
Ask HN: Move to product management at 35? - neofrommatrix
Hi all,<p>I need some advice from all the wonderful people on Hacker News. I am a Backend engineer looking to move into a product management role. I have no experience in product management. In addition, I am 35. Does age matter? Are certifications such as the one from Product School worth it and help in the transition process? How do engineers typically transition to the role? I’d appreciate any advice from anyone.
Thank you.
======
crazygringo
My $0.02, having been a PM for many years:

Read Cracking the PM Interview [1] (for an overview of the job, not the actual
interview tips) and The Lean Startup [2] (for general philosophy).

35 is a great age for a PM, especially since PM's often start elsewhere --
maturity is a plus here. I'd say there are 3 main ways into it -- as an
engineer, who starts to do PM-type stuff on a team where there's no PM. As a
designer, who starts to do PM-type stuff on a team where there's no PM. Or as
an MBA who has a good sense for engineering and design. Certifications
generally don't mean anything -- communication and leadership skills, good
judgment, experience and a proven track record are what matter. But all those
things can be demonstrated in previous non-PM roles, in order to make the
initial switch.

Also, if you want to be a PM then you'd better _enjoy_ meetings, slides,
people, and communicating & convincing all day long, day-in day-out. If those
make you say an enthusiastic "yes that's me!" then jump right in. If not...
you're gonna have a bad time...

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-PM-Interview-Product-
Technol...](https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-PM-Interview-Product-
Technology/dp/0984782818)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-
Continuous...](https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-
Innovation/dp/0307887898)

~~~
muxator
> Also, if you want to be a PM then you'd better enjoy meetings, slides,
> people, and communicating & convincing all day long, day-in day-out.

Leave me in my room with my beloved keyboard! I can sense other likely-minded
beings over the wire. No slides, no meetings, no politics. Only the austerity
of code, measurements, technical merit.

~~~
oblio
It depends on what you want. If you want some sort of "purity of code", that's
great.

If you want more (especially control), you'll never have it. Except for your
side projects.

~~~
bitL
Technical co-founder with controlling equity is the role you meant, not side
projects. Like most co-founders of big tech companies nowadays.

~~~
dasil003
Founders of big tech companies deal with politics on a level you can’t
imagine.

~~~
bitwize
Asin actual, literal politics. As in, appearing before Congress to convince
them why what's good for your company is good for America. And/or sending
campaign contributions their way to help with the convincing.

But there's a lot of fun to be had between now and then.

~~~
matte_black
Don’t get carried away, most startups never rise to that level, even fairly
big ones.

------
maxxxxx
It makes me sad to hear people thinking they are too old for something at 35.
Unless you make it big financially there is a good chance you will have
another 30 years ahead of you. That means you are just at the first third of
your career.

Do what you think you want to do. I thought about getting an MBA or PhD at
that age and thought I was too old. Now I am 51 and thinking how easy and
useful it would have been to do something at 35. Later in life you will almost
always regret things you didn't do earlier.

~~~
shaklee3
I took at as OP thought they were too _young_ for the role, since PMs tend to
be older.

------
jtwaleson
I've been a PM for 3+ years, I switched after being a full-stack developer for
4 years. When I made the move the company had about 150 employees.

My experience so far: the role is very broad, and the responsibilities are
-very- different across companies and products. The specifics depend on many
things, like maturity/size/culture of your company, pricing of your product,
whether or not it is open source, etc.

On one side of the spectrum you have PMs who are very close to the development
teams, and you might still be contributing code regularly. You might be a sort
of architect who also makes sure documentation is in order and who handles
user feedback/discussions. These PMs are typically "user-focused", in that
they try to improve the product for the end user.

On the other side you have a much more market-focused role (MBA type) where
you'll do market analysis, pricing, marketing, sales materials, etc. You might
see the dev team once a week, or maybe only the engineering managers. These
PMs are typically "customer-focused", so targeting the buyers of the product
(who might not be the actual end-user, but for example a CIO, depending on
your market).

In any case: age/wisdom/maturity matters, it is not a junior role. You will
also be in a lot of meetings. You will be the face of the product and you need
to enjoy interacting with people.

edit: added the sentences about "user-focused" vs "customer-focused".

------
Techonomicon
I feel many comments here are confusing "Product" Management with "Project"
Management. Many describing being a "people person" which isn't (in my eyes) a
needed trait for a product manager, but is for a project manager. There are
obviously social aspects of being a product manager, but much of it has to do
with relaying what's in your head moreso than trying to manage people day-to-
day.

To me, what matters for the OP, is that you are actually a product person? In
my experience too many people are just terrible at understanding their field,
products, how to actually break down product problems to their basic pieces
and build solutions up from there. Being able to trust their designers, ui/ux,
engineers to take their vision and execute (or simply just being good at
transferring the vision in their head to being executable by others.

If you're not great at the above, please don't try and shoehorn yourself into
product management. I've had too many terrible product managers that should
have been something entirely different in my day that just literally ruins
years of people's lives.

If you are not interested / good at the above, I'd consider a more Project
Management role, which is about figuring out how to take a team and turn them
into a well-oiled machine that loves working together towards common goals.

In many places (like startups) the line between the two above obviously blurs,
my only concern is moving into Product Management role that you're not fit
for. I say this more in general for people thinking about this themselves -
mostly because of all the Product / Project Managers I've seen, I'd say 2/10
of them I'd actually want to work with again (though they both had engineering
backgrounds which works in your favor).

