First week and first impressions from my first-ever product manager role
If you ever moved to a new country as an adult, congratulations, you are automatically qualified to be a product manager.
Now, let me explain myself. Moving to a new country, especially when it’s not a love at first sight, means identifying your priorities, or, I dare say, a bigger vision. You compare languages, cost of living, paths to permanent residence and citizenship, work-life balance, culture, quality of daycares and schools, and much more. You prioritize, putting at least a few years of your life at stake.
Once you choose a country and a path to temporary or permanent residence, you gather the requirements regarding your paperwork, identify the people you’ll have to interact with, from consulate officials to a moving company, adjust your communication style accordingly, and try to get what you want without stressing out too much.
Once you move, you have to deal with a multitude of things at once, from getting an apartment to setting up a bank account, which often requires a proof of address — so, an apartment that you can’t rent without a bank account. Inevitably, you have to sacrifice something, and more often than not, especially at the beginning of your journey in your new country, there is simply no perfect solution for you and your family. All this has to be done either under tight deadlines or in your free time.
At this point you already guessed where I’m getting at. Identifying a product vision, talking to stakeholders, managing conflicting expectations, establishing priorities and choosing less-than-perfect solutions — this is the definition of product management. It feels almost bizarre once you realize that not only your previous, seemingly irrrelevant, experience is oh so relevant for the job — it’s as if your whole life up to this point has been preparing you for it.
It’s a new, or an almost forgotten, feeling, to have a job that just “clicks”, that aligns with something deep inside you, that feels “natural”. The closest I got to it was years before, when I was working as a freelance translator, but that job had a big asterisk on it — I had to settle down for boring work and produce unreasonable volume to be able to not only make ends meet but also save up something. Now, this sword of Damocles is gone, and money is not an issue so much that it feels unfair. And maybe because it “clicks” or because I didn’t start the real work yet, but even after 10 meetings a day (no joke, I counted) I didn’t feel as exhausted as I felt getting off from work in my previous tech jobs.
I guess, another reason why it feels so natural is because I don’t need to hold back, be rather safe than sorry, and avoid certain topics, which was so common during my previous consulting gig. Now, it’s backwards: the team and the project need my energy, they need a kickstart, and even important stakeholders should be happy to talk to me — and energy I have plenty. When I was a kid, my parents would often remind me not to speak SO LOUD, especially when I’m excited — imagine my joy when years later I joined a gym where grunting and shouting was not only tolerated but even encouraged! Now, on the energy level, it feels almost the same.
As one more experienced product manager — I’d love to call him my mentor but we talked just once for an hour on Zoom — told me, once you have your first product and at least two years of experience under your belt, you are set. You will get approached by recruiters on LinkedIn, