Important tips to help you choose the right next job, especially if it’s your first one. Don’t just optimize for culture, compensation, or manager. Instead, focus on things like growth rate, peacetime vs. wartime, and quality of peers to ensure your next job is the best one… for you.
This was a superb read full of pragmatic advice. I'd love a future take on mid-career individuals and how they should think about IC vs management roles.
Hi Nikhyl! I discovered your writings through Ken Norton's newsletter and immediately subscribed to yours.
Although I'm not a college graduate anymore, I found this to be a great read. I am currently 4 years out of college and I took a 'Josh-like' approach. I chose brand-name and compensation when I went to work for a Big4 company right after college. I found myself at odds with peace vs wartime, quality and background, and my true purpose. I ended up leaving after 2.5 years to pursue an entrepreneurial route in real estate by renovating old affordable homes with the money I had saved up. In the beginning, I found it challenging and rewarding, but I began to lose interest after a year and missed working in a company office setting. Mid 2020, I began researching what fields I would be interested in through Reddit, online articles, books, and talking to friends/past-coworkers. I fell head over heels for Product and began taking online courses on uDemy, reading Product books, and talking to friends who were PMs. Although I've been learning a lot, I have been having trouble finding a job (let alone an interview) for Product. Even smaller roles like Product Analyst, Associate PM, Junior PM, Growth Analyst, etc.
I was hoping to could share some insight into what you recommend people who are trying to transition in Product from an unrelated industry/field could do to stand out. Thank you for your writings and for reading my lengthy comment.
I'll always keep my head up and pushing forward. I know that anything is possible if you put your mind to it. Thanks, Nikhyl!
I can totally relate to your story. I decided to take the entrepreneurial path when I first came out of college, but when I decided to stop working on my company 4 years in and wanted to switch into PM it was really hard! I'll share a few tips that are hopefully helpful!
(1) Try your best to build a Product Mindset - learn what product is actually about like you are doing through product books and udemy, but also through building something yourself - like an app, or a Shopify website, anything end to end in the product world so you know what it's like in practice.
(2) Since you have real estate experience, I would consider this and also your consulting experience as your two super powers. So I would look at real estate start ups that have products in this space, where you can sell your promise of hard work and your know how of the industry to get an entry level PM role. For example Zillow, Redfin, and even smaller names.
(3) You could consider working in tech companies but in a role that isn't PM to start like Business Development, Operations, Finance - something more closely related to consulting and then switching within the company into a PM role. I know friends that worked in Operations at places like Uber or well known smaller companies and then were able to get a PM role at another smaller or mid size company.
(4) Go above and beyond - hustle by reaching out to recruiters and hiring managers. And when you get their attention put in the work! Select 2 - 4 companies and really learn their products inside and out, and then create a case study of how you would change the product or what new product area you would add. Showcase your product skills to get your interview, then prep really hard for your interviews and get that job offer.
And oh...don't loose sight of your real estate side hustle - it sounds pretty cool!
Hey Danny! I'm 5 years into my career now (crazy it went by so fast) and I took a very different path, but I did make the transition from eng to product. PM is one of those jobs that seems pretty hard to break into -- every position wants you to have experience, and most companies don't have true entry-level product positions. Also, I sometimes wonder if by switching tracks I lost progress. Compared to my peers who stuck with engineering, I'm 1 - 2 levels behind on my title because, well, being a senior engineer does not make you a senior PM upon hiring.
Anyway, I don't have great wisdom to share like Nikhyl does, but I'm happy to connect and hear your experience, since it sounds like a very interesting journey.
This is great piece but it misses a whole bunch of variables that apply to non US settings. in APAC, the world is very different. The paygap between a US based tech company (FAANGs or high growth) vs. an Asian startup/ Chinese tech company is about 3-4x. The math of working for a startup that pays 50-70% lesser even after Series B with questionable liquidity on ESOPs (exits are rare/ non existent here) simply makes very little sense. Therefore one sees a two tier market on talent here. The ones who work for startups and the ones who work for MNCs. And so far, the talent gap in professionalism is super large. rarely do you see the crossing of the chasm. China has broken through this, and some parts of India have, but not so in many other apac markets.
Nikhyl, the thoughts you've shared here can be applied to folks across the career spectrum in my opinion. I wish I'd found you six months ago. This article would've saved me from what is now a sub-optimal working situation. I'm thinking very hard about your 'stay two years' principle and how I can leverage my employer's size into opportunities that may springboard me into a better fit down the road. All the best to you!
Great read! I particularly enjoyed the framework for years 1 - 5 (personally I'm in year 1.5 and found this to be very useful as I think through my career journey!) I've share this with a few college seniors as well. Thanks for writing this!
Great article that hit on the right factors, especially the location one which was a very insightful "aha" moment.
One thing I'll add is to assign weights to each factor or stack rank to help resolve tie breaks and ambiguity between two options. Certainly wish I had this guidance 10 years back :)
This was a superb read full of pragmatic advice. I'd love a future take on mid-career individuals and how they should think about IC vs management roles.
Hi Nikhyl! I discovered your writings through Ken Norton's newsletter and immediately subscribed to yours.