~~~
muzani
I do think Product management is more people facing than project management.

You can't really build a product without talking with the customer or talking
to other departments especially sales/marketing/customer service. They know
what the users want, what the bounce rate is, what metrics the company is
lagging at.

~~~
amorphid
>> You can't really build a product without talking with the customer or
talking to other departments especially sales/marketing/customer service

A friend of mine works at a large enterprise company on a multimillion dollar
software project. Their dev team has never spoken to a customer or product
manager (there is a PM team, they've just never spoken with the devs). It also
takes them a long time to ship software. It's very odd.

~~~
isostatic
On the contrary it seems predictable. Product managers tend to come from the
agile way of working. Enterprises do waterfall. I suspect there are layers and
layers of formalised specs, but no real understanding of what the customers
want (rather than what they say they want), by the pm or the devs

------
tptacek
I did it at ~28 at Arbor Networks, moving from lead on the service provider
product to product marketing manager on the enterprise product. We were at the
time 8 figures revenue and had a direct enterprise sales team with, meh, 10s
of staff.

Age doesn't matter. Worth knowing that a pretty standard trajectory for PMs
is: graduate CS at 22, work in the industry for 3-4 years, go to B-school,
graduate at ~28-29, start out of college as a PM. So you're kind of right in
the range.

I can't imagine how a certification would matter, but I transitioned to PM in
the same company instead of applying cold, and I was hired (for both roles) in
part because I had a reputation in the field I was in. I doubt very much that
you'd _learn_ anything from the certification (or, for that matter, from
business school) that would help you do that job.

I could write a pretty decent list of hazards for engineers moving to the
business side of technology companies. But for a PM, probably the most
important one is: product managers aren't project managers and they're not
engineering managers. You have to simultaneously let go of what's happening in
the repository while not letting go of the MRD/feature-function-benefits. I
found that to be a pretty nasty tightrope walk and didn't handle it well.

I left Arbor in 2005, so my advice is pre-YC-era, and a lot has changed at
startups (though less so at enterprise software companies!). Every role I've
had since has been entrepreneurial, so while I'd say that I use skills I
developed (haphazardly) as a PM, I haven't had a formal PM role since.

------
motohagiography
As someone who went from a technical role (director/architect) into PM, I
selected out pretty fast.

When I looked at the differences across organizations where I had worked with
other Product Managers, between the ones who selected out, survived,
succeeded, and the ones who were great, there were themes.

The great ones (I met two), were charismatic, flexible, technical enough to
make engineers feel appreciated, and were the kinds of people who radiated
enthusiasm and success. Think ivy grad confidence with an evangelist belief in
their product. Likable, clearly on their way to bigger things.

Ones who just succeeded were strong organizational influencers and operators
who practically hid their technical understanding, and made it incumbent on
more technical people to explain themselves. They kept others talking while
they moved pieces and pulled strings. M.Sc/PhD types, classic org power
players.

The survivors were corporate natives who brought professionalism to the
startups I was at. A few did time in Big 5 consultancies. Often adjacent to
confusion, always useful to someone, albeit never clearly to whom. They were
experts at allegiances and light relationships and I admired how they managed
both the constant contempt from engineering and the relentless outrage of the
sales team. They were teflon strong.

People who selected out (I among them) or who rode a product into the ground
were a mixed bag of experiments gone wrong. The marketing person with a
programming course, the legacy team member, the polymath everyone thought
someone else understood, "the only person who understands how it works," the
patsy, the brown shoes and patagonia vest guy, the founder in training, etc.

Where I've seen PMs fail seemed to be the result of failing to maintain a
balance of flexibility, credibility, and coherence.

There are lots of ways to succeed as a PM and it's a very cool job. It's a
rare area where a magic touch is both required and rewarded.

~~~
tillreiter
"...the polymath everyone thought someone else understood, "the only person
who understands how it works," the patsy, the brown shoes and patagonia vest
guy..." Wow - know em all. Genius!

------
austincheney
As a product manager you OWN IT. If the product is clumsy or doesn't make
sense to the end user you are failing. If the product doesn't drive target
revenue then you have absolutely failed.

Keeping that in mind the objectives vary pretty broadly. Perhaps the most
important thing to keep in mind is that product management is NOT project
management. Your goal is to deliver product success in order to hit a revenue
target. That said product quality and product exposure are more important than
release timelines, which is perhaps opposite of a project management role.

To really understand product management you must understand what drives user
behavior in the choice and usage of your product versus the competition.
Research helps a lot, but you still always find yourself surprised by the
behavior of your users. Your assumptions of your users' behavior is probably
often flawed.

------
iamphilrae
Surely your age will assist you here (I’m 35 too). Unlike software development
which is typically a “young mans game” due to the constant need to learn the
latest thing (I know, sweeping generalisation), Product Management requires
significant past experience of products. As a developer, I’m sure you’ve
worked on many successful and non-successful products, and have a good insight
as to what went well and not. I think former developers can make the best
product managers (it’s the move I made) as you have internal insight into what
it takes to make the product (assuming it’s a software product).

