You know your friend’s qualifications and experience. Think about what kind of person would tell her that she isn’t good enough to be a Sr PM and doesn’t deserve appropriate compensation. I wouldn’t touch this company with a ten foot pole.
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Others have already added a lot of great points, and I wanted to mention what the outcome would be in either case.
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Option A: she joins as PM, then realizes she undervalued herself and it’s a terrible work environment (based on glassdoor reviews)
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Option B: She gets the Senior PM position and joins but the VP of product will undermine her because he didn’t think she was at SPM level. She will have to continually try to prove herself which just adds additional pressure. Also not great since this is a start up and perceptions/politics play a big role.
Unless she’s out of work I would not recommend, maybe not even then.
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Is the PM compensation significantly higher than what she’s making now, even with the -50k? If not, then I wouldn’t accept the role. Its a little insulting to be down-leveled during the interview process.
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@AlbertChappel, No, it is not. What they are offering as a base she made three years ago and worked her way up. The overall compensation based on equity could turn out to be higher, but that is all relative.
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@HeatherKurtz, sounds like a bad deal. If she can go out and get another Sr PM job at a 50k premium then that would negate some/most of the equity upside, which isn’t guaranteed anyway.
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Since we don’t know your friend’s background information, there could be many reasons why she’s not qualified for the senior role. Did she lead and ship multiple products or features in the past 7 years?
A candidate with 2 years of experience that shipped multiple successful products/features will be more attractive than someone with 7 years who shipped little impactful products/features.
If your friend had shipped multiple successful products/features and did well in her interviews, then it seems like the company is pulling a bait and switch tactic. They want to attract candidates with a senior PM caliber but pay them a PM salary.
I’d recommend your friend still go through the final interview and see where it goes. If they do end up offering a PM role only, then she should try to negotiate for a senior role without compromising her salary. The company might low ball her salary with a senior PM title. If the company won’t budge, then your friend should cordially decline the offer.
Interviews are not a one-way assessment — it’s both — and looks like the company’s leadership isn’t that promising.
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@NaomiNwosu, I agree with this. I’m on the hiring committee for a company that usually levels down almost every hire we bring in down due to the size of our company and the level of talent we have. I don’t agree with this got all scenarios, but our caliber of Senior PMs means you need to have owned and shipped a full product or significant feature, and have contributed to a go to market plan.
If the company is large, about to go IPO, and has layers of CPO, VP, etc., then there is so much more you need to consider than just the title you get. What are the expectation of the role? How often are review cycles and how are employees evaluated? What is the background and experience of your peers?
My hot take is that the company did her a favor by letting her know now versus making her spend hours preparing a presentation, taking up a full panel of interviewers’ time, and only to surprise her with the downgrade in title at the very end. I’m assuming this decision to downgrade was made with strong consideration after having gone through so many round with pretty high ranking folks.
Still think it’s a bait and switch?
- I’d look up the CPO, VP, and Director of SWE’s LinkedIn and check out their job history: are they from reputable companies? Were they there long enough to have done hiring/management? Does their background convey they know what they’re doing?
- Look up the current PM and Sr PMs at the company. What are their backgrounds and how does your friend’s resume and experience line up?
Lastly, I think it’s fair to ask for specific reasons why they decided to level her down. There’s that interview question “what are the qualities of a senior PM that aren’t reflective of my experience” and your friend can decide from there. If the IPO has legs and she likes the culture and people there, then she can decide after the presentation/job offer what she wants to do. She can always work with her hiring manager to outline what are the pathways to a promotion and push up any review cycle (instead of 1 year you can negotiate a mid-year review).
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Walk away, a company in pre IPO is attractive on one hand because of the possible stock options value, but, at the same time pre IPO and immediately after you are driving with the compensation and costs hand break on. You have to start showing profitability or path to and between maxing your revenues and lowering your costs the latter is always more seductive. If you could have found a magic revenue tree, you would have found it by then.
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Definitely don’t give up after all those interviews! I find it odd that 7 yrs of PM doesn’t mean you’re Sr level. Maybe the VP thought they were too confident and wanted to put them in the more Jr role as a way to humble them.
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@RohitKumar, Could be but it was the CPO and GM (higher than the VP) who identified her as a senior PM. The VP was the last guy she spoke with before the final round and the recruiter accidentally mentioned his name for the drop in title for her and compensation related to it
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So the CPO liked her as a senior level and then the CPOs report said they did not think OPs friend was senior level material? There could be a bunch of different reasons for this.
But regardless I think she should politely decline. There is a chance that they will still offer her Sr. PM (It has happened last year, after declining and specifically saying I know I am qualified for a Sr. PM role I got a call back later that day offering the role I wanted). There is also a chance that she is just not a good fit for this company/role. Product can be frustrating that way where a solid PM might be “lacking” in some areas (specific industry knowledge comes to mind). In my current company we have declined candidates or offered them lower positions if they lack the necessary background although we are usually quite clear about it. The thought that the CPO might like her for the role but VP does not could just indicate that the CPO also does not have the industry background or does not value it as much as the VP ¯_(ツ)_/¯. Or maybe the VP Product Manager is just super picky (mine is). Finally, maybe they just kind of suck as a company?
Either way. Especially with a strong technical background she should be able to find other roles easily. I would look at companies that make products for developers especially if she has a CS degree (twilio, datadog, any other API economy products)
BTW if she has a strong IT background outside of just CS stuff there are a lot of other companies that would likely be great fits (my company being one of them, DM me if that’s the case 
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Thank you guys for the very fruitful discussion. It has really been an opportunity to learn a lot about the industry and it’s good to know the different POVs and insights of a wide variety of people. Thank you for taking the time to out of your busy schedules and replying to this post.
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