Hi all Professional Product Managers here, would like to know your personal thought, like how much you enjoy working in this field especially IT.
For me, it’s never been enjoyable, facing with shitty Head of Department, CTO. Who would keep pushing works but never care to know the details. Long hours work, politic, shitty people that the company hired, pressure from the Boss.
I fed up facing the HOD who has no knowledge in the subject matter, and they use my works to show to the Boss and take it for their own credit.
How you survive your everyday at work? For me it’s kind of blue, so blue that I don’t even feel like to get up from my bed and open my laptop for work.
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I’m very happy with the role. All companies have drama, and some are downright toxic. And, of course, some just don’t really know what product managers are and/or how to use them effectively.
But the role itself? I absolutely love it. Something new every day. It’s a way for me to be creative in a lot of areas without having to be an expert in any of them. It allows me to get both a tactical and strategic view of the company and most of the departments. I also have a big opportunity to truly move the needle at the company. And to add to all of that, it pays very well for someone without a law, medical, or business degree, and the upward mobility is insane.
However, I’m lucky enough to have always had 9-5 product jobs where I rarely have to work “after hours” and don’t take work home with me (in a figurative sense, considering I’m now a remote worker due to Covid). So other product managers with more stress and longer hours could justifiably say all of the positives above aren’t worth their stress.
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I love my role and the work I do.
My problem with the role is, the role demands a lot of unethical things like how Meta tracks data and shit.
My problem with my current employer is, my engineering team is bit fear driven by their senior management and my location, because I am looking to relocate to the UK/EU.
Other than that, I am content with domain, industry, work, product, etc.
Every company has some kind of drama and there is no ideal dream job.
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I can relate for the most part. I’m 35 ans have been a PM in various companies for 7 years.
I’m tired of this role. I’m planning to resign in few months and train to become a data analyst.
Overall I encounter the same problems as the ones you described. But I would say those can be circumstancial. What’s really make me think I don’t want to pursue in that role is the tiredness I feel about having to deal with people that much. Not only the degree of politics but also the fact that my work completely depends on others. And constantly motivating and influencing people is an effort for me. I’m mostly an introvert. I want to be able to work on my own much more.
Anyway, good luck. It’s fine to pursue or find a similar role elsewhere but it’s also completely fine to change. I definitely think we learn a lot as PMs.
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I can understand your situation. I’m almost the same about you.
Grass is not greener on the other part of the world. I’m not sure if the pay of a Data Analyst is up to your expectation, because you are currently a PM, if moving yourself into another area, will they cut your pay? As you need to learn from ground up.
I also heard from the Developer that they wish to become a PM, because they believe they can improve the Team if they are in a managerial position, he can’t improve things while he’s just a developer.
All I can think of at this moment is to find out a way to adapt my personality , to become more robust towards political, and shitty personality at work. I do take my own time to take a walk outside in the greenery, I think it does helps a lot to improve mood.
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I don’t mind the pay cut. I don’t spend much. My girlfriend has a decent salary too. I value my free time much more than having more money. And by free time I mean “free mind”. It’s currently 5am where I live and I can’t sleep mostly due to stress at work. 
Indeed I’m completely in line with the fact that I will lose a ton of influence or even power by moving to a technical role. However, right now, I feel that I’d rather solve even meaningless problems all week if I can drop some responsabilities and dependencies. I basically don’t have much ambition anymore. There’s plenty of side projects I’d like to do outside of work (even related to data analyse) and I just want a decent job. I’m tired of being in “the game” basically.
Lastly, I’d like to have a kid one day. And at the moment, I feel it’s completely uncompatible with my current job and the pressure I (myselft) put on my shoulders.
But yeah, I don’t mean that YOU should give up as well. I’m just saying this is also an option later on if things don’t work out in few years. I don’t feel I can adapt that much more myself given my personality.
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Yes, I do agree that sometimes someone need a change in his life. I do changed myself from one field to another field too, after a few years in one field, I feel myself stucked (both in emotional, personality, and domain knowledge).
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I should be but I always find new problems to solve which requires showing them to other stakeholders and convincing them it’s something to solve instead of building that “great idea” they had. It can be quite exhausting.
Sometimes I feel like I should give in to the feature factory mindset and look good but I can’t and it’ll pay off for everyone in the long run.