~~~
tigershark
“Unlike software development which is typically a “young mans game” due to the
constant need to learn the latest thing”

Why? As an old developer you don’t need to constantly learn new things?

~~~
timr
Because software development generally doesn't reward experience. Technologies
change with the wind, and a new grad has just as much experience on the latest
JS Foo Framework 0.1 (released yesterday!) as someone with 20 years of
industry experience. In addition, older folks say negative things like _"
don't use JS Foo 0.1 in production...it was released yesterday, and there are
battle-tested frameworks to do the same thing in $boring_old_language"_. This
makes younger programmers frowny and sad, and less likely to work overtime in
exchange for pizza. After all, those old guys don't know anything, or they
wouldn't be using such boring, messy code in the first place!

You do gain some generalizable skills over time (and there are always
exceptions to the rule) but in practice, older developers are more expensive
versions of that which can be bought at a college career fair -- and the
marginal difference in efficiency is offset by the young turks' propensity to
work long hours while being paid in snacks.

~~~
jogjayr
> the marginal difference in efficiency is offset by the young turks'
> propensity to work long hours while being paid in snacks.

I don't know if this is true. Even just with my meager 6-7 years of
professional experience I can do things now that would've been impossible for
me when I was starting out as a professional. Experienced devs aren't just
more efficient - everything else being equal, they're more capable along all
the axes you can measure a software engineer on.

Additionally if an experienced engineer has non-sucky people skills they can
even turn your junior engineers into seniors with mentoring and example-
setting. Which means you'll be employing a senior engineer for the price of a
junior engineer, at least until they learn their increased value and ask for a
raise/move on. /s

------
robterrell
Age doesn't matter. Passion matters. If you have an interest, give it a try:
either ask to take some responsibility writing specs for the product you're
currently working on, or ask if you can transition to a team as a junior PM.

I've known three engineers in their 30s who transitioned into PM roles. One
went back to school and got an MBA first. One simply changed roles. And one
tried being a junior PM for a couple of quarters before deciding, fuck this
shit, I'm going back to coding.

One difficult part of the transition is pay ranges. At least in SF where
engineers are difficult to find, the PMs pay range is generally lower. You may
be asked to take a salary adjustment when you adjust roles. If so, and your
life situation makes this difficult, it might not be right for you.

Also, ask yourself, how are my soft skills? As an engineer you can maybe get
away without many, but you will not succeed as a PM without them. Am I good or
great at talking, explaining, persuading, negotiating, and mediating? This
matters way more than your current age.

------
ViorelMocanu
I am 32 and switched to Product Ownership last year, after 15 years of design
and front end development. It was, to some extent, nearly seamless since I
knew the product and processes inside out after being a team leader in the
same product. I guarantee you will face some unknown challenges along the way,
but they will also make you a better developer if you ever plan to switch back
(greater business and process knowledge is often what a developer needs to
really shine, alongside the obvious tech skills).

Age brings wisdom and balance, which are mandatory in a management position if
you want to lead, not merely boss people around.

So go for it!

------
BlackJack
One thing to think about - are you looking to transition in your current
company or in a new company?

I'm a PM at Google. One thing that works here is having eng do 20% PM projects
or do a PM rotation for a few months to get a taste for the life before
committing fully. I don't know how it works at your company but you could look
into taking on some PM responsibilities before making the move.

A certification may explain more about the role and give you background
knowledge, but it wouldn't help in skill development IMO. The best way to
learn PM'ing is to do it. And if you're interviewing for a PM role, it's much
better to talk about actual work than certifications.

Lastly, age is not an issue and it's probably better if you have more industry
experience before moving to a PM role.

Of course, these are my opinions and not that of Google, etc.

~~~
canttestthis
> I'm a PM at Google. One thing that works here is having eng do 20% PM
> projects or do a PM rotation for a few months to get a taste for the life
> before committing fully.

As a dev, does it make more sense to apply as an eng and then try to transfer
over to PM using 20% projects / rotational programs or apply as PM directly?

------
libovness
Would strongly recommend anything by Marty Cagan, including
[http://svpg.com](http://svpg.com) and [https://svpg.com/inspired-how-to-
create-products-customers-l...](https://svpg.com/inspired-how-to-create-
products-customers-love/)

Avoid certifications at all cost

~~~
neofrommatrix
Thank you

------
h1boo
While PM role means different things in different companies (even between
teams in bigger companies) let me tell you what you will miss the most
transitioning over from Eng:

You can no longer hit a button to compile your work and see the output (even
if it is a small part of the whole). As a PM from initial proposal to outcome
is typically 6 months or more. And you fill that time with negotiation,
communication and a whole lot of politics (the good and bad sides). Then you
may see the outcome you had envisioned (but no guarantees).

