Regretting switch to a Product Manager

Posted by AlkyIHalide@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 17 comments

Switched to a Product Manager role 1.5 years ago from a senior dev doing backend/infra about 6 YoE. Originally the vision was being able to spend additional time on open source/side projects, experiment with speaking at conferences/build a personal brand, and personally try to fill out some of the gaps I thought PM lacked. It was also a step into big tech to get a household name in my resume.

In the time so far, it feels like I am simply mediocre at the job and offered more business value as a developer. Themes of issues so far:

Handling 2-3x more context switching. Spoke to mentors who use the "spinning plates" analogy, and they recommended finding the plates that cannot be dropped. However, this results in someone perpetually being upset and having to be the face to redirect the energy.
Simply too exhausted to even entertain the idea of coding on the side, even if projects are interesting.
Proposals to speak are not getting accepted which is demotivating.
Spending time writing docs and specs that no one really wants to read or spending weeks chasing people for buy-in. Project management naturally becomes part of the job, at least for my level.
Industry trend for "coder" ratio along with unpredictable job security.

I have successfully taken a few features to market and no one seems to directly have issues with my performance (at least, not openly). New found respect to people who are able to thrive in this type of environment. Put simply, the role is not as fulfilling as I thought so rethinking options.

Start interview prepping during the holiday season
Stick it out and try to make things work
Set some timeline to re-evaluate

Writing to get some thoughts out. If anyone went through a similar career experience, I would love to hear some perspectives.

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EntireBobcat1474@reddit

Why would a move into PM be a step towards big tech?

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AlkyIHalide@reddit (OP)

The offer came from a big tech company, although not necessarily an important factor for the move

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EntireBobcat1474@reddit

I see, I was under the impression that you switched to PM as a way to make it into big tech

I’ve never done PM myself, but I’ve worked for about a decade as a staff level TL/area lead in a mini org at Google with many different PMs and I’m pretty familiar with their territory since I’m usually one of the partners who sign on for the e2e ride in the product lifecycle (from the product discovery all the way past the GTM)

I think there are 3 types/stages of most PM careers, and they’ve all got some rough edges. I also don’t think it’s a role for everyone (I personally would never get fulfillment out of it)

The tactical PM - typically more early stage in the role. Great PMs balance their influence/soft-power with a great intuition for what to build/how to sell a vision. When you’re early in the career or new to an organization, you lack the influence, so you have to compensate with the tacticals to slowly build up that capital. This is an extremely difficult stage to work through because it’s fundamentally a chicken and egg problem. Your whole role is to influence, and you’ve got to quickly figure out who matters and how you need to work with them in order to start making contributions. Hopefully you have another senior PM who can not only show you the ropes, but also build some of the crucial early relationships with your peers and your upline/stakeholders that you need to do your job. Nevertheless, lots of new PMs I’ve worked with spent years working thanklessly to build enough of a reputation before they’re well trusted enough by their sponsors and their peers to start running their own show. At the same time, you’ll often get the feedback that you need to show more influence and independence, which is impossible to get before you pass this stage. I’ve had lots of PMs burn out before they get through this stage.
The senior PM - at some point, you figure out how to pitch your vision, how to build your perfect PRs, PRDs, roadmaps, GTMs, and you’re well known enough in the organization that you just have that sixth sense about who and how to get the approvals to get your ideas staffed. You start spending more and more time in your flow state getting everything (both the anticipated and the meteors) pushed through. Life is good, until it becomes too much. You start realizing that you’re perpetually double booked, you start feeling bad about declining meetings from some of the L3-L4 SWE ICs that you used to be close with but can’t find time for anymore, you complain about how calendar doesn’t default to 15-minute blocks, you start wondering when you started sounding so unintentionally curt in your emails. Soon, the parts of the job that used to excite you stops being exciting.
The GPM - A couple years down the line, your manager (now director or VP) has an idea after yet another uninspiring 1-1, why don’t your take on some reports to delegate the parts that you can’t/don’t want to deal with. You get that mythical bump to L7.5 (GPM or director depending on the size of the org), and then you realize that your life is now just about attending a never ending cycle of reviews, steering, xfunc syncs and alignments, and endless escalations

Anyways, I don’t have any advice, and I’m speaking as an outsider looking in, but this seems to be how a lot of my own friends went through the career

jatmous@reddit

someone perpetually being upset

Welcome to being a manager. We don’t do anything particularly well, we “manage”.

ExperiencedDevs-ModTeam@reddit

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TheGreenJedi@reddit

A customer success engineer might be right up your ally

Spoonzie@reddit

I switched to PM. I’d got a bit stale with coding and wanted to try something new, but I could never have imagined how much more mentally exhausting it would be.

Being a mediocre/lazy PM is pretty easy, but doing a good job is way harder than most people realise.

flundstrom2@reddit

Unfortunately, it seems you had a somewhat idealistic expectation on what you would be expected and required to do. What you describe you actually spend your time doing is more in line with what PMs do "behind the scenes" to ensure the developers can stay focused.

Just like coding, or being a tech lead, or team manager, or architect, product management is not for everyone.

However, having that experience is always good as well, since it will help you reach your ikigai.

Imaginary-Corner-653@reddit

I can't offer anything helpful because I'm in the same trap and am struggling to get out due to ai hype :/

79215185-1feb-44c6@reddit

Congrats you made the mistake of transitioning from a technical to a non-technical role. You do not get to go back and you will be judged.

leftsaidtim@reddit

I don’t agree with the last two statements.

In the past I’ve been a Product Manager (filled in for several months when my company needed it), an engineering manager and eng director.

In the past two years I went back to IC (lead software engineer). I still code but I also spend a lot of my time influencing others. Being able to articulate why non-technical roles in the past will help you in technical roles is useful - being able to more easily work with Product or Design can save a team many many hours and painful meetings when you can liaise with them directly and be an enabler for the team to work better with those functions.

No judgement here from technical people coming back from non-technical roles. It takes many roles to ship successful software and more well-rounded engineers make it much easier.

The difference between you and op is that op cared more about money than being an engineer which is a turnoff for me.

Educational-Ant-9587@reddit

Good thing op won't interview with you then

flash_crypto@reddit

I just went back easily. A few questions during the interviewing process about why but no one questioned my reasons.

MendaciousFerret@reddit

Be a software engineer who is customer-focused, a problem solver, can analyse data a little bit and wrangle small teams to build features and is good with people - hey presto - you're a double value add for many tech companies.

PM is a high stakes business and the people who progress are often, shall we say, "the strongest personalities". I've seen many come and go while good senior SWEs who can execute and solve problems are evergreen.

Sorry_Monito@reddit

product management can be a tough switch, especially with constant context switching. if you're considering interviews, start prepping now. leveraging holiday downtime is key. jobowl might help if you're struggling to get interviews. balancing personal projects can reignite passion too. it’s about finding what fulfills you.

Nervous_Turnip8946@reddit

Personal projects are great for passion, but finding the mental energy to even start after the day job drains you is a huge hurdle. That exhaustion is real.