Should I become a product manager

> ## Q: I'm considering venturing into product management after being a software engineer for 3 years. Primarily, because I feel I would enjoy it more (based on my perception at least). What are some markers I should look for?

I switched from engineering to product about ten years into my engineering career, and looking back it was one of the best decisions of my life.

Though I loved programming, frankly, I was a mediocre engineer. I got my work done, but I knew I was never going to be an amazing engineer. Especially when I compared myself to many engineers I knew. I also often found myself doing (and enjoying) the PM’y work on teams I was on. At one point our head of product pulled me aside and said: “Do you want to be a product manager? You should be a product manager.”

It was a difficult decision at the time. Changing career paths, particularly into a career full of soft-skills which I was uncertain I’d be any good at, while also letting my very-concrete-and-highly-valued coding skills atrophy (which they definitely did) was frightening. Initially I pushed for a hybrid PM+engineer role (why choose, I’ll do both!), but quickly learned that as a company grows, you need to fit into an org bucket. And so I chose product management.

I still miss a lot about being an engineer (e.g. the immediate feedback, the satisfaction of building, getting into flow states – not a thing when you’re a PM), but, again, it was one of the best decisions of my life. I love being at the center of the action, talking to customers, thinking about the bigger picture, rallying the team, and working with tons of different types of people. It’s not for everyone, but it was right for me.

To help you in your decision-making process, let’s first make sure you understand what you actually do day-to-day as a PM, and then I’ll share my advice for thinking through your decision.

### What you spend your time doing as a product manager

![Image from Should I become a product manager](https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/49b1bea7-35e2-440c-aa08-93272dd55981_1200x675.png)

As a product manager, your days are made up of three types of work:

#### **1. Shaping the product**

1. Talking to customers, understanding their needs and pain points
2. Talking to internal stakeholders, understanding what’s important to them
3. Reviewing the latest data and user research, crafting new questions to answer through data and research
4. Running brainstorms to capture new ideas
5. Doing competitive analysis
6. Giving design/UX feedback
7. Developing a strategy and vision for your product
8. Writing and reviewing 1-Pagers/PRDs

#### **2. Shipping the product**

1. Helping estimate timelines and set deadlines
2. Aligning the team around timelines
3. Checking-in with team members to understand what’s behind, and ahead of, schedule
4. Helping make tradeoff decisions, when planning and later when behind schedule
5. Unblocking your team members by helping decisions get made, getting everyone the resources they need, and making sure each team member is clear on their priorities
6. Doing quality assurance, catching and reporting bugs
7. Coordinating a launch plan

#### **3. Synchronizing the people**

1. Aligning your team around a single set of priorities
2. Aligning your team around a clear strategy and vision
3. Aligning your team around goals and KPIs
4. Getting (and maintaining) buy-in on your priorities, strategy, and vision from external stakeholders
5. Communicating project status to your team, to external stakeholders, and to the company at large
6. Building relationships with team members and stakeholders
7. Organizing reviews, check-ins, and all-hands

This sounds like fun to you, then product management is probably right for you. Let’s delve deeper.

### Should you pursue product management (as an engineer)

Ask yourself these questions to see which bucket you fall into more.

#### **Pursue product manager if:**

1. You’re more excited about solving business challenges (e.g. strategy, growth, positioning), and customer challenges, than technical challenges
2. You often have strong opinions about the user experience
3. Teammates often agree with your product feedback
4. You enjoy being at the center of the action, vs. on your own, heads-down working
5. You could see yourself being happy never coding professionally again
6. You look forward to collaborating with non-engineer stakeholders
7. You feel like you’re a mediocre engineer, and aren’t motivated to put in the time to become significantly better

#### **Don’t pursue product manager if:**

1. You expect to finally run the show — most of your time will be spent aligning engineers like yourself, along with designers, researchers, execs, etc.
2. You think it’ll be an easier career path — there are far fewer PM roles than engineering roles
3. You can’t imagine not coding — once you’re a PM you’ll only have time to code on nights and weekends
4. You’d fail the [marshmallow test](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment) — as a PM, you need to be good at finding your joy in long-term outcomes
5. You expect to make more money — PMs and engineers make about the same amount of money

**Three final pieces of advice:**

1. Shadow a PM for a day. See what the job is really like.
2. Don’t rush into it. You’re only three years into your career, and having deeper engineering experience will only help you in the PM role.
3. Finally, if you’re feeling the pull to try product management, and you have the opportunity, I’d go for it. It’s not a one-way door, and having a chance to get into product management is a rare thing.

Good luck, and let me know how it goes!

### 🧠 Further study

1. [How To Get Into Product Management (And Thrive)](https://www.lennyrachitsky.com/p/how-to-get-into-product-management)
2. [A Product Manager’s Guide to Growing Yourself and Your Team](https://www.ravi-mehta.com/product-manager-roles/)
3. [When to hire your first product manager](https://www.lennyrachitsky.com/p/when-to-hire-your-first-product-manager)

See you next week!