It is just, different. Be prepared.

------
wildekek
I've been a software engineer and moved into product management 8 years ago.
I've worked for medium sized private companies as well as large public ones. I
don't know what is right for you, but here's how it worked out for me and
maybe you can deduct some value from my learnings.

I started out at 27 with zero experience, but I saw that our business had a
problem that could not be fixed in my role as an engineer. It needed a
coordinated strategic effort to become successful. How to become a PM: see the
need and just decide to be the PM. A good boss loves employees that want
responsibilities.

Here's what I love about the role:

\- You have an incredible amount of responsibility. Owning responsibility for
the outcome of your product is a truly satisfying experience.

\- You learn the difference between what truly ads value and what is vanity.
This applies to metrics, features and issues.

\- You learn a tonne about other disciplines. Wearing many hats makes you
value and internalize the importance of design, marketing, sales, HR and
everything else more than ever.

\- You cooperate with other companies which expands your network into all
sorts of verticals.

\- You prepare yourself to think like an entrepreneur which gives you the
confidence to start your own thing. And you're getting paid for it, which is
nice.

The not so glorious:

\- You have full product responsibility, but often not the executive power you
need to change things. Budgets are created by finance, engineers are managed
by the CTO and the sales team is incentivized by their own leaders. This means
you have to negotiate and inevitably deal with some form of politics to get
shit done. Never make the mistake to complain to anyone: you took full
responsibility, including navigating politics.

\- You are _not_ an engineer anymore so avoid the following pitfall:, Don't
tell engineers _how_ to do something, only _what_ to do. If you f*ck this one
up, engineers will feel no responsibility anymore for your product and
recovery is almost impossible. Engineers will not give you the same form of
credit anymore. You are not writing code anymore so you don't really feel
their pain.

\- You will do a lot of stuff at the same time and you won't feel a lot of
accomplishment on a day to day basis. If you can delay gratification, it can
be incredibly rewarding in the long run though!

From engineer to PM was a great move for me personally and I'm really glad I
had the confidence to jump in the deep and great people to support me.

~~~
jtwaleson
This resonates. Same age when I made the move, saw the need in the company and
took on many responsibilities without any real experience.

------
reassembled
The product manager of the project I work on is about 55 and many of the other
PMs at my company are also age 40+. However I applied for an internal PM
position and was passed over for a younger guy with less technical and
managerial qualifications but better people skills overall.

I thought I was an excellent candidate because of my decade of experience in
QA lead roles on sizable teams but I have gotten a reputation over time as
having a bit of a hard edge personality-wise, which I'm working on fixing.

I cannot stress the importance of having good people skills in this kind of
role.

------
pretzel
In my experience there are a couple kinds of product management. There is very
user focused product management, and technical product management.

User-focused PMing is making tools that work for people - working with
marketing, UX and client teams, to make sure you have a good Product/Market
fit.

Technical PMing is more about making sure that you are building things the
right way - making sure that the underlying models that your tools utilise are
close to reality and understanding the roadmap that you will need to hit so
that your releases will always be useful. It different from an architects role
who is fed the information about the domain, the technical PM needs to
synthesise this for the tech team to build, but there is a lot of overlap.

For engineers, it makes a lot of sense to become a technical PM, via being a
team lead/architect, managing your devs more and coding less, and
understanding more about why you are building what you are building that how
what you are building it, and working with other PMs. From there, you do
become more and more part of the design process, going up the food chain as it
were, closer to the source of your user stories.

It's not the quick way of doing it, but PMs who understand the entire
ecosystem are obviously more well rounded and may well be more effective than
ones who have fallen into it from client management or marketing!

------
muzani
I started with sort of an assistant product role at 32. The most important
part is knowing how a product works inside out. It's easier to get into with
full stack experience, and some marketing experience.

Also agreed that you really have to enjoy meetings. It's no longer a
development role. It's a role where you become the communication line between
the dev team and the client/users/QA/other depts.

You have to really understand what people are saying even when they're not
saying. You also have to be really good at reading body language - people
slouching when they're stuck or on something, or their eyes lighting up when
you tell them something they want to hear. You have to be good at giving the
right questions to unlock these answers.

It's incredibly difficult to go from being developer to product because
product does everything developers shouldn't be doing.

I'd say the fastest route is to be a startup founder. A slightly slower route
is to take on the product role at your company, but this usually means a
performance hit because you can't develop well when 2-4 days of your week are
dedicated to meetings.

You can also directly ask your boss if you can transition into the role.
People who want to take product roles are very rare and expensive, and
developers are much more valuable for the role vs people who took some
certification.

------
bsvalley
35 years old is the sweet spot for a PM coming from the technical side. Let's
be honest, are you going to code for the rest of your life? Probably not the
most sustainable future...

From experience, there's only one thing that is hard to come up with and to
convince a company to hire you as a PM - your strategic thinking. I compare
that to your ability to crack an algo problem on a whiteboard during a
technical interview for a developer. You can be the best backend engineer in
the world, you have to show your problem solving skills on a whiteboard in
order to be considered as a "great" candidate.

All the other skills are workable, maybe communication skills don't
necessarily come naturally for a developer. We all have different
communication styles anyway, this is part of our identity. But you can learn
how to design a great product, how to identify customer needs, write up
documents, make a power point presentation, communicate with other teams,
coordinate, etc. etc. Though, strategy is something that you will acquire
throughout the years. That involves making a lot of mistakes as a PM, be
exposed to a lot of different problems as a PM, etc.

You will most likely get rejected during the hiring process because of a lack
of strategic thinking. Google about it, learn, work that area as much as you
can. Good luck!

------
realo
You are asking the wrong question, IMHO.

What does matter is what you like to do. If you are technical, like to try new
things, implement, build , etc... things, then you might find Product
Management quite boring.

If you are a « people » person and view yourself in a role between Marketing
and Engineering, then go for it!

At 35, you might not know what you really like, yet... Might simply go for it
for some time, and then if you decide to go back to a “builder” position, you
will know _why_.

