Five ways to break into PM'ing

I've had this post drafted-but-not-posted forever, and since today was a particularly hard day to find time to write, I'm going to take advantage and post it.

I often get asked, "I want to get into product management, how do you recommend doing that?"  I think it's a good question, because once upon a time I had exactly the same question that no one really answered for me.  I want to answer this with my own experience, and hopefully that is helpful to someone to find their way into PM'ing, if that's what they really want to do.

When people ask about getting into product management, they typically ask about being a PM at a bigger company, like Google, Facebook, Apple, or wherever.  So I'll answer in the context of what I know, big-company-PM, and you can take it with a grain of salt.  Start-up people, feel free to comment on whether these also apply to start-up PM'ing...my instinct says "it's different".

This is not a "how to be a good PM" post -- those are already well covered by much better writers and long discussion threads.  I'll give my thoughts on "how to break in" -- I'm also not advocating one company over another, or startup vs. big company -- that's on you.  Every PM's job is totally different, so your mileage may vary.

The prerequisite, soul-searching question that you must answer first is, "Why do you want to PM?"  Is it because you're a business-y person who wants to work in tech, and PM seemed most adjacent to your skill set?  You like the title of "manager", but you are not technical?  Because those are not a great match -- if you aren't technical, there are much better jobs for you to do, like UX design, or general management, biz dev, or analytics (having a CS degree and being technical are not one in the same, and should not be conflated.)  You should do it because you understand how to build technology, want to be close to the execution, and want to build products, and you are really good at working with people and typically are a good generalist.

Be sure it's a job you want.  It really is a "janitor" job.  It's lots of meetings, communication, handling fires, having very little guidance or feedback, working with incomplete data, working with surly engineers, surly partners, surly customers, surly salespeople, navigating politics across all of them, handling the crappier parts of the product-creation process, etc.  Is that really what you want to do?

The guidance I usually always give is:  The best way to get a PM job is to already be a PM.   Which probably sounds kind of dumb, but it manifests in every path I've seen and is often reinforced by HR-enforced minimum requirements (i.e. "3-5 years product management experience" -- look familiar?).  This is probably true of many non-PM jobs; the best way to get an auto mechanic job is to already be one.  If you aren't one already, find a place to practice it.  But how do you get this experience without already being a PM?

#1. The education route.

This is the path I took -- you have a technical undergrad degree, maybe in CS, and eventually decide coding is not for you or you love it but know you'll never run with the really elite.  From there, you go back to school to get a master's degree, maybe in CS, maybe an MBA, and the big companies show up on campus to recruit PMs.  Your previous experience in tech is interesting to them, and your advanced degree gives you a "PM in training" 6-month pass in their eyes (it doesn't in practice, but maybe a topic for another post.)  Some companies will pluck "junior PMs" directly out of undergrad and train them up, too.  Not everyone wants to take this route, because it's risky to bet hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt to not have a guaranteed PM job at the end of it.

I'd recommend *not* this route, unless you are already in working in tech.  You'll find most of the big companies that show up on campus are really just interested in your prior work history anyway.  This method is more sleight-of-resume to get around HR requirements, but if you fit the profile they're looking for, it's a surefire way of getting in somewhere.

#2.  The do-it-yourself route. 

I like this one the best.  How can you practice being a PM for side projects that would make that big company see you as having PM-like experience?  I recommend you start your own side project, and be the PM on it.  Do everything you'd normally do for someone else's product -- talk to customers, design features, write specs, track progress, do customer support, do whatever is necessary to launch and make it successful.  Pick something that you have the expertise to build yourself -- a simple mobile app, a browser extension, a website, a service, etc.  The bonus to this option is that if you do it right and it takes off, you effectively have the basis for your own startup, wherein you get to be both CEO and PM.  This is potentially a good route for current engineers, and is effectively free, modulo the opportunity cost of your free time and personal investment into your 'venture'.  You could also donate your time for free for a startup / non-profit, which I'm not totally well-versed in, but could probably be a route of it's own.

#3.  The small company route.

Smaller companies will sometimes be willing to give you a shot at PM'ing, especially if you have experience doing something pretty close to it, like program/project management, general management, analysis, and the like.  You may have to do lots of interviews and sell yourself as a PM many times, which they may not buy.  Or you may have to accept a job with a different title or different role, and work your way into it when the need inevitably arises.

You'll eventually get your foot in the door if you stick with it, and get to be a practicing PM at a small company, after which you can apply to larger companies (or they will seek you out.)  This takes a lot of perseverance and time, but the minute they give you a shot at being a PM, you have that on your record.

#4.  The PM rotation route.

Many companies have opportunities for engineers to either act as the informal PM for their teams, or formally rotate into the role for a limited time.  If you can get a different job at the company in question, there's a possibility of rotating / switching into the role.  Banking on a rotation opportunity seems kind of risky to me, because not everyone is 'allowed' to do a rotation, and you'll still face heavy scrutiny of your prior light-PM-ing experience.  Your better bet is to get on a team that doesn't have a de facto PM and just doing the role because no one else is doing it.  And quite honestly, this is as close to being a "real" PM as you can get -- shit has to get done and no one is doing it, so you do it.  Added benefit: you get to try before you buy.  If you don't like the job, you can just go back to doing your official role.

#5.  Just apply route.

There are lots of people, typically not already working at Google, who have asked me how to get a PM job at Google -- they have a complete resume, engineering experience, etc.  I always wonder, what are they asking me for?  What are they waiting for?  Don't ask people about applying -- just apply and see what happens.  The worst that can happen is they reject your application and you apply somewhere else.

There are probably other ways to get into product management -- selling your startup to a big company, being the foremost worldwide expert in topic X and the company really wants to invest in X, etc.  I'd be interested to hear if people found their way to being PMs through some other method.

Similarly, I'm also asked "do you need a technical degree or experience to be a PM?", but this is so juicy of a topic that I'm going to leave it for a follow-up post :)

I hope that helps point some people either towards the PM job of their dreams, and good luck!