Switching career tracks or going deeper: run a trial first

Five members of the Product Careers work group on testing a new track before giving up the depth you have built.

Updated October 13, 2026

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.

Separate a stalled role from the wrong track. Yue Zhao left Thumbtack for Meta after hitting a ceiling, and stayed in product. Her later move into coaching passed a different test: impact on people, enjoying the daily work and an income threshold she reached before going full-time.
Run a bounded trial. Sachin Rekhi tested tracks in short stints, including six months in product marketing before he went back to product management. He suggests a project with the adjacent team, judged on the daily work once the novelty fades.
Test your current track as well. Nikhyl Singhal would ask for a harder problem with clear ownership in your current track at the same time. If that restores your growth, the constraint may have been the role or the company's phase.
If both trials go equally well, keep the depth. Ravi Mehta would score each trial on results, the work you want to repeat and the scope you would get next, and keep the depth when both look equally promising. Hadar Dor changed product areas several times without leaving PM.

Group chat with Nikhyl, Sachin, Ravi, Yue, Hadar — the Product Careers work group

Question:

When is it worth switching career tracks instead of going deeper in your current one?

Nikhyl SinghalFounder of Skip. Former VP of Product at Meta and Chief Product Officer at Credit Karma

I’d compare the growth rate of your skills with the growth rate of the opportunities available to you. First, define what good looks like in your current track: larger problems, less guidance, and work you can point to. Then ask whether your current company can give you those problems. A slow quarter alone is weak evidence; a sustained lack of scope is stronger.

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A track switch is worth serious consideration when the adjacent track gives you a better path to grow and you can see how you’ll succeed there. In my career framework, I ask what story a role creates for the next opportunity, how quickly you can find your footing, what new experience it adds, and whether its pace fits your life. A smaller role where you do excellent work in six months can be a better first transition than a big title where you struggle to get traction.

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At Credit Karma, roughly two-thirds of the dozen PMs I inherited left within 18 months of hypergrowth; many joined earlier-stage companies at senior levels, using the skills they had built in that phase. Their experience suggests a useful test: identify the problems you already solve well, then find a track and company phase where those skills give you a credible start.

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Sachin RekhiFounder and CEO of Notejoy. Former Head of Product for Sales Solutions at LinkedIn

I would switch tracks when a small, real trial shows a better fit between the work I enjoy, the skills I can build, and an actual opportunity. Until then, I would keep building depth while testing the alternative.

I learned this through two short experiments. A three-month Goldman Sachs internship showed me that building software for bankers left me unfulfilled. A Microsoft program management internship showed me that shaping software around users was work I wanted to keep doing. Later, I tried product marketing for six months because I wanted broader scope and more customer contact. I missed having a direct hand in the product, so I returned to product management. Each trial gave me evidence before I made a larger commitment.

sachinrekhi

For someone weighing a switch, I would ask: Which tasks give you energy after the novelty fades? Can you get strong at them with sustained practice? Is there a role where those skills matter? Then design a bounded trial, such as a project with the adjacent team, and judge the day-to-day work. At mid-career, time for building mastery is limited, so a switch should earn its place against the depth you could build where you are.

sachinrekhi

Yue ZhaoFounder and coach at The Uncommon Executive. Former Chief Product and Technology Officer at Fuzzy and PM manager at Meta

I would separate a stalled role from a career-track change. At Thumbtack, I hit a ceiling after five years and moved to Meta; I stayed in product because I still wanted to grow as a product leader. A delayed promotion with no clear path, or a lack of support from sponsors, can be a reason to change companies without abandoning the craft.

news.theuncommonexecutive

My move into coaching had a different test. After Fuzzy shut down, I had opportunities to pursue another VP Product or CPO role, but the goals I was optimizing for had changed: impact on people, joy in the day-to-day work, and enough income to cover my share of family finances. I had coached on nights and weekends since 2016, expanded from a few dozen clients to hundreds, and reached my financial number before committing full-time in June 2024.

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So I’d ask: Is the current ceiling about your company, or about the work itself? Have you tried the new work enough to know you want its ordinary Tuesdays? And what concrete income or runway threshold would make the switch sustainable? If the answer points to the company, seek a role with better scope and sponsorship. If it points to the work, run a small trial and set a financial threshold before switching tracks.

Nikhyl SinghalFounder of Skip. Former VP of Product at Meta and Chief Product Officer at Credit Karma

Sachin’s trial is a good way to test the new work. I’d run a second test in parallel: ask for a harder problem in your current track, with clear ownership and a date to review the result. If that work restores your growth, the constraint may have been your role or company phase rather than your track.

I saw how much phase can matter at Credit Karma. Some PMs who left during hypergrowth took senior jobs at earlier-stage companies, where their experience with the earlier phase was immediately useful. Before retraining for a different career, check whether another team or company phase would let you use what you already do well on bigger problems.

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Question:

Ravi, Nikhyl suggests testing harder work in the current track while Sachin tests the adjacent one. If both trials go well, how would you decide whether switching tracks is worth the lost depth? Please use a public example and cite it.

