity pays nothing.
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