AMA: Care Solace CPO, ex-Headspace Senior Director, Vasudha Mithal on Product Management Career Path

* Understand if your skills and interest align with the path: * IC: Become a topic expert, typically going deep in more technical topics e.g. you really love doing SEOs or healthcare billing. You like to work more independently, actively driving implementation, staying much closer to engineering a solution. You are not shy to take multiple technical courses to become an expert in an area. * People Manager: You know enough about a variety of topics to guide the work of someone else, ask the right questions, understand topics w/o having to go too deep into them. You know about a variety of topics but can't execute on everything on your own - while guiding a few more people, you feel confident that you can magnify your impact. You are genuinely interested and vested in making someone else's career a success - you'll have to spend enough time understanding the skills of your team, creating growth opportunities for them. * Don't feel stuck - people move across roles all the time. If something is not vibing, just don't linger on it for too long.

* Understand how commercial teams are setup, how products are priced, what's a typical sales cycle and even more top of the funnel - how is marketing run, target customers and the value props. * Build a basic empathy for a B2B buyers journey - which platforms are potential buyers already on, what influences purchase decisions, what are the funding sources and budget constraints. * Expand your product sense to be product+service sense. What are the workflows your are enabling or making more efficient? What's the product behind those workflows, who are the people interacting with the product to enable a service? * Research metrics that can be specific for the company - product/user/business growth, engagement, retention, efficiency. This ecosystem could be very unique depending on the sector you are targeting. * If you haven't had the exposure to work on API requirements - build a basic know-how of how to think about API layers, end-points, partner services and integrations. Specific to a sector, partner integrations can be critical for a product's success.

Innovation is best achieved by diversity of ideas. Diversity can be achieved by many ways - one of which is including views from multiple industries and domains. While hiring for a generalist role, it is important to leverage interview questions that are going after the skill vs. domain knowledge - I try to use questions that are not from my current industry. There are always a few specialist roles that require a deep understanding of the domain - but we're clear on those job requirements from the beginning vs. inviting generalists applications.

As a general rule of thumb - always be on the lookout. Dedicate whatever time works for you: 1hr/week or 1 hr every other week in making connections outside, thinking about a new problem to see if that area is exciting to you, talking to new recruiters to see how your skills are being perceived in the market. If you are thinking about this question, that might be a signal itself. Having clarity on what you're looking for professionally can be useful as well - what do I want vs. what am I getting in the current job? $$, growth, new skills, impact, respect, peace of mind, closure at the end of the day to spend time with family - these are all important parameters to put in a order and validate vs. what you're getting. We all feel a certain pride and dedication towards our existing products and companies. That is good. However, earlier in my career, that pride caused me to shut-off against exploring other teams and companies. I don't think that is a good idea :)

As you continue growing, both the number of years and the kind of work, impact matters. Here could be some important steps to consider: * Observe the work being done by senior folks at your company - ask if you can shadow them for any important sessions (e.g. strategy reviews). Find opportunities to help them out with any small pieces of that work. Usually, when you are moving along in your career, you have already started assuming the future responsibilities. * Participate in any opportunities to take up external customer calls, build relationships with the sellers in your company and understand how commercial opportunities are being executed. * Participate in product areas outside of your core product. Start building a bigger picture of the company, product ecosystem and connect the dots. Look for opportunities to collaborate on projects with peers outside of your core group. * If you're interested in pursuing management track, explore mentoring opportunities with PMs early in their career or cross-functional colleagues looking for PM exposure. * Widen your exposure to a variety of product areas and topics - data heavy, workflow optimizations, growth, new business, etc.

The work keeps getting more and more ambiguous the more senior you become. You have to take initiative to stay connected across the company, keep a pulse of the market/news to ensure you are able to guide the work of your teams. It becomes less about working on a specific project but more about ensuring we are pumping resources on the right projects. It is equally important to prune the work as much as to add more.

