Breaking into Product Management: key 'entry points' into the field
Product Management discipline is full of career switchers; exploring if there is a single best time to join
A lot of what I strive to cover here is relevant to people working (or looking to work) in many different functions (e.g., SDE, DS, PM, Marketing, and so on). My last three articles all fall into this category:
Today, however, I’d like to focus on a topic that would be most relevant for those considering starting their careers in, or switching to, Product Management.
What’s so different about Product Management?
First of all, I’d like to touch on the topic of what makes Product Management fairly unique compared to the other fields & functions in technology.
For disciplines like Software Engineering or Data Science, the vast majority of people will either begin working in those fields directly out of college (some might get a Masters or a PhD first, but that doesn’t really change things), or will do a ‘hard’ career switch at some point, meaning they reset any career progress they had in their previous field, and have to start from scratch as a Software Engineer or a Data Scientist, usually joining as a junior SDE or junior DS first, and then rising through the ranks over time (that’s usually the path graduates of various ‘bootcamps’ have to take, for example).
For some of the other disciplines, like Marketing or Strategy, it’s not uncommon to see experienced hires who didn’t work in those fields (at least not in the tech industry) before successfully make the switch to tech without having to lose their previous career progress. Some will take the business school route to make this change more straightforward, but many would just find jobs & switch (e.g., it’s quite common for former management consultants to move to functions such as Strategy or Operations in the tech industry).
The reason why this is possible is that in functions like Strategy or Marketing, almost none of the things you do are unique to the technology industry, and so if you worked in one of those for a while, even if it was in a different industry or space, your experience will most of the time be relevant for the tech firms as well (you’ll still need to learn some nuances / pick up some context, of course, but that’s just par for the course).
Product Management, however, it’s a different beast entirely. The discipline of Product Management came to be in 1980s & a lot of it is quite unique & specific to the tech industry, since it were the tech companies who created it in the first place (some other industries — e.g., FMCG — also have Product Managers, but those jobs are nothing like PM jobs in the tech space).
Because of this, nothing from the other industries/fields quite maps to what Product Managers do in tech, and that’s exactly what makes it challenging to break into Product Management as an experienced hire (that, and also the fact that everyone and their mothers want to be Product Managers nowadays, it feels like).
That’s not to say that you cannot break into Product Management if you already have some years of experience under the belt. You absolutely can do that, but there are some ways that work better than others, and the first step towards successfully executing such a move is to get to learn more about & understand the key ‘entry points’ to Product Management that most people who work in the field today used, which is the focus of this post.
Key ‘entry points’ to Product Management
There are 3 key ‘entry points’ most people end up taking to get into Product Management:
Join an APM program out of college
Join as a PM / Senior PM out of business school
Switch to the PM discipline later on as an experienced hire
Let’s take a look at those one by one.
APM programs
APM stands for ‘Associate Product Manager’. APM is usually the most junior title for Product Managers at the companies where such title exists (e.g., at Google, it roughly maps to L3; see more about ‘big tech’ leveling here).
APM programs are typically 2-year rotational programs aimed at bringing in recent college grads & then training them to become highly productive product managers over time.
The first APM program was created by Google in 2002 and proved to be very successful, so then a number of other similar programs were created over the years, e.g., Meta’s Rotational Product Manager Program, Uber’s APM program & Salesforce’s APM Program.
There are also some well-known programs that don’t quite fit the definition of an APM program, but have the same idea behind them, most notably, Microsoft’s Aspire Program & Kleiner Perkins Fellows Program (both these programs aren’t limited to Product Management either, and instead exist for a variety of disciplines; also, both have 2 possible ‘entry points’ for PM roles: 1) right out of college, and 2) out of business school).
The idea behind APM programs is fairly straightforward: since Product Management is such a unique role, instead of having people work somewhere else for a few years, it makes more sense to bring in bright college grads on board from the very beginning & then train them how to be great PMs internally.
As part of a 2-year program, APMs typically get to experience 2-3 different products/teams, and also receive centralized training/mentoring. Companies like Uber & Google spend a lot of resources to make sure APMs get a great experience, and more senior PMs are usually happy to pitch in helping to train APMs — both because it’s important for the company, and because it’s often a good way to get someone to help out with your product & get some early management experience yourself along the way.
