 So we are live with this panel in this panel We will be talking about entering the tech industry with guys here and Ever is watching us later or live Just a reminder. It's too free to already drop in the comment session Any questions that you might have and we can answer with you right now So to kick this off Let me introduce myself and then we will do a round of introductions We're going to say our names company and what the hell we were doing also before starting to work in the tech industry Ourselves so my name is Esther. I'm working currently as a senior PM at delivery hero And before becoming a PM. I was working as a manufacturing engineer In my old days Any what about you? Sure. I'm Annie fan. I am currently at Slack Which is part of Salesforce before being a product marketer I was actually in the media and entertainment industry at working at Netflix and Sony Should we pass it on? Sure, I can go next. I'm Indra Misra. I'm a senior staff PM at build.com It's a fintech company Helping out small and medium businesses with their financial operation and planning solutions previous to build I used to lead product teams at Twitter Now X and I started my career At as a software engineer or building data center observability solutions for Dell technologies Go nice. Nice Okay I'll go next time. I'm sure you can them working at Microsoft as a senior technical product manager for teams app It is an online collaborating tool like most of us are using on day-to-day basis for our in this hybrid environment I work as a platform PM who is mostly responsible for the teams For delivering media like audio video screen sharing, whatever we are streaming right now Before PM I was a software engineer myself for six years mainly into Developing applications related to supply chain companies Cool very diverse backgrounds here already Maybe let's kick this off talking about the different types of the ends. It already can see a variety on ourselves here, right? So what will be the different types of the end that we can have currently, you know, it might also change how you approach these career change that you are searching for Honey, I think that you can maybe go first Sure. I'll answer this a little bit differently. I'm not in product Management, however as a product marketer, I can tell you there's a lot of variation in What the role actually is Even though the title is very generic and when you see job descriptions, they're also quite a standardized So from that lens, there are multiple types of focuses for a product marketer You could have someone that I call a core product marketer Someone that works really closely to PMs and engineering teams You're working on building out new solutions Whether that's a physical product or software and you're constantly working on a go-to-market motion To bring out new solutions new capabilities new releases To your customers within a tech company There are all their more general focuses like for example, some PMs might be focused on growth So bringing in more and more audiences and customers as opposed to Having those customers continue to adopt and so that's one example of that another example is a focus on content Especially at smaller companies or companies where there aren't that many marketers as a PM You might have to wear more hats and you're going to have a more general role Because there simply are many needs for marketing from content to growth To sales enablement, etc. etc. So I would say there's multiple different areas of focus But for someone that wants to be a more technical product marketer You're going to focus more on that go-to-market piece. So what is it take to understand the market and product fit? Where the opportunities in the marketplace? How do you work with the engineering teams and more technical teams and speak their language and also become the advocate for the customer rate so a Lot of excitement a lot of variety there in terms of the product marketing space Cool, this is very interesting. I think that the differences that we have in the different types Is I think that the key word that you said is the different focus areas that the company might be wanting at that time and even the scope Requires a more technical or more related to growth or more marketing marketing Specialists or so on cool cool But we also have here around us another type interesting type, which is not so general And I think that you already know that I'm going to point out to you, right? Silicon so maybe if you can share a bit more of like what in a few lines What does a technical PM does, you know, sure? Even in technical there would be like two to three different types It depends upon where you're actually landing whether you're landing on the customer focus You're landing on the UX focus or you're landing on the platform side, which is me on the back end my my more concentration would be mainly on on the Backend platforms on you know, how to scale those applications how to survive for the traffic You know, it has more technical Whereas on the customer focus side, you're more worried about what are the customer problems? How we are trying to solve but my features are basically coming in when Some customer PM thinks about a feature and then he comes and talks to our team on building that feature technically So my focus will be more on the technical aspects Of the of the future so that that is a different kind of a role I play But but being on this side, you also have to understand your partners Which will be our customer PM. So you are basically a PM for a PM team You're understand your customer would be your partner team not the you know, the end customer But ultimately it's end customer but your your more focus would be on your partner Yeah, I would I'm also a platform PM like she can't delete the data and AI teams at bill So as she can't set we are the enablers for the customer facing teams So whatever is needed from them to help them increase their velocity to deliver external customer features We enable them to do that at scale and not worry about infrastructure scale and AI needs So we are kind of building a paved path for them to to high velocity and high scalable Solutions for external customers and customers is a very broad term and I would say internal customers Which we have to deal with me and she can't all day today are much more difficult than the external customer because they have access to you and the PM and the team much more and They have more expectations Yep. Yep. I completely agree with you on that. I Agree a hundred percent on that as well I think that sometimes maybe the books might have more about the general roles and responsibilities of a PM if you go to Marti Kagan our the Bible It's more