~~~
toomuchtodo
EDIT: I realize this is directed more towards IC->management, and less
IC->product manager. I'm still leaving it, as it feels like it will have value
to OP.

If you stay in tech, you will be forever slinging code and at the whim of the
business. You will forever be on the tech treadmill, learning new frameworks,
languages, and programming languages. You will have an artificial compensation
ceiling.

If you move into management, those problems turn into different problems, but
with more upside. You develop your soft skills. You network. You learn to
manage, shielding your team from bullshit above while helping your ICs develop
themselves. If you're a good manager, they will follow you for the rest of
your career to where ever you go. This is an asset not to be understated. No
10x developer can ever compete with a manager bringing a solid team with them.

Your potential is then limited less by what you know, and more who and what
opportunities you're aware of. Your skills will be transferable to other
industries, even the public sector. Again, I can't stress this enough. Could
you take a year off as a developer or other technologist and have an easy time
coming back into the market? From my research, the answer is no.

With time, you won't just be a product owner/manager; if done properly, you
will be able to demonstrate that you can solve business problems while having
a solid foundation of the technical underpinnings required to solve those
problems. And everyone is looking for competent business problem solvers.

~~~
realo
Sir... you are definitely a “people person”... but not every one fits that
model.

Cheers!

------
kunalspunjabi
35 isn't old in the slightest. In fact, it's a very ripe age to get started as
a Product Manager. Even if you were 90, there'd be nothing stopping you (other
than your own limiting beliefs and maybe other people's perceptions of you)
from being successful in the role. It's not like PMs do manual labor :)

Personally, as a developer-turned-PM-turned-Product Lead, I can ascertain that
a lot of the advice on this thread is largely sound. I will also add that when
you first start out as a PM, you will make a lot of mistakes, especially if
you come from an engineering background (like me).

By the way, I'll be teaching a 10-week course on product management with
Stanford Continuing Studies starting next month (April 2018).

[https://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/courses/professional-...](https://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/courses/professional-
and-personal-development/fundamentals-of-product-management/20173_BUS-62-W)

It's fully online and much less expensive than a certification program. The
goal is to teach you the ins and outs of product management and really prepare
people for the role. Not kidding, I've spent hundreds of hours and a lifetime
of learning into creating this course....it's the best course on product
management out there, and the one I wish I had available to me when I
graduated 15 years ago.

Here's a preliminary Syllabus:
[https://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/courses/professional-...](https://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/courses/professional-
and-personal-development/fundamentals-of-product-management/20173_BUS-62-W)

Classes start the week of April 2nd, registration opens March 5th, and the
class is limited to 45 students. Even if I wasn't posting this, I am told
there's a high likelihood it'll fill.

~~~
kunalspunjabi
And in case you're curious about my story:

I started my career as an engineer, but from the beginning, I was always
curious about the 'why' and driven to build products that solve real-world
problems.

I started a company, but it failed, primarily because we never reached
product-market fit. That was a hard lesson to learn. I then decided that I
wanted to pursue a career in product management, but with no prior experience
in the field, found it surprisingly hard to break into this elusive role.
After more than 100 interviews over the course of 2 years and almost at the
brink of giving up, I was able to break into the field. That was my big break
and I haven't looked back since. I have held executive level positions in
Product management, led the conception, execution, go-to-market and growth of
products like Treat by Shutterfly (previously called Tiny Prints Greetings),
Bills.com, Debt Navigator, Freedom Debt Relief, and FreedomPlus. I am a
contributor to Mind The Product, have spoken at conferences like Product Camp
Silicon Valley and am an advisor to a few companies.

------
doubleocherry
Why, specifically, do you want to move into Product Management?