At the end of the program, APMs typically choose a permanent team to work on (oftentimes, one of the teams they spent a rotation working with) & also get promoted to the next level (L4 at Google / Meta / Uber).
Note that L4 at those companies is also the typical entry point for new hires joining out of business school, as well as many of the early- to mid-career experienced hires joining from other firms. All those folks will usually have more than 2 years of experience that APMs gain by the time they finish the program, so in a way, APMs are getting a pretty sweet deal.
APMs also get to learn both the ropes of both the Product Management discipline & also how to navigate the company they work for during the program, which often puts them on a fast career track. I’ve seen some examples of extremely high promo velocity for people who started as APMs, where a person would rise to be a GPM or even a Director at top-tier firms within 10 years of graduating college — that’s not an easy feat even for APMs, of course, but it would be virtually unheard of for anyone who joined Product Management discipline later on in their career.
Finally, it’s worth discussing whether there are any drawbacks of becoming a PM right out of college. In my opinion, the answer is ‘not really’. APM programs at top-tier tech companies are very competitive, so if you think you’re interested to try your hand at Product Management and you can secure a spot in one of those, you should take it — worst case scenario, you can apply to business school / go do something else after 2 years (and get some impressive experience on your resume in the meanwhile).
Of course, one cannot really turn back the clock — so unless you’re reading this post while you’re still in college, chances are, it might be too late for you to consider the APM route. Not to worry though — if that’s you, just keep reading.
Going to business school to become a PM
Next, a very popular (for better or worse) option to break into Product Management is to go to business school to get your MBA, do an internship while there and then become a PM after you graduate.
Note: Before I continue, I’d like to call out the fact that this is the route that I myself ended up taking a number of years ago: I started my career by working at an early-stage venture capital firm, and then went to business school with the explicit goal to switch to Product Management afterwards. At the end, I’d say it worked out pretty well for me (see the ‘About’ section on this website, if you’d like to learn more about my journey). That being said, I think there are a number of pros & cons of taking this route one should be aware of, which is what I am going to focus on in this section.
So, is it a good idea to go to business school in the hopes of becoming a PM afterwards? The answer, as with most things in life, is ‘it depends’. Let’s unpack it below (note that I’m going to use the words ‘business school’ and ‘MBA’ interchangeably from this point on).
Have a plan
Overall, my personal belief is that business school is one of the best routes to change careers (not just in the context of Product Management, but in general too). The way MBA degrees are structured, the flexibility they allow for, the network & dedicated career services you get — all of it can be very useful for someone looking to change fields/industries, be it to Product Management, or to something else.
The caveat is, you really have to have a plan, ideally before you even arrive on campus. Business schools are often advertised as places where you can spend a lot of quality time figuring out what you want to do next. That, in my opinion, is a bit disingenuous — while there might be some situations / careers where doing so is fine, anyone looking to switch to Product Management after graduating should really be focused & have a plan from day 1. The specifics of the plan can vary based on person’s background, previous experience, exact goals and so on (this probably warrants writing a separate article about) — but having a plan is essential.
Understand your strengths & weaknesses
Next, you have to understand that in a field like Product Management, especially now that it got so competitive over the last few years, not everyone can get the top jobs straight out of business school.
Someone who has spent a few years as a software engineer or a data scientist at a top-tier company before coming to business school will probably have much easier time securing interviews (and likely passing them), compared to a person looking to switch from a completely unrelated field. That’s inevitable, and nothing to get too frustrated about — unlike with some of the other fields, PM interviews are about more than just raw brainpower, dedication, or the ability to network your way in — there are certain backgrounds that can be quite useful for Product Management, and others that won’t be relevant at all.
There are certain advantages to this situation too, provided that you do a thorough reflection on, and can play to, your strengths & weaknesses.
For once, you don’t have to go to the very top-tier school, if your goal is to break into Product Management — it’s very possible that you’ll get more exposure to tech & more opportunities to network at a place like University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, compared to some of the more prestigious schools located on the East Coast, just because of the Foster’s location (Seattle) & close ties to companies like Microsoft & Amazon that are based in the area.
