Generally, I am thinking of success in 3 dimensions: Vision, People and Execution. All three need to work well for a team to succeed over time. Early in your career Execution takes a bit of a higher focus. You can get your first 2-3 promotions by launching bigger and more complex projects. However, as you grow in your career the ability to offer broader, more ambitious vision and have others join you in the journey become more central for your success. Your already proven execution skills help in attracting people to work with you since they know you will deliver. It’s important to invest in all three dimensions throughout your career, since honing these skills takes time. When I joined Meta I was excited to find out that here we are formally aligning PMs expectations with similar axes: Impact (which includes Strategy and Execution) and Capacity Building (which includes healthy team and cross functional relationship as well as broader contributions to the organization). I believe this structured view creates the right incentive and culture.

There's a lot written about basic PM competencies (https://a16z.com/2012/06/15/good-product-managerbad-product-manager/), and for any PM on my team, they should be able to do all these things you'd expect from a PM (write specs, understand the customer, communicate upwards and outwards, GSD). I'll focus my answer on a few attributes that I think are really "make-or-break" for me: * Good communication skills, both written and verbal, are an absolute must-have for any PM on my team. Whether it's through writing specs, influencing stakeholders, or pitching product ideas, PMs have to be able to communicate effectively across mediums (written, verbal), forums (large groups vs. small groups vs 1:1) and audiences (to developers, marketers, sales, executives). In particular, they need to be able to tell good stories (e.g.,, can they get their team inspired about an idea?), structure their communication effectively (e.g., can break down ambiguous problems using a framework?) and make technical concepts easy to understand for non-technical folks (e.g., can they explain how routers work to someone without a CS background?) * Great PMs "own" the problem. They're not afraid the step outside the boundaries of their function to do what it takes to get the product out the door. They rarely ever use phrases like "that's not my job" or "this was the designer/developers responsibility". Their strong sense of ownership of the problem leads them to passionately debate about the right solution, speak truth to power when necessary, but also be open to other points of view (because it's not about "them", it's about solving the problem).

As you progress from PM to senior PM, competencies in these 3 areas should grow: Autonomy💪🏽, Scope 🌫️ and Leadership 🙋 . There are a few clear indications that someone is ready for the senior level, like increased scope, being a reliable partner and being results driven. Here are some less obvious ones: #1 You recommend initiatives based on your strategic evaluation, instead of waiting for them to be handed to you. You are influential in your field and feel confident putting forward these initiatives. #2 You leverage relationships across the org. You can drive results from partners outside of your immediate team. You are fully entrusted to tackle complex, multi-team problems with little necessary supervision. #3 You are seen as an available and trustworthy mentor and actively seek out opportunities to help others be their best. This is my favorite by far. What are the key stages that distinguish the different levels of PMs? I think a little bit of this depends on the problem space and company. In my mind, PMs are professional collaborators, strategic assassins and bring out the best in their peers. If you can look yourself in the mirror and say you’re doing these things at scale, well, I’d say you're on the right track.

Let’s say that a product team and an executive team are aligned on the goal of improving customer satisfaction with the product (measured by a CSAT survey). The product team will then do research and perform experiments to validate the best way to impact customer satisfaction. Including executives in the research process via stakeholder interviews is a great way to get input early - executives are viewing things from a much different perspective than team ICs and often have great ideas. When the team prioritizes opportunities to pursue, the framework they use for prioritization can also be used to convey their point of view on the best way to impact customer satisfaction. If an exec suggests making an adjustment to the roadmap during the team’s roadmap review, seek to understand why and dig into their thought process. Then, seek the truth. Is there a quick way to validate or invalidate the feedback? What does the objective evidence point towards as the best opportunity to impact the goals? For more on this topic, I recommend “Cracking the PM Career” by Jackie Bavaro which has a chapter on working with executives.

Today, our org structure follows the ethos of "Small, autonomous teams". In this structure, we generally have a PM paired with a Technical Lead (Eng), somewhere between 3 - 5 Engineers, and a Business Systems Analyst to focus on operational and analytical tasks. Some teams have a Design/UX representative as well, where applicable. Hierarchically, we have these teams organized into Pillars, with a shared broader mission/remit. Pillars are led by a triad, with a Senior PM, Product Lead, or Group Product Manager aligned with an Engineering Lead (above TL) and a BSA Lead or Design Lead where relevant. Finally, those Pillars roll up into Groups, where the Director level can provide guidance to the respective teams. The main thing to note about these structures, though, is that they take time to mature; where we are today is a step function change from where we were last year. Eventually, I do hope to land in the formation outlined above, but we will continue to transform as individuals grow in their roles or are brought on board over time. 