Although I'm not a college graduate anymore, I found this to be a great read. I am currently 4 years out of college and I took a 'Josh-like' approach. I chose brand-name and compensation when I went to work for a Big4 company right after college. I found myself at odds with peace vs wartime, quality and background, and my true purpose. I ended up leaving after 2.5 years to pursue an entrepreneurial route in real estate by renovating old affordable homes with the money I had saved up. In the beginning, I found it challenging and rewarding, but I began to lose interest after a year and missed working in a company office setting. Mid 2020, I began researching what fields I would be interested in through Reddit, online articles, books, and talking to friends/past-coworkers. I fell head over heels for Product and began taking online courses on uDemy, reading Product books, and talking to friends who were PMs. Although I've been learning a lot, I have been having trouble finding a job (let alone an interview) for Product. Even smaller roles like Product Analyst, Associate PM, Junior PM, Growth Analyst, etc.
I was hoping to could share some insight into what you recommend people who are trying to transition in Product from an unrelated industry/field could do to stand out. Thank you for your writings and for reading my lengthy comment.
I'll always keep my head up and pushing forward. I know that anything is possible if you put your mind to it. Thanks, Nikhyl!
I can totally relate to your story. I decided to take the entrepreneurial path when I first came out of college, but when I decided to stop working on my company 4 years in and wanted to switch into PM it was really hard! I'll share a few tips that are hopefully helpful!
(1) Try your best to build a Product Mindset - learn what product is actually about like you are doing through product books and udemy, but also through building something yourself - like an app, or a Shopify website, anything end to end in the product world so you know what it's like in practice.
(2) Since you have real estate experience, I would consider this and also your consulting experience as your two super powers. So I would look at real estate start ups that have products in this space, where you can sell your promise of hard work and your know how of the industry to get an entry level PM role. For example Zillow, Redfin, and even smaller names.
(3) You could consider working in tech companies but in a role that isn't PM to start like Business Development, Operations, Finance - something more closely related to consulting and then switching within the company into a PM role. I know friends that worked in Operations at places like Uber or well known smaller companies and then were able to get a PM role at another smaller or mid size company.
(4) Go above and beyond - hustle by reaching out to recruiters and hiring managers. And when you get their attention put in the work! Select 2 - 4 companies and really learn their products inside and out, and then create a case study of how you would change the product or what new product area you would add. Showcase your product skills to get your interview, then prep really hard for your interviews and get that job offer.
And oh...don't loose sight of your real estate side hustle - it sounds pretty cool!
I wrote more on how to get a job in PM here: https://angelinafomina.medium.com/so-you-want-to-be-a-product-manager-1da3f6dfcc9
Hey Danny! I'm 5 years into my career now (crazy it went by so fast) and I took a very different path, but I did make the transition from eng to product. PM is one of those jobs that seems pretty hard to break into -- every position wants you to have experience, and most companies don't have true entry-level product positions. Also, I sometimes wonder if by switching tracks I lost progress. Compared to my peers who stuck with engineering, I'm 1 - 2 levels behind on my title because, well, being a senior engineer does not make you a senior PM upon hiring.
Anyway, I don't have great wisdom to share like Nikhyl does, but I'm happy to connect and hear your experience, since it sounds like a very interesting journey.
Forgot to include a way to contact me: https://www.hansenliang.com/contact-me
This is great piece but it misses a whole bunch of variables that apply to non US settings. in APAC, the world is very different. The paygap between a US based tech company (FAANGs or high growth) vs. an Asian startup/ Chinese tech company is about 3-4x. The math of working for a startup that pays 50-70% lesser even after Series B with questionable liquidity on ESOPs (exits are rare/ non existent here) simply makes very little sense. Therefore one sees a two tier market on talent here. The ones who work for startups and the ones who work for MNCs. And so far, the talent gap in professionalism is super large. rarely do you see the crossing of the chasm. China has broken through this, and some parts of India have, but not so in many other apac markets.
Nikhyl, the thoughts you've shared here can be applied to folks across the career spectrum in my opinion. I wish I'd found you six months ago. This article would've saved me from what is now a sub-optimal working situation. I'm thinking very hard about your 'stay two years' principle and how I can leverage my employer's size into opportunities that may springboard me into a better fit down the road. All the best to you!
Great read! I particularly enjoyed the framework for years 1 - 5 (personally I'm in year 1.5 and found this to be very useful as I think through my career journey!) I've share this with a few college seniors as well. Thanks for writing this!
This was great again as usual Nikhyl! I agree with other sentiments about a future take on mid-career individuals.
Great article that hit on the right factors, especially the location one which was a very insightful "aha" moment.
One thing I'll add is to assign weights to each factor or stack rank to help resolve tie breaks and ambiguity between two options. Certainly wish I had this guidance 10 years back :)
Loved this piece, wish I had it earlier in my career :) Seems like Sherri also developed a unique set of skills that made her more valuable.
What do you think of the concept of a talent stack? Curious if you have recommendations on how to go about it.
I wrote about mine here: https://productlessons.substack.com/p/how-to-develop-your-talent-stack
Thanks for the detailed writeup and sharing these insights with the world. This will take me time to absorb. I will be back with questions :)