Next, there might be companies for which you would be a naturally better fit, based on your hobbies, past experience, or interests. And so, while you can’t turn the time back, changing your major in college & becoming a software engineer (same as you cannot go back & do an APM program out of college), you can, for instance, decide to focus on the analytics classes, read up on how one scales SaaS companies, and then leverage your past experience in, say, Sales, to position yourself as a really good PM candidate for the B2B SaaS startups (doing some networking also won’t hurt, of course).
Keep your mind open
That being said, my main advice to people who want to become PMs out of business school is to always look wide & keep your options open, instead of spending too much time trying to optimize for a few select jobs / companies. Recruiting in general is a numbers game, and tech recruiting in particular can be both chaotic & at times dumb (in reality, it’s not so much dumb, as it is optimized for avoiding ‘false positives’, where you hire the wrong people — ‘big tech’ in particular is heavily optimized for this mindset, even if it also means missing out on a ton of good candidates).
Remember: once you get your foot in the door, it’s a lot easier to switch companies (or, in some cases, switch functions if you’re already working at the right company — you can find some more info on this in one of my previous posts here). So, you should apply to a lot of places, even if some aren’t your dream jobs — it’s much better to have multiple options to choose from, than to have none because you were too picky.
Which roles can you get out of business school?
Most companies (at least, ‘big tech’ companies — it’s a lot harder to generalize for startups) hire business school graduates at the second lowest PM level they have, which is also the same level APMs will graduate to, if the company in question has an APM program.
For Google / Meta / Uber, that would be an L4 level; for Microsoft, it’s usually called L61 (sometimes, L62); at Amazon, it’s L6, which confusingly carries ‘Senior PM’ title, but in reality is still the second lowest PM level Amazon has & is roughly equivalent to L4 at Google / Meta / Uber.
Also, remember that some of the APM-like programs are also open to MBA grads (e.g., Microsoft’s Aspire Program & Kleiner Perkins Fellows Program) — those are very much worth considering, since if you get in, you’ll get all of the same benefits APMs get, which are manifold (mentoring from experienced folks, opportunity to experience several products/areas, a chance to quickly build a rather wide network, etc.)
Is it a good idea to go to business school to become a PM after all?
That is indeed a million dollar question. For most people looking to make a career switch, I’m inclined to say ‘yes’, provided that they spend time & effort to figure out a plan, and then stick to it.
In some cases, you might be better off networking your way into PM roles at your current company, instead of going to business school (e.g., if you are already working at, say, Microsoft or Google, especially in a technical role, you can probably find a way to switch to Product Management internally without going through too much trouble).
Overall, my key advice here is this: if you already know that you want to be a Product Manager, try to make the switch as early as possible — and if the business school fits into that paradigm, then it’s probably worth it for you.
That also brings us to the last scenario I wanted to discuss today, which is switching to Product Management as an experienced hire.
Switching to PM as an experienced hire
Ok, so now let’s discuss a situation where you already have years of experience under your belt — way too many to become an APM, or even to go to business school (or perhaps you did go to business school at some point, but then decided to work for a few years in another field, before realizing you want to be a PM). This probably means you have something like 7-10+ years of experience — a classic example of what’s often called an ‘experienced hire’ or an ‘industry hire’.
So, what do you do then?
At a high level, most of the things that I wrote in the previous section still apply, with some additional caveats / nuances. To recap:
Having a plan is still critical — even more so than it is for those going to business school
Your background / prior experience will still play a role, and there is no way to get around that, so instead you should figure out a way to use it to your advantage
Targeting top-tier jobs only isn’t always the best strategy — or, in some cases, you should indeed shoot for top-tier companies, but accept the fact that you might not get to do straight-up PM work, at least not at first (and that’s ok)
Casting a wide net is super-important, as is not getting discouraged by the rejects you will inevitably receive (everybody gets those)
Note: one thing that I’d like to point out is that here, I’m focusing on the cases where one has to do a straight-up career switch to become a PM. If you are already working as a PM at a smaller startup/consulting firm/bank/etc., and want to switch to being a PM in ‘big tech’, it’s a bit of a different story. Making such a change isn’t always easy, but doing so is very different from breaking into Product Management for the first time, which is the key focus here.
Above, I listed some of the things that are similar between the ‘experienced hire’ case & getting hired out of business school. However, there are some differences to be aware of as well.