Going from an IC PM to a manager role was one of the most gratifying transitions in my career. Having been a manager before in a different context prior to becoming a Group Product Manager at HubSpot, I had some prior experience leading teams and operating in an environment with broader scope and complexity that helped ease the transition. That said, I do recall a couple of things: * Saying no to your pet rock: As an IC PM, you’re the biggest fan of your own product ideas first and foremost. Given my drive for intellectual honesty, I’ve generally taken pride in my ability to arrive at the best possible answer (even if it’s not originally my own) throughout my career. I do still remember early on as a GPM saying no to ideas I thought were great in the past was a practice of self-restraint. Fortunately, this comes naturally now. Now my role has shifted to ensuring teams are focused on the most impactful work, and having strong empathy for teams when we have to say no to the incredible ideas they harbored. * Finding the right cruising altitude: Within the context of HubSpot, there’s a Product Lead player-coach role between PM and GPM. During my time as a Product Lead, I found it challenging and thrilling all at the same time to be at the right cruising altitude depending on the task at hand and who I was communicating with. The way you communicate with the team you’re PM-ing is probably not the same way you would communicate with executive leaders. * Finding your people: This is something I recall from shortly after I shifted to GPM. As an individual contributor (IC) PM you develop very deep relationships with the designers and engineers you work with day in and out. You’re in zoom meetings or on slack with them most of the day. Especially in a hybrid world, it took me a moment to shift my mindset to a broader definition of team and intentionally spend more time with the PMs and peers in the product leadership team. Fortunately, I love building new connections and HubSpotters are very warm and eager to meet new folks so this was a fleeting moment. I’m sure there are a lot more, but these were top of mind.

I think the best way to break into the industry as a PM is to get after building tech products yourself. Personally, I left a well-paying job in the energy sector to work on a start-up with no reliable paycheck. Thinking back on that experience, it was crazy beneficial to learn how to work with designers & engineers to build a great product or feature. The act of building a product or feature is the best teacher. I’m not advocating that you should quit your job and not get paid to build stuff like I did! There was a lot that wasn’t so awesome about that. 😅 But I definitely WOULD encourage everyone here to think about how you could do that in your spare time. What problems are you passionate about solving? What kind of product or feature could help you solve that problem? How could you bring that solution to life? How can you talk to prospective customers about it? Even PM candidates that make wireframes or prototypes to show a product that solves a real problem have a leg up over most of the other candidates. I’ll take someone with drive, initiative and passion for the work 10 times out of 10.

1. Not validating the problem statement enough. Is this really a problem? 2. For a B2B product, I think its important to think through early on whether this is a problem they are willing to pay for. Often times, this is an after thought and expensive to pivot. 3. Giving up too soon. Its easier said than done to validate the problem statement. Sometimes this take iterations where you get live feedback from real users. So you might be dancing around the problem space for a bit and that's okay. 

FIRST OFF, TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND REMEMBER, CRUSHING THOSE OKRS IS GOING TO TAKE TIME AND EFFORT. NEXT, SET CLEAR GOALS FOR EACH MILESTONE AND BUILD A PLAN AROUND IT. JUST LIKE YOU WOULD WHEN DEFINING A PROJECT, IDENTIFY SUCCESS METRICS FOR YOURSELF AND CREATE A PLAN. HERE’S AN EXAMPLE: First 30 days: Learning and Absorbing * Establish good working relationships with stakeholders: the key to being effective is having open lines of communication with your coworkers. Take the time to get to know them and learn from their experience. * Immerse yourself in data: learn where to find pertinent information, which dashboard to follow and how to query data on your own (or work with a data scientist). * Familiarize yourself with your product’s users, their needs, pain points and Jobs to be Done (JTBD). * Spend time doing competitive analysis to better understand the product landscape. * Integrate into the team’s current work and process and identify ways in which you could be helpful. 30-60: Ownership and Leadership * Assume responsibility for a project: work with your team to define the project’s scope and add requirements. * Define success metrics for the project and work with your engineers and data scientists to ensure impact can be measured and tracked. * Identify cross-functional dependencies and reach out to relevant teams. * Give a demo and solicit early feedback. Continue to do so throughout the project. * Report on the project’s progress and impact to keep everyone involved and interested. Speak clearly about the business impact and how the project ladders up to the company’s goals. 60-90: Strategy and Vision * Leverage your understanding of the business and its users to craft a vision and strategy. * Translate the above into an actionable roadmap and work with your team to define success metrics for each. * Run brainstorming sessions with your team regularly to generate ideas and prioritize them. * Evangelize: this is where your storytelling skills will come into play—make your team’s mission known, its projects familiar and its rationale clear to everyone. Write posts, speak at company meetings and bring feedback back to your team. * Become an expert: be the go-to person for your focus area.

(Reposting this from a related question) A technical product manager at Amazon is generally referred to as a Product-Manager-Technical (PM-T). A PMT can have ownership over a product, a functional area or even a program, but their primary focus is on formulating the vision, the strategy and roadmap for that area. They are also ultimately responsible for the end metrics of adoption, quality and effectiveness of the features they deliver. They are also the primary customer champions synthesizing their current pain-points, as well as anticipating future needs. They develop concept documents (PRFAQs), Business Requirements, and Product Definitions. These are not exclusive to PMTs since Amazonian culture drives the notion of ownership, customer obsession and invention into everyone, but these are responsibilities that are more core to PM/PMTs. A Product Manager (PM) shares all of these same qualities and responsibilities with a lower bar on technical expertise which may be more suited for specific roles involving less-technical products or less-technical functional areas within a larger portfolio. A Technical Program Manager (TPM) is a distinct role that sits at the intersection of product, engineering and program management. An Amazon TPM is a unique role that combines business ownership over delivery with high-level technical architecture. They are usually the program glue - that brings together PMTs, engineering teams and business stakeholders on all aspects of an initiative. To address a common misperception, TPMs are not project managers, but have far more involvement in business outcome, product decisions and typically posess engineering and architcture skills that allow them to coordinate efforts across product areas. However, note that this AMA is focused on the technical product-manager role or PM-T. So please make that translation whenever you see "TPM" in these questions.