on the general size sometimes, but on the day-to-day basis and in reality the companies will have a necessity of a multiple Team a diverse team in terms of Skill sets as well. I completely agree a hundred percent that beauty internal Products is not so sexy sometimes, so you know post something medium or something like this But it's way harder when your customers are perhaps on your bi-weekly's or accessing your roadmap Under fingertips, so I completely agree with that Cool, I have one question here at which before I think that we move Further in our pool of quest questions here. We do have this Interesting one, which is like, okay, how your day-to-day looks like any Yeah, I mean, I would imagine it's similar to what PM's deal with so my day-to-day varies But it really depends on the rhythm of the project that I'm working on So for example when I was focused on marketing a desktop software product We had releases maybe once a quarter and those are big releases with something exciting for Customers to care about versus moving on into cloud solutions Products that tend to happen a lot faster. So then instead of every quarter It's gonna be every two weeks. And so a lot of times when you have a roadmap that's very fast that way You might need to figure out like, okay, are most of these bug fixes How do I even make a bug fix sound exciting or interesting to the customer? How can I give them faith when I'm calling out that the product is Imperfect, right? And so these are the things that I think about Another element to my day is conference planning in every company I've been in whether a smaller big Being present being live in person with people at industry trade shows has been an important part of growing the brand and growing Your content growing your product audience So there's a rhythm behind that type of planning as well. And so those are the things that tend to really dictate my My work throughout the year within the day. It's all kinds of things, right? Like the content creation It could be working on road map. So understanding Info from your pms. What's going on? How has it changed? Why the product was built the capabilities were built who were they for how does it work? How does it not work? How does it compare to other products? Etc. Etc. And then the third piece is customer interaction, right? Like so interviewing other customers seeing who your target customer is and Understanding how they're experiencing the product. Maybe that also feeds into what they want more from the product as well Like what's your concern? Andrew had already mentioned, right? So there's this whole cycle of customer listening planning and Going to market and just do that over and over again. So the days do vary, but it definitely does depend on the flavor of that month of order Totally We do have some more questions popping up Hey, Swati She's asking could I also Share a bit more of my rule my rule I would consider right now at delivery hero. I as a more Generalistic one because I do take care of a central product that all deliver hero is a delivery It's in the delivery The food delivery industry and we do have a lot of brands globally and I work on a rider at So I do on a rider facing User flow that I need to take care of with all these multiple riders Across the globe, but I also take care of an internal To that our local managers use to manage the rider fleet in this markets that we do have our brands So I think that I do take care of a A Multiple and never boring Backlog of different problems. Sometimes it's more On the customer experience and the rider experience. Sometimes I'm taking more into account the business goals that we need to achieve and Where we need to drive our vision in the midterm and how we are going to collaborate also with this completely complex product since it is a global product used in 50 countries or over 50 countries I do have to deal a lot with dependencies internally So a lot of my day sometimes is talking with internal stakeholders, which means other pms to make One feature that I want to drive available or I am supporting another feature that another squad is leading So working with these regions stakeholders Taking into consideration the rider and the researchers that we are doing And also where the business want to go. So I would say that I am Taking care about taking care of Multi-lens I would say in the position that I am right now. It's very fun my day. I wouldn't say Never boring Cool, I think that we do have another interesting one here Which is how to transit or break into as platform product manager from software Development or financial services domain background. I Think that we might want to have a good candidate to answer this question, right Siri? I can I can I can take this question How to transit it? I think the best thing to do is find an internal position within your company for the product manager because you know the domain, you know the teams And then you can you can judge yourself like What what are your pms skills at that point, right? so that would be the easiest transition for you to get into break to and and you being in the company the company has And the people around you have some belief in you. They understand your skills. They know more about you, right? So that would be the best way to transition into as a PM Within the same company, but but obviously that that not be the case for most of the people Maybe that role has a different Responsibilities are in different title in the same company because we all know Product managers are very different in very company in every company as well as in every team It's it varies, right? But the other thing if you want to actually break into get into a new company is start marketing yourself on social media platforms like start blogging, you know putting in Comments on what do you think about the feature and in all those kind of things and start networking With other pms product school is one of the biggest thing I actually learned stuff from products when I transitioned from developer into a product product manager So start there if you get into the in your own company, then you will you you will know that you like the role or not because Initially when you come into product manager, you get thrown away into different places You you will be in a very You know, you have to deal with a lot of ambiguous ambiguity, right? You have to Get through all those things. So if you're in the within the same company, then you can You know, get past these hurdles very easy I'll probably stop here and maybe I and I can jump in and Give more context from his perspective Yeah, great great insights you can't one thing I would like to add is Be prepared to answer the question Why