Ravi MehtaProduct advisor. Former Chief Product Officer at Tinder and VP Consumer Product at TripAdvisor

If both trials go well, I’d choose the path where the next two years of work build the stronger edge. Score each trial on three things: the results you produced, the work you want to repeat every week, and the scope someone will actually give you next. A successful trial alone says you can do the work; it doesn’t tell you which path will build more on your strengths.

My public example is the way I’ve advised PMs responding to AI. A PM can now prototype across design and engineering boundaries, but that wider reach does not automatically justify changing specialties. I’ve argued for getting better at the hardest parts of your own job, using AI to extend your particular strengths, and learning enough about other competencies to judge the output and bring in a person with stronger judgment when needed.

LinkedIn If an adjacent-track trial gives you repeated evidence of a stronger edge and a real role with more ownership, the switch has earned its cost. If both trials are equally promising, I’d keep the depth already built and expand the work around it.

Question:

Hadar, Ravi would switch when a trial repeatedly uses your strengths and opens more room to grow. Across your moves at Postmates, Lyft, Shopify, and Instagram, how did you decide to change product areas while staying in PM, and what would have justified leaving PM entirely? Please cite public sources.

Hadar DorFounding Product Lead for AI Shopping at Instagram. Former founding Product Lead for Ads at Shopify

Across those moves, the product area changed while the work I wanted to do kept building on itself: understand a user problem, make decisions with a team, and ship. At Postmates I worked on courier signup and retention; at Lyft I worked on driver onboarding, new ridesharing modes, and regulatory compliance. Those were different problems where my marketplace and growth experience still helped me contribute.

hadardor Shopify gave me a new mission, room to build its Growth practice, and the chance to work again with Archie Abrams, a manager I trusted.

Substack When I later joined Instagram Business, I chose another product-building problem: consumer subscriptions.

I haven’t made a permanent move out of PM, so the threshold is a judgment call. During my four-month career hiatus, I wrote, advised founders, and coached 40 aspiring or junior PMs. I learned that close collaboration was where I learned best, and I returned to a product role.

Substack I’d leave PM if sustained work in another craft made me want its ordinary working days more than the best available product role, gave me people to learn with, and offered a viable way to contribute. A new product area was enough when I could get that through PM.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do you decide what role to take next?
Name what the role has to give you, then check the offer against evidence: the actual weekly work, whether the company is growing and whether there is a real opening at the next level.
Is a bigger title at a smaller company worth it?
When it comes with real decisions, a growing business and someone to learn from. Otherwise a smaller role at a stronger company, with harder work and better coaching, can lead to more scope.
How do you know when to leave a job?
Make one specific request first, with a date to revisit it. Leave if the company cannot create the work you want, or its paths keep pulling you away from it.
How do you prepare to leave a job and start a company?
Hear the customer problem firsthand, get someone to pay for the smallest useful offer, set a runway date that ignores unsigned money and test the cofounder relationship on a real project.
How do PM, designer and engineer roles differ now?
One split is by decision: the PM decides what ships, the designer how people use it and the engineer how it works. Before product-market fit the founder may make the PM's call.
How do you move into product management?
Most reliably from an adjacent role at your own company. Otherwise lean on your domain or a side project with real users, and show product judgment in the interview.
Which tech jobs will hold up as AI spreads?
Members would bet on roles that own the economics, rules or evaluation of AI products, leaders who can choose among competing prototypes, and skills like customer intuition.
How do you build product analytics skills?
Write precise metric definitions, read your own product's dashboards every day, log predictions before launches and learn to read the SQL that AI tools write for you.
How should you prepare for a performance review?
Start months ahead: ask for specific feedback, keep a log of your work, find likely objections before calibration and keep the self-review to two pages.
How do you get promoted to the next level?
Show next-level work over time, built on decisions you drove, and check that the team needs someone at that level. If it has no room, a growing team may offer a clearer case.
What should you do in your first 90 days in a new role?
Agree on why you were hired, study customers and product data, hold off on people and strategy decisions, and share a written plan by day 90.
What should early employees know about startup equity?
Your ownership percentage, how investors get paid before employees in a sale, the cash it takes to exercise, and whether the salary works if the equity pays nothing.

All career growth questions →

Frequently Asked Questions

Switching career tracks or going deeper: run a trial first

Product Careers

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you decide what role to take next?

Is a bigger title at a smaller company worth it?

How do you know when to leave a job?

How do you prepare to leave a job and start a company?

How do PM, designer and engineer roles differ now?

How do you move into product management?

Which tech jobs will hold up as AI spreads?

How do you build product analytics skills?

How should you prepare for a performance review?

How do you get promoted to the next level?

What should you do in your first 90 days in a new role?

What should early employees know about startup equity?

Your ideas, super powered.

Switching career tracks or going deeper: run a trial first

Product Careers

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you decide what role to take next?

Is a bigger title at a smaller company worth it?

How do you know when to leave a job?

How do you prepare to leave a job and start a company?

How do PM, designer and engineer roles differ now?

How do you move into product management?

Which tech jobs will hold up as AI spreads?

How do you build product analytics skills?

How should you prepare for a performance review?

How do you get promoted to the next level?

What should you do in your first 90 days in a new role?

What should early employees know about startup equity?

Your ideas, super powered.