To answer one of your questions: Age doesn't matter.

~~~
jondubois
I think it's pretty obvious. After you've been coding for almost 2 decades
across multiple industries, coding becomes predictable and tedious. By that
point, you've become an expert in many sub-fields within computer science; you
probably even started to forget some of the old technologies/methodologies
that you used to be an expert at.

You come to understand that software development methodologies are just
fleeting trends. Unlike with many other fields, the returns that you earn from
investing in yourself as a software developer/engineer don't compound; they
start to depreciate as soon as you stop trying to keep up with the trends.

The subskills that actually compound in value are things like understanding
project lifecycles, building teams/culture, understanding good coding
standards, CI, deployment, testing, quality assurance, etc.. These
'management' skills never go out of fashion.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>After you've been coding for almost 2 decades across multiple industries,
coding becomes predictable and tedious.

Well yeah, if you are still “coding” after two decades you will probably find
it tedious.

You can move into “engineering” and “architecting” however, which involve
entirely different challenges, both in type and scale.

~~~
35bge57dtjku
I used to work with a guy who was really proud of that...

------
ingend88
I strongly think that the certifications are not critical. I moved in PM
around the same age since Google offers rotation program for Engineers to try
out PM. I would be happy to chat with you along with providing some insights
into PM interview training. DM me.

~~~
neofrommatrix
Thank you for the offer. I'm not at Google, but one of the enterprise software
companies in SF. I will definitely DM you. Would love to get some
advice/insights into the process.

------
mattkevan
I’m 37 and have recently started a role as head of product.

Although my background is in design, I’ve spent the last 15 years variously
doing design, ux and web development. I got into it as the previous person
left suddenly and I sort of took over and was doing it a while before it was
made official.

Product management is a mix of ux, development and business, so it helps to
have an interest and understanding of these things.

For me the biggest change has been going from solving problems to finding and
articulating the problems for the team to solve. I’ve had to hold myself back
from getting stuck in to finding answers so that I allow the team autonomy and
also don’t accidentally short circuit the process.

The LEAN Startup is worth reading, as is Designing Products People Love by
Scott Hurff, and The LEAN Product Playbook. Strategise by Roman Pilcher has
some good stuff on business strategy and innovation theory. I signed up to a
free trial with Safari Books Online and read everything I could in the time.
Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning has some good videos too.

------
napolux
Following. I’m still figuring out if product management is the only path for a
sw engineer. I’m 37.

------
nwenzel
You’re right to think that 35 is pretty young. But it’s not too young to get
into Product Management. Or any other career change for that matter.

There are many different types of PMs. Some companies want a more technical
PM. Maybe a company selling a technical product to a technical audience would
find your engineering experience extremely valuable.

My default career advice to everyone is to figure out where your experience is
rare. If other PMs have 5-10 years of experience as a PM, you’re the rare gal
or guy with years of actual coding and experience. That group will have a ton
of depth to help on your PM gaps. But you’ll be the only one who can do what
you do.

------
ChuckMcM
If I might ask, why product management? You mention that you have no
experience in it.

People change over their career, different things become important to them,
and other things become less important. Their interests shift as well. This
can lead to them changing into different roles over time.

I would _not suggest_ to someone to change roles if they were doing so because
they felt "too old" in their current role, especially if they still enjoyed it
and were good at it. I have seen my share of engineers do that only to put
themselves into a horrible bind as they got "lost" trying a bunch of different
roles for all of the wrong reasons.

------
jogjayr
Related question: do product management skills transfer across domains? A Java
engineer is equally employable at a healthcare tech company as a fintech or
security company, but they're very different product domains.

------
ohadron
A. Age definitely doesn't matter.

B. In Google, for example, many people take a path similar to what you
describe, gradually moving to product management from an engineering
background. It usually requires demonstrating leadership, and doing some
'rotations' in which you perform a PM role on smaller projects before taking
on a full product. Perhaps your best shot is asking your current management to
take on product management and ownership duties in a project you are familiar
with, maybe even being mentored by an experienced PM.

(Source: was a PM at Google)

------
pm81218
PM-turned-software-engineer here. I was in various PM roles for almost 10
years.

35 is fine. In my experience, college graduates don't often land PM roles due
to the diverse set of skills required to perform the job well. They move into
them after proving capable in other roles. Thus, PMs skew older where I've
worked -- 23-year-old PMs are less common than 23-year-old engineers. While I
think this is probably try across the board, this is probably also changing,
though.

Try to switch at your current company if you can. It's easier and people at
your company already know you're a valuable employee. They know you're
learning but are probably worth it in the end. Try to pick up product
management related tasks from a PM you work with or ask your manager for help
in getting some of that experience. If your manager isn't helpful, then pick
up tasks from a trusted PM colleague that you can highlight on your resume
when you apply for PM jobs at another company.

Yes, lots of books to read and schools don't hurt. But product management is
most often an aspirational function. Product management practically never gets
executed the way it's written about and learning how to change or cope with
these deviations is key (e.g. sales running the roadmap). I could write a book
about this, but suffice it to say that on-the-job experience is way more
valuable. So try to get some as soon as you can.

------
ryanyde
It's certainly possible. I PM at Gigster and have seen some BE Engineers
switch to being PM's on the network--some successfully and some
unsuccessfully.

Joining our network and seeing how it's done on a project by project basis is
not a bad start :-).

My view on PM'ing is very similar to what makes a good 'salesperson' or
'consultant'. There are certainly similar traits among large swathes of
successful people, but there's no 'rule'. PM'ing a software framework is very
different from PM'ing a social network, which should be obvious.

From a backend dev perspective, you should have some perspectives in looking
at an overall system and fully understanding what will be required. You'll
have empathy for the work when requirements change. That will help.

Of course building the skills that MBA's,'brought up' PM's, and people who
started in sales / marketing will take a while to brush up on. Product School
can help.

However, the best advice I'd say about PM'ing is starting to build things and
get feedback from users. If you don't enjoy or cant: 1) Decide a problem to
solve, along with a goal 2) Figure out a path to solve that problem and 3)
Iterate and learn based on feedback

PM'ing probably will not be a fulfilling career choice.

------
clutchski
There are lots of PM jobs where an engineering background would be really
helpful.

Shameless plug: we have a bunch posted at datadog.com/careers. Take a gander.

------
civilian
I have a random related question-- will product management pay as well as
engineering? Or is the OP implicitly asking for a loss in pay?

