Do You Hate Product Management?
Sometimes you feel like you hate being a product manager. Or maybe you hate your company. Your team? Your product? Here are the questions you should ask yourself to determine what needs to change.
A few months ago, I saw a post in a Product Manager group on Facebook from a new product manager (PM) that went something like this:
“New PM here. I’ve been doing PM work for the last 6+ months. I was so excited to make a career transfer, and now I’m starting to lose my positivity and energy. I hate my job.”
“Product managers at other companies have told me that it all boils down to your team. Is this the case for other PMs?”
“I don’t know if PM is for me. This job is killing my soul. For those who thought about leaving this career, what made you stay?”
It’s common among new Product Managers.
I landed my first role as a Product Manager about a year and a half ago, and while I didn’t “hate” it at 6 months, there was something about it that chafed a bit.
I found myself asking the same questions. What about my new role wasn’t fitting? Was I just not cut out to be a Product Manager?
This is a more thought out approach to the evaluation I eventually did for myself. I hope it helps you.
Do you jive with your company?
If you’re unhappy in your role, the first thing you should check is whether or not you’re happy at your company. If you’re not, none of the rest is going to matter. Ask yourself these four questions to see if you should look for a new employer.
Does your company’s mission motivate you? If not, does it matter?
Feeling like you’re working for good can pull you through rough patches. But if you’re not a person who needs to identify strongly with your company’s mission, you may be able to skip this one.
Are you seen and heard enough?
It can be hard to get face-time with higher-ups or buy-in from other teams at large companies. If you don’t like feeling like a cog, you might belong at a smaller company. Conversely, if you prefer a lot of guidance and opportunities for mentorship, you might be happier at a larger company with a bigger internal network and employee programs.
Do you feel appreciated?
Sometimes, company culture can be toxic. Even if you like your work and your team, bad company vibes can spoil it for you. Look for a positive work culture. Talk to current employees before you sign on to a new company.
Do you have the resources you need to do your job?
When a company expects outcomes without investment and doesn’t properly enable its workers, it leads to major burnout. If your engineering and design teams aren’t properly staffed or you can’t get executive approval for internal tools, but they still expect you to keep churning out new features at warp speed, you’ve probably got quite the headache right now. Look for a growing company with good financials.
As a person who invests a lot of mental energy into my work, I like to feel as if I’m doing something that matters. If I become disenchanted with a company’s mission, I lose contentment with my work. If that sounds like you, it’s time for a change.
Do you feel like you fit in on your team?
So your company is a good fit (or good enough), but what about your team? These are the people you work with on a daily basis, and it’s important that you feel like you fit in, especially if you’re working remotely. Otherwise, product management gets quite lonely.
Does your team have your back?
If something goes wrong with the product, your team should reflect rather than blame. Product Management is about taking calculated risks, and you can’t do that if your team doesn’t have your back.
Do your team’s processes make sense to you?
When your team’s workflows go completely against the grain, you’re going to struggle. Sometimes you can assimilate, but everything should be collaborative. If processes are inefficient or there’s a lot of gatekeeping, your performance will suffer. Don’t be afraid to speak up about this. It might be an opportunity for you to provide more value to your team.
Does your manager support you?
Your manager shouldn’t hover or check up on you constantly, but they should always be there to answer questions or provide guidance. They should take an active interest, not only in your deliverables, but also in your career aspirations. They should advocate for your advancement and pay raises and give you clear steps to get where you want to be. If they don’t, you might want to find a new team.
Are you able to find mentorship and guidance?
You should have at least one go-to person on your team for good advice. Whether it’s a peer or a higher-up, you need someone who can give you candid, useful feedback to enhance your skills.
Some people say your manager and your team make the biggest difference in feeling fulfilled at work. If you like your company well enough, you might do better on a different team. Keep an eye on your internal job board. It’s much easier to make an internal move than to convince a different company to take a risk on you.
Do you enjoy working on your product?
A lot of new PMs want to work on a product they already like and use. Seems easy, right? It actually might not be the best place for you to start. Think about a few of these factors before diving into a role on a beloved product.
How complex is your product?
If you’re a new PM working on a product that overlaps work with multiple other teams, has a ton of features (and the tech debt to go with them), or integrates with a lot of other products, you might struggle. Look for products that do one or two things really well and don’t require a lot of integrations.
