AMA: GitHub Senior Director of Product Management, Julian Dunn on Developing Your Product Management Career

December 1 @ 10:00AM PST

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GitHub Senior Director of Product Management, Julian Dunn on Developing Your Product Management Career

Top Questions

What's something that you didn't know it took to become a Director back when you were a senior product manager?

Something that you didn't know you would need to do that you only realized later.

Julian Dunn

GitHub Senior Director of Product Management • December 1

A few of things: * Know what, when and how to delegate. Delegation has such a negative connotation in industry (being seen as letting garbage flow downhill) but I believe this is because so many managers are poor at the mechanics of delegation. As a PM director, you have to learn how t......Read More

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How do you think about staying within a company versus looking for opportunities outside? When do you know it's time to leave?

Julian Dunn

GitHub Senior Director of Product Management • December 1

There are a couple of factors to consider here: * Are you learning anything new in your current role? If not, would staying with the company, even if it is in a different role, or a more senior role (be that IC or management), satisfy your learning? * Do you enjoy the domain, vertical, a......Read More

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I’ve heard that the jump from Sr. PM to the “next level” (e.g Principal or Group PM) often comes with a steep learning curve. Is that true, and how would one prepare to solidify the right foundation to ease the transition preemptively?

Julian Dunn

GitHub Senior Director of Product Management • December 1

It can definitely be a steep learning curve, because at Staff+ PM level you are expected to have strengths in one or more areas of product management that aren't often exercised at lower levels. Some examples: * Having a much wider aperture and being able to develop and sell portfolio-level ......Read More

405 Views

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What do you think is top 3 skills a PM should have acquired to move to director level?

Julian Dunn

GitHub Senior Director of Product Management • December 1

My answer to this depends a lot on whether the "director" title includes people management or not. Personally, I believe that it should, and that the IC (individual contributor) track should only use the titles PM 1-3, Senior PM, Staff PM, Principal PM, Distinguished PM, etc. But I don't make the......Read More

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How do you manage the 1000 questions and tasks that are shot at you when you are a PM in an early stage startup?

I'm the first PM in a startup that used to be sales led. I'm trying to set up the proper discovery processes, prioritization tactics and strategy, but I find that extremely hard to do as I'm getting carried away in the day-to-day tasks around requests, issues reported and project management.

Julian Dunn

GitHub Senior Director of Product Management • December 1

I've definitely been there! As you correctly intuit, your first order of business is to buy yourself some time to develop a strategic point of view and a roadmap that supports that it. Obviously that means you're going to need to spend time meeting with customers, prospects and customer-facing te......Read More

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Do you think it makes sense to grow PM competence within the organization or hire people from the broader market to succeed faster?

i.e. how much should we focus on and invest in the teammates who could switch/transfer in their roles vs pay for the new PMs coming from other organizations as new hires?

Julian Dunn

GitHub Senior Director of Product Management • December 1

This is a tough question to answer because it is so situational. For example - I have seen organizations where PM is so immature that it is essentially a project management function. Melissa Perri even uses such an example in her excellent book Escaping the Build Trap! While in Perri's fictional ......Read More

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