product and not engineering a lot of times? PMs who are coming from an engineering background Tend to get asked that Or they have a like people outside have bias that they will get too much into the weeds and try to Go into the how rather than the what and the why so I would definitely Say if you are trying to make a break into PM, you definitely need to prepare for this question Otherwise, you will be labeled as an engineer And getting into the weeds getting into the depth rather than focusing on the larger picture Which is an important skill required for a PM So this question you need to have your story ready before going out there for interviews Nice and I see a similar question here from Adam Which is He apparently is struggling to move for a product official product manager role, even though he Has extensive experience with project manager and as a PO And is for a master. Do you guys think that these Tips that you have shared right now from a software developer to break through a PM role How different they would be if I am doing already like a product ops Maybe a project management role already, but I want to become a PM. What different tips would you also suggest? Yeah, I think the project managers I can take this one and I think the project manager is crumb master product owners. It's a very I would say a broad role and depends from company to company. So Ideally when you hear a project manager or a scrum master, it's mostly coordination of larger initiatives And working to make sure that the deadlines are being met the stakeholder management and whatnot So I would say and I'm sure Sreekanth and Annie would agree to this that we all of us definitely have some project manager Responsibilities in our day to day, but that's not the only thing. So you need to prove your value prop of Being more than a project manager To break through into a PM. So you need to understand the problem the customer pain points how you are iterating your thinking process how you're organizing the problem statement and Being your pros and cons and risks involved How are you tracking metrics and whatnot unless you are able to justify this In your interview or your story You'll be labelled as a project manager who's only good at coordinating stuff and keeping things running on time and milestone deadline driven Yeah, I think that just getting things done perspective Is required in any type of PM Role as well, right? So given that you have already committed to something or deliverable You will need to like take care of this Frequently, so you are going to achieve and deliver it at let's say by the end of a quarter But I I agree with Andrew. Maybe You need to change And be able to show that in your mindset you were already able to change for More focus on the problem statements and gathering all the requirements and talking about like what the value that this is actually going to bring And being able to speak with these and bring people in the room to this mindset as well If you're able to prove that You can talk and think more on this perspective than In the previous rows We're probably closer to the to the breakthrough as well I think that we do have these super other interesting question here that we Talked about which is the technical PM I already saw the TPM Questions popping up here. So how technical this technical PM actually needs to be Sure, I I would like to take this question and you know, put it very briefly It is kind of very much, you know, important at least in in my role being as a platform PM But like Andrew kind of mentioned it earlier Like you shouldn't be getting too much into the weeds, but you should still concentrate on your product You know manager skills at the same point. However As a PM, you will be having a vision of a product and a roadmap for your upcoming features and being able to understand the technical Architecture behind those features will will better guide You will be able to better guide the team that have teams Especially when you are in a funding discussions trying to de-scope an existing feature Or you or you may be providing some valuable inputs on reusing the existing Architecture for building up a new feature So these are the scenarios where you will be adding to your team by being You know by understanding the technical concepts behind those those features Some basic understanding you doesn't have to be like, you know, doesn't have to sit down and start coding But you should have basic understanding on like how to scale for a graphics, right or a database sharding. How does it work? What is the reliability? What is the availability of the product of these kind of, you know concepts you have to understand So that will help you You know communicate better with with your dev team the most important thing, you know, which I feel as a product manager You be between your LT and your dev team is you are able to communicate the technical aspects to your LT in a in a more of a, you know, LT understanding way like, you know Giving them the insights or the highlights of what's going on rather than going getting into very technical way So you you will be that bridge. So you know if as a as a platform PM I would say technical understanding and being technical is important Nice Let me maybe jump to another one because I also think that we do have something here During our dialogue. I I kind of connected also the tip that we have just shared which is What we should do back in the beginning of the call we were talking like what we should maybe do to Shine more or something like this Uh and the types of PMs and I can see that maybe perhaps the four of us we Took advantage of where were our strongest skill sets and then we went for the PM Uh role that would better benefit Um, whatever we were doing before becoming PMs as well, right? But perhaps there is more that that we can also do any What do you feel that uh, since it's super competitive, uh, the industry is not getting Super bigger and bigger and or in the growth Uh rocket right now. Um, what do you suggest for the people to get like more? Uh notice for the recruiters or how to land this first PM role Yeah, and I know, uh, Adam, you had expressed Frustration with the lack of movement, right? And so that's really typical. It's very hard right now Um, and I do see there's a lot of demand for PMs as well as product marketers But that demand has slowed down quite a bit, right? Um, I'm not saying that in the future. Well, it'll get worse. It'll probably get better But right now we're in quite a bind. Um, so my strategy is to focus on each step of that recruiting process Sometimes we jump from a to z to think, well, you know, I see so many other people get their dream jobs Why not me? Why