## **🔥 Job opportunities**

**✨**Sponsored job of the week: **[Senior Lead Engineer at Prisma](https://www.notion.so/joinprisma/Senior-lead-engineer-21f1e14d37564050999fb66f3e5376eb) ✨**

1. **Product**: [Cerebral](https://boards.greenhouse.io/cerebral/jobs/4313154003), [Kudo](https://kudo.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=32), [Plume](https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/2344670919/?trackingId=YHvRTxoetClV7013SkxEAQ%3D%3D), [Prenda](https://apply.workable.com/prenda/j/63270A44BB/), [Rocketplace](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Rocketplace/11bc424f-e80f-4bab-aa96-517c01a6d511)
2. **Growth**: [Alloy](https://apply.workable.com/alloy-automation/j/A0909506B0/), [BasisOne](https://www.basisone.com/careers/growth-strategy-lead), [Prenda](https://apply.workable.com/prenda/j/AC98C5FDFB/)
3. **Design**: [Ashby](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/ashby/145ff46b-1441-4773-bcd3-c8c90baa598a), [Berbix](https://jobs.lever.co/berbix/ba8af3cd-d797-492b-9849-13b37df0f6b2), [Office Hours](https://jobs.lever.co/office-hours/13d73541-b5b7-405a-9ad8-1d3f0edf9c92), [Levels](https://www.notion.so/levelshealth/Join-Levels-Remote-Lead-Designer-14ceaa685100486b824665e1320fc9af), [Primer](https://www.notion.so/Designer-San-Francisco-CA-327a70b082714933aef3c58ef63b54ab), [Runway](https://www.notion.so/A-Product-Designer-baa24543701f472bb291d4429812064a), [Watershed](https://www.notion.so/Designer-Watershed-7cb7bf8bd750432399d36e83e4e32391)
4. **Engineering manager**: [Cerebral](https://boards.greenhouse.io/cerebral/jobs/4076598003)
5. **Frontend engineer**: [Levels](https://www.notion.so/levelshealth/Join-Levels-Remote-Developer-58454f0db7e3466692f7b75db6237ddf), [Practice](https://www.notion.so/Front-end-Developer-929e1933b9b4432a851043adbb7bff04), [Tome](https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/2323962506/)
6. **Backend engineer**: [Driveway](https://www.notion.so/Driveway-Senior-Engineer-758d5ce4ce764f9ea920c5728ee136f3), [Pogo](https://www.notion.so/Senior-Software-Engineer-Backend-6d954206f00b446289f18bf51960ca34), [Transform](https://transformdata.io/careers/)
7. **Fullstack engineer**: [Alloy](https://apply.workable.com/alloy-automation/j/27639ECE80/), [Cascade](https://www.cascade.io/jobs/full-stack-product-engineer), [Centered](https://www.notion.so/Software-Developer-e7cad269968e4d5aaeb1f6da9e282626), [Icebreaker](https://icebreaker.video/product-engineer), [Iggy](https://www.notion.so/askiggy/Full-Stack-Engineer-IggyAPI-5a8c1825028e421b9587538718f370b4), [Primer](https://www.notion.so/Senior-Software-Engineer-Full-stack-web-San-Francisco-CA-3a0af35008104def82836a5b9a5a88e1), [Runway](https://www.notion.so/A-Product-first-Full-stack-Engineer-5e056689b68048aeb1ccfea6ac73eb9e), [Snackpas](https://jobs.lever.co/snackpass/7c3bb72b-70d3-45ca-9dea-eea57ed5333d)s, [Stytch](https://jobs.lever.co/stytch/00c92a1b-36c2-46f6-8af1-885a6bbd6bd4), [Sunroom](https://jobs.wrkhq.com/sunroom/17233)
8. **iOS engineer**: [Primer](https://www.notion.so/Senior-Software-Engineer-iOS-San-Francisco-CA-87f0fd3ee3dc4c3f8d0419c07fcdd434), [Stytch](https://jobs.lever.co/stytch/d3bf3860-4aaa-4a23-8e28-dad20957be44)

## **🧠 Inspiration for the week ahead**

1. **Watch**: When a costumed person destroys the drums At children’s music concert

[Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZShA_a-5r8)

2. **Read**: The story behind AWS

3. **Listen**: [Andy Rachleff on management theory, Reed Hastings’ genius, lessons from passing on Netflix & more](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-startups-audio/id315114957?i=1000504431501)

#### **How would you rate this week's newsletter? 🤔**

[Great](https://t.sidekickopen82.com/s1t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7kF8cV_VXW1CdjwB59hl3kW7_k2847sD3qkVNxJHk1CX2ZcW2bzNJl8lkfc1101?te=W3R5hFj4cm2zwW4cQKtC3KcLnYW4hLZp03ZVbTxW1JB0ML1--tKxW20ZTw51-YpBFW1W_jBk1ZmvHBW21j9tt1-_j_TW1Vnkcj1V3fMvw1V21pC4Hp2&si=7000000001348012&pi=6174bab6-7009-4402-a497-3d6f867fbea1) • [Good](https://t.sidekickopen82.com/s1t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7kF8cV_VXW1CdjwB59hl3kW7_k2847sD3qkVNxJHk1CX2ZcW2bzNJl8lkfc1101?te=W3R5hFj4cm2zwW4cQKtC3KcLnYW4hLZp03ZVbTxW1JB0ML1--tKxW20ZTw51-YpBFW1W_jBk1ZmvHBW21j9tt1-_j_TW1Vnkcj1V3fMvw1V21pC4vX2&si=7000000001348012&pi=6174bab6-7009-4402-a497-3d6f867fbea1) • [Meh](https://t.sidekickopen82.com/s1t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7kF8cV_VXW1CdjwB59hl3kW7_k2847sD3qkVNxJHk1CX2ZcW2bzNJl8lkfc1101?te=W3R5hFj4cm2zwW4cQKtC3KcLnYW4hLZp03ZVbTxW1JB0ML1--tKxW20ZTw51-YpBFW1W_jBk1ZmvHBW21j9tt1-_j_TW1Vnkcj1V3fMvw1V21pC4kr2&si=7000000001348012&pi=6174bab6-7009-4402-a497-3d6f867fbea1)

*Have someone in your life who would benefit from this newsletter? Feel free to forward this email to them, or better yet, give them a gift subscription*💖

Sincerely,

Lenny 👋