~~~
kwang88
Engineering is in higher aggregate demand (there are more open eng roles as
the ratio of Engineers:PMs is high, and the minimum qualification bar to be an
engineer is higher ie you need to know how to code at a bare minimum. You also
generally speaking can always add more engineers to a mature tech product as
they can fix bugs, tech debt, etc and help the business overall). As a result,
my personal anecdotal observation is that Engineering pays the same or
somewhat higher at the more junior / midlevel range where the base of the org
chart pyramid is "wider."

However, Product Management is a straighter shot to general management, and
becoming a GM/CEO is a path towards some of the highest total comp.

Mileage will vary by company (and probably region).

In terms of compensation, both are excellent.

~~~
neofrommatrix
This ++. I've been working with engineers all my life, and a lot more senior
engineers. I've seen engineering careers plateau after a certain point -
plateau at either architect level positions or worse, as a senior software
engineer. Longer term, a PM level position opens lot many doors (and
especially, if you have an software engineering background).

~~~
kwang88
Definitely can be true, although I think that there are a lot of potential
paths.

My advice would be to determine what is driving you to want to shift from
Engineer => PM. If it's purely money, there are alternatives that don't
require leaving coding (job hopping wisely, moving into certain types of
management tracks, consulting on the side, switching into industries that pay
SWEs ludicrous salaries such as quant finance if you can). Similarly if you're
looking for more influence/reputation – all of that can be had as an engineer
if you're somewhat thoughtful about your path. However – if you're looking to
transition out of coding because you're more interested in the business /
sales / working with people (which was my story) then it's a great switch.

Good luck!

------
raymondgh
In my experience, associate PM positions require applicants to be undergrad CS
students and un-modified & senior PM title positions require recognizable PM
experience.

The roles are very competitive, and unless you’ve worked with someone at the
company before as a PM, I would say you’d have to be pretty special to be
considered. I think a successful PM’s strongest asset is the trust of their
team and company, so outsiders aren’t the safest choice for a new hire, unlike
roles with more demonstrable skills like engineering.

Edit: I also went to Product School and think it’s a great way to show current
employers your dedication to making a transition. For joining a new company
though, it doesn’t come close to comparing to what HackReactor does for a
developer applicant. As far as educational content, I think the only value I
got was talking to current PMs about how the realities of their jobs differ
from what you read in books like cracking the pm interview.

~~~
neofrommatrix
What was your experience at Product School like? I do plan to try and
transition in my current company.

~~~
raymondgh
Getting into the course was a strangely sales-y experience. I was working in
sales at the time and recognized a lot of similar techniques used by their
recruiter/admissions person. I eventually decided to join after considering
they were likely to build the best product manager network. There were about a
dozen of us twenty-somethings in a twice-weekly night class. Our first
instructor was replaced after student complaints that he was phoning it in --
just literally reading slides to us with content seemingly summarized from
common wisdom you find on hackernews about lean startups. Our second
instructor was much more engaged and enthusiastic. There were assignments that
scratched the surface of a few topics within product management like design,
engineering, prioritization, and presentations. The end of the course provided
some brief interview tips. Alumni have access to a private slack group which,
like any networking group, is filled with people looking for jobs and a dearth
of recruiters looking for those people.

I might go as far as to say that there really is no such thing as an entry-
level PM. Most people who become PMs seem to do so accidentally or because
they started as an APM at some company with the resources and retention afford
them.

However, in the end, if you do your assignments, you end up with a LinkedIn
certification to add to your profile and the confidence that you are probably
capable of being a good product manager. Carlos is really an awesome dude (the
CEO), but the website's title "Get a job as a Product Manager" is unrelated to
the course offered.

------
blabla_blublu
This is a great thread! I am in a similar position currently - I am working as
a software engineer in a domain that I like, but I am really into product
design, strategy in general. This lead me down an exploratory path and I got
lucky with an offer from a tiny startup to join them as the first PM. The
experience seems to be promising and I think I'll learn a lot.