Generally, a good way to transition is when you change one dimension at a time. So, either change your company, role or industry. Trying to move across several things is hard (not impossible). In that context, the best shot is at trying for a product role within your existing company. Build relationships, try to stick around product work (e.g. exploratory analysis to help product teams prioritize, understand usage, measure impact, etc.), and ask mentors to let you drive some work (usually, there is SO MUCH work everywhere that people are happy to get support! There are Data related product roles too (e.g. building data platforms). Skills that are transferable from a variety of different roles include prioritization, analytics, strategic work (i.e. starting with an ambiguous problem, defining a plan to solve it and executing along with timeline management), business acumen (understanding how revenue streams flow, how to think about your buyer, market opportunities), communication, project management.

* Learning on the job - you already have broken into a product role. Work will give you the most time and mind space to acquire skills for growth. * Observe the work being done by senior folks at your company - ask if you can shadow them for any important sessions (e.g. strategy reviews). Find opportunities to help them out with any small pieces of that work. Usually, when you are moving along in your career, you have already started assuming the future responsibilities. * Widen your exposure to a variety of product areas and topics - data heavy, workflow optimizations, growth, new business, etc. * Don't hesitate to participate in product sessions outside of your wheelhouse - ask questions to the speaker, learn by following the thinking process and the why(s) of various projects going on at your company. * Ask your manager to support with creating a growth plan. Your manager should help with creating work opportunities for you to learn and grow. If manager is not supportive, seek mentorship from colleagues you trust and admire. * Don't get pigeonholed into thinking "is this a responsibility of product or cross-function xxx" - while it is important to leverage other teams effectively, it is as useful to understand how a variety of functions operate within a company to grow as a multi-dimensional leader. * Learning via external resources - dedicate however much time is reasonable for you based on your specific job demands, workloads and stress levels. This is not a 'must have' checklist but just a few ideas. * Follow thought leaders on LinkedIn. * Sign up for newsletters - can start with a few recommendations from your manager so you are reading something that's relevant for your work. * Consider courses on LinkedIn Learning, Udemy or Coursera. Ask your manager for recommendations, several companies have learning stipends as well. * Find what works for you in networking events or conferences. This is a tricky one since there is too much noise in such events but even if you aim for coming out of an event with "1 interesting connection" that you follow through, it can make a great impact in your growth.

Unfortunately, there is no set formula for this. Here are some ideas for quantitative research: * Look into salary benchmarking data. Levels.fyi is a great resource for researching. * Understand internal pay policies (e.g. if the company is targeting 50th percentile among your specific industry). Ask HR for aggregated salary insights - data on pay gaps, etc. * Talk to external recruiters and see what they are willing to offer for your unique experience(s). Depending on the relationship you have, close connections in your network might be willing to offer pay ranges. * If you've switched jobs, prior managers might be able to offer pay ranges. * With new labor laws, companies are required to disclose salaries along with job postings in a few geographies. Look closely at job postings on LinkedIn to get an understanding of the base comp. * Ask ChatGPT! For a more qualitative discussion with your manager: * Frame the discussion as how much you love working at the role and are continuing to learn - which you value a lot. * You believe in and are grateful for the company's philosophy of "pay for performance" (all companies will say they have this) and how that is a great tool for motivation and retention. * You'd want to ensure that you are treated fairly. Then highlight your performance highlights - contribution to x out of y initiatives most important for the company this year, drove so and so impact, operating at the next higher up level (provide exact examples based on how the next level is defined at the company). * Align on a fixed cadence in your 1-1s to have this discussion (e.g. 1/QTR or 1/6months). The above discussion points can be used for both promotion as well as a pay raise. All the best!

It is important to understand the product culture of a company. PM work is very often confused with project management (as you are experiencing). Your manager is the biggest lever in this scenario - define your goals clearly with your manager (typically companies follow an OKR based process for this). Goals should be business objectives and then actual tasks to accomplish the goals should be defined by you vs. someone assigning tasks to you. There will always be some part of project management in our roles (particularly if your company doesn't have a function for that). It is OK to have a few templates/processes for project management - like what do you use for managing timelines, getting and providing progress updates - but try to make this a 'self-service' process. For e.g. give your team the templates and define the process at the start of a project for everyone to enter their updates by xx every week and then you just share those widely. This is a good level of project management to do but your main focus should be centered around accomplishing your business goals / problem solving. I'd be surprised if you are able to accomplish the business goals via just project management tasks.