is it so hard? So you've got to break it down. So the first step is applying How can you apply better? How can you match your resume better to the demands of that job? Um, and so focusing on that getting some training certifications under your belt will help you Uh, augment what you might lack an experience And then secondly, how do you augment or like multiply your ability to apply? Something that's worked really well for me is working with external recruiters So people that are working at reputable search firms Who are contracted by employers to place hires? And so these people I've found to be really helpful if I've built relationships with them They'll come to me and say, hey, I have a couple of new Jobs I want you to take a look at would you want to be submitted? So all of a sudden you're not just applying by yourself You have someone else looking out for you and that's going to help and then third really focus on building your community I try to think of Making friends rather than networking, right? So in the product school community Make relationships with people that are in the same boat people that have made it Or have been a little bit more advanced and use those relationships to see if they can help you Land those interviews better to prepare for those interviews better You might encounter the same themes of questions that you don't feel very strong about So maybe there's someone out there that can help you get input Something that I like to do is get some feedback as well. So have a buddy rehearse your Do some role-failing around interviewing When it comes to homework exercises get feedback Um get really smart people to help be in your corner and cheer you on but also like get you through that interview process So over time you should have more callbacks. You should land that hr Called really well that hiring manager call should go nicely, right because you've done your research You're prepared The peer interview will be a snap and then once you get to a panel You have more confidence because you've done it before So we might take several several several several jobs or job interviews to land that one that you really want So, um, I know it's it's a tough road, but uh, you can definitely get there if you focus on how you can improve at each step One thing I would like to add to what annie said is uh A lot of times candidates have like one resume for every job I would definitely recommend looking at the job description properly Going through the details of the skill set required and the what what the product is actually Asking the hiring manager is asking you to be and then Highlight only the skill sets which are relevant to that job Go that extra mile to update the resume for a particular job Rather than just using the one generalized resume for every job very Very very cool. I love how any we're able to break down This problem which is like how to land my role as a proper PM as well, right? Which is like take it step by step and then you have action items for each one of these steps If it is your uh, probably your cv. That is you probably want to get some feedback on it and improve it or The interview and also taking into consideration that Uh career change, uh, it happens. This is a topic by itself career change entering the tech industry is then a nuance to it So there's a lot of good content also that I would also suggest for people that want to change your career You know prepare your mindset prepare yourself to maybe take a step back And then uh, take it forward later in your career. Uh, so having these preparations as well Regardless if it is the tech industry, it's there are also like amazing tips out there for it And uh, this is uh, why am I saying this because for example interview multiple people even to learn a senior leader You might want to you might struggle with the interview a step of it So have a buddy rehearse The main uh questions get this feedback on your communication skills and how you're answering those questions Uh, I'm 100% sure that this will uh, speed up You in your process to find and land this Very wanted uh p.m. Roll Uh, maybe I know that we are reached uh, the latest one, but I found the late the last Question that I want to close. Maybe our panel Is a nice one that uh, Jessica asked which is like, what do you think? Uh, what do you find the most rewarding or What do you like the most what brings you joy? In the p.m. Career guys I can start and pass on to see can't and any uh, the Most joyful experience as a p.m. In my day today is the amount of impact I'm able to bring to the organization Uh, and also get to understand the pain points From different stakeholders during the day. It's a very fulfilling process when you see that okay This is something which a person or a team is struggling on on a day to day basis And you are solving a problem for them and making it easier. So when I log off Uh, every day in the evening, I have a sense of Accomplishment and satisfaction that I've made someone else's job easier That's that's very good Angra. Um, I I will touch upon the you know, like a rewarding Um, most of the rewarding doesn't come directly It's always indirect like Andrew was mentioning like someone reach Reaches out to you for a funding a particular item But your team is already occupied with so much work Uh, you find out a way to de-scope something and then pull this item into into the team and End of the day that person is so happy that team is so happy that they're able to launch their feature You are actually helping them. Uh, and and in turn you are rewarding yourself. So that that moment you will feel like wow Yes, I did something and you know, it's a good upload You you can log off for the day which it technically won't happen. But yes, that that is something you can do Any what about you? Yeah, I would add when sales becomes your friend Sometimes salespeople might not care about the product that you're trying to have them sell, right? But when you have a great idea when you help them figure out how to sell get more comfortable And then they see success. They see demand in the marketplace demanding their customers Um, you feel like you're onto something and then you're you're going to see customers that say I love your product and that to me is probably the most rewarding thing that that you'll see as a product market Probably as a PM as well. So yeah, it's that Validation that you get in your internal stakeholders as well as external in the marketplace Cool People it was amazing to spend this time with you. I think that we can wrap this up. Thanks for everybody that participated in the comment session Have a great Night or day depending on where we are Thank you. Thanks everyone. Thank you