Aim to switch as early as you can
For once, as with any career, the more experience you gain, the more specialized you become. In many cases, that can be a good thing (since that’s what makes you valuable as an ‘experienced hire’) — but in case of switching careers this typically works against you.
As I mentioned at the beginning, Product Management as a discipline is fairly unique to the technology industry, and so there is no clear equivalent of it in other fields. That means that it’s highly unlikely that the experience you gain in another industry (and thus also another discipline) will directly translate to Product Management.
In practical terms, this means that beyond a certain level, it becomes a lot harder for you to make the switch, since you are now considered to be overqualified for the jobs you can realistically perform decently well in. This in turn means that you have to be willing to take a down-level (be it in terms of pay, level of responsibility, or scope) to be able to make such a transition (and would probably also have to convince folks interviewing you that you are genuinely interested in such a move & will be fine with it).
To illustrate this point, I fairly often encounter people who have spent several years post-MBA working in consulting, and are now looking to make the switch to Product Management in the technology industry for various reasons. I’m going to use McKinsey system of titles in this example, but the same idea carries over to the rest of the consulting firms as well.
As a Senior Associate at McKinsey (0-2 years out of business school), you won’t have to face a down-level, drop in pay, etc., — in fact, if you can get an L4 PM position at Google / Meta / Uber / etc., your pay might actually go up. At the Engagement Manager level (2-5 years out of business school), things are going to get a bit more tricky, since you’d probably want to shoot for L5 PM positions at those firms, but getting those will be a lot tougher, since you’ve never actually done the job, and so the hiring managers will be quite reluctant to hire you, especially if they also have good candidates with PM experience. Beyond that, at the Associate Partner level & above (so, 4+ years out of business school), it is going to become exponentially harder to break into Product Management, for all the reasons mentioned above.
Note that what I’m describing above isn’t unique to the Product Management industry — in fact, you can see the same patterns in most spaces — but I would argue that the nature of Product Management exacerbates those trends beyond what you might see in other fields.
The implication here should be very clear by now: once you figure out you want to make the switch, you should aim to do it as early as possible, since staying on your previous path will have very little benefit & at some point might actually start working against you.
Not all PM roles are the same — use it to your advantage
Next, previously I have already alluded to the fact that PM roles are not all the same — in fact, I believe one would be hard-pressed to find another field that has so many very different jobs gathered under one umbrella title.
To give you an example here, being a Data PM on a highly technical platform product is going to be very different from being a UX-focused PM for a fast-growing consumer-facing product, and that in turn would also be very different from being a PM responsible for running a customer engagement program for a mature, well-established b2b product. In fact, I’d argue these 3 roles have very little in common — and yet, they are all PM roles.
This fact can be used to your advantage, since it allows you to look for PM roles that best align with your past experience, and then go after those. Note that you don’t have to commit to doing those types of roles forever either — rather, focus on getting your foot in the door, and then, once you have your PM title, you can work your way to the types of roles you fee truly passionate about.
Think hard about the types of companies you want to work for
Finally, while it might seem to be a no-brainer to go after PM roles at ‘big tech’ companies out of college or after graduating from business school, the more experienced you get, the harder I believe you should think about the types of roles that appeal the most to you.
True, many of the advantages of joining ‘big tech’ firms are still going to be there, but you might also find yourself in situations where ‘big tech’ companies don’t value your past experience much, thus requiring you to take a substantial down-level if you want to join them (I’ve seen this happen many times), require you to work on products that you don’t really care about, or just generally seem like a poor fit for your career aspirations.
At the same time, it’s possible that you’ll find PM positions that fit with your goals / interests / past experience a lot better at startups, or just at the companies outside of what’s typically known as ‘big tech’. If that happens, and you think the role is a good fit, don’t stress too much about what could have been, had you gotten a position at Google or any of its peers, for a) it’s not worth to dwell on it for too long; b) you can always attempt to switch later, once you are working in the field; and c) at some point, the fit should start mattering more than abstract things like prestige.
Hope this article gives you some idea of the various ‘entry points’ one can take to break into Product Management, and pros & cons associated with each of them.
Also, if you have any comments / feedback, or just want to share your personal experiences on the matter, please do so in the comments section below!