How technical is your product?
If you don’t know anything about APIs or machine learning, you should think twice about managing API or ML products. If you haven’t been a developer, you might struggle to understand a developer platform. I’m not saying you can’t, just that you should think about having to make up for lacking a technical background while you’re ramping up in your role. Product management is tough enough; take it easy on yourself if you can.
What lifecycle stage is your product in?
You may not figure out which lifecycle stages you enjoy working on until you’ve had your first, or maybe even third role. But consider the fact that a product near the first and last stages of its lifecycle will present different challenges than a mature product in the middle of its lifecycle. You may not like the speed and ambiguity of a 0 to 1 product. A mature product may have a lot of tech debt and less opportunity for building growth skills.
How important is your product?
Is your product a huge focal point at your company right now? Or one that it’s happy to sweep under the rug? This factor determines both resources and visibility for you as a PM. If your product has a lot of executive attention, you will have an easier time getting resources but also have a lot of risk associated with failure. If your product doesn’t get a lot of attention, you can usually fail fairly safely and quietly, but you will also struggle to get executive buy-in or cross-team cooperation on projects because your product is a lower priority for the company. Both can be frustrating.
My first role as a Product Manager was with a WordPress hosting platform along with several extensions. For those who don’t know, WordPress is an open-source product, meaning that anyone can copy the code and use it to build another product or create extensions for the original.
I had been using WordPress to build websites for years and loved it, so I assumed I’d love managing this suite of products. But being open-source and crossing work streams with multiple other products at my company introduced a level of complexity that I just wasn’t ready for.
As it turned out, the product I loved probably wasn’t the best one to cut my baby PM teeth on. I survived, but if I had it to do over again, I would have looked for a role with a less complex product.
Are you cut out for product management?
Approach this last because the other factors might make you feel like you’re not cut out for the job when you actually just haven’t found the right fit yet. The good news is that, even if you aren’t a good fit now, you can be. All of these are skills you can learn and improve.
Are you good at managing your own time?
Most Product Managers don’t punch a time clock. If no one is watching, are you working? More importantly, are you working efficiently and staying focused? You will have to do this without guidance or structure.
Do you like communicating proactively?
You have to be the one who reaches out to others and checks up on in-progress work. You can’t wait for people to initiate contact with you, but you may also get bombarded with questions from stakeholders.
How well do you handle ambiguity?
This is one that’s really hard to understand until you’ve been there. You will have to scope and define everything, but you have authority over nothing. The ambiguity of product management is a lot more complicated than that, but if you are a person who needs to feel like you know what’s going on, you will be frustrated with product management.
Are you okay with feeling stupid?
We all like to feel smart, but some people are not okay with feeling stupid. As a Product Manager, you will have to rely on the expertise of others and ask a lot of questions. You will often feel out of the loop or like you don’t know what’s going on. That’s okay as long as it doesn’t throw you into an existential crisis.
As a neurodivergent introvert, I’ve struggled with most of these. But because I want to be a good Product Manager, I sought treatment for my ADHD and anxiety and constantly work to improve these skills. If that isn’t something you’re eager to do, this may not be the role for you.
Final Note: Give yourself a chance!
If you’re starting to question every career choice you’ve made so far, take a deep breath. Product management is a challenging career path. Struggling doesn’t mean you’re not cut out for it or that you won’t enjoy it once you find the right fit.
The first step is to land your first role and just give it a chance for a while. In my experience, combined with comments I’ve read from more experienced product managers, you should give it at least a year. Most people freak out 6 months in.
After asking myself these questions, I ended up staying with my company & team while keeping an eye out for roles with greater opportunities to create and change processes. Unfortunately, my company had a big layoff that eliminated my position. That’s always a risk with product management, too. Most companies will see you as more expendable than your engineering counterparts.
Maybe product management requires a long adjustment period, or maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome. Either way, give it some time, and I bet you’ll stick around. Plus, you’ll have the skills and experience you need to change whatever it is about your current role that isn’t working for you.
Good luck!
Special thanks to Tremis Skeete, Executive Editor at Product Coalition for the valuable input which contributed to the editing of this article.