However, I have some concerns such as the loss of pay (no more RSUs), the
nasty commute (1 hour each way minimum as opposed to 20 minutes currently),
the work life harmony going for a toss. Anyone out here (who made a switch to
the PM space in smaller companies) willing to share their experiences ? Would
love to know!

------
WheelsAtLarge
Before you go through all the trouble of getting certs. I advise that you ask
for help from your PM. Maybe you can even take charge of a project.

One thing you quickly discover is that the pressure is pretty intense. You get
squeezed from management above and the people you manage below. Yet, you have
little power to push back.

Certs will teach you the mechanics of project management but managing the
human to human relationships is way harder and you'll get little help there
from certs. I've known PM's that are experts at the relationship part and are
happy doing what they do. I've known others that try to push the mechanics and
end up making everyone and themselves miserable.

Good luck.

------
panjaro
I'm currently going through the transition. One I've learned one fact -
People, People, People. It's all about people skills. People with emotions,
people with attitude, people with ego and some great people as well. And you'd
learn, you have to rely on things that aren't in your control. Age doesn't
matter. What matters is how mature you are. Depends on whether you can smile
and move ahead even when you know its not what you think is right.

------
johnmax
when i hired product managers, the most critical point I looked at was
“building something that users love”. If you can prove this, you are ahead of
average (of course you also need some standard stuff, including communication
skills, but those are more common).

the above is related to intelligence (understanding activity numbers) and
emotional intelligence (understanding the user).

thus, it would be good if you can polish up your skills/presentation of
yourself in that area

------
bdickason
Eng is a common transfer to PM and many of your skills will carry over. I
(personally) think age will hurt you but rather help because you have
experience and have seen a bunch of failures which you can learn to avoid
(this goes well during interviews).

Suggest looking at the rpm program at Facebook or APM (I think this is the
name at google) which is for people interested in learning product management
but without PM experience.

~~~
alant
APM role at Google (started by Marrisa Mayer?) is only for fresh MS CS grads.
Anyone knows more details please let me know if I'm mistaken.

------
ransom1538
Product management. Own it.

The best product guys treat the product like their 2 year old daughter. Push
code? They want to know why. They saw a dip in registrations Wednesday so they
spend hours figuring out why. They are ruthless testers, every bug they label
and harass anyone that will listen. They love ideas and quickly turn them into
tests.

------
nomorecode
Thank you for asking this. I’m 38 and trying to make a move to product
management. I’ve been a front-end developer for years but I’m just not good
enough at what’s become front-end to keep up and maintain any kind of work-
life balance. It’s not fun anymore.

~~~
crispyporkbites
Why do you think being a PM will be any easier?

~~~
nomorecode
I have no trouble keeping up with design and technical trends and
understanding deep technical details. I'm just not enough of a programmer to
keep up with the pace of being hands-on with the code. I've actually been
moving in this direction for a few years.

About three years ago, I got lucky enough to be put into a management
position. In order to do the job, I had to put hands-on development aside more
and more in order to make room for the job of actually running a small team.
We were sorely lacking product management—doing pretty much everything at the
whims of stakeholders—so I started bringing it into what I do. I definitely
enjoy it more than today's front-end development, although I still love being
involved in the process.

My dilemma is how I switch to it full time. Even though I'm trying to do a
fair amount of it, it seems like it'll be hard to get my foot in the door
anywhere without that title on my resume. We've got a whole department full of
people at my company with "product" in their titles, yet they don't do any
actual product management, making it hard to make the switch internally.

------
kelvin0
Why are you transitioning? If you feel like you want to challenge yourself and
grow within this new position, fine.

However, if you drank the 'too-old-to-code-coolaid-sv-bs' well I'm sorry to
hear that.

------
op00to
I'm older than 35 and currently executing a plan to shift to PM. I have no
worries that I'm too old.

~~~
neofrommatrix
Do you mind sharing your strategy to shift to the PM role? DM me if you'd
like. I would really appreciate it.

~~~
op00to
I took on a program management role for a team of product managers to learn
the ropes while still in a safe-to-fail environment.

------
desireco42
How much can PM make I wonder?

------
wolco
Certication matters more than in your previous role.

------
vgy7ujm
Willing to give up on coding? Do you love presenting stuff to big audiences?
Are you good at selling?

Then a PM role might be right for you.

If you love coding/technology or don't have good presenting/selling skills
then stick to engineering... my $0.2.

~~~
dnautics
what if you like both? Asking for myself since I'm transitioning to a product
ownership role. To be fair, i've only been coding professionally for 3 years
(nonprofessionally for ~20), but in my current role I rescued two products,
have done technical demos and customer engagement.

~~~
yellow_postit
If you like both then find a technical product management role. Products with
heavy ML or data science components can benefit greatly from PMs that can
code, mock, and do ad hoc analysis.

~~~
dnautics
That's kind of what I'll be doing! Making mock demos for customers, owning a
cloud -> on prem product vertical, organizing qa/qc, and there _is_ a data
science component!!

Thanks that gives me a bit more confidence, since I don't have as much
experience with personnel management outside of a few interns (who have been
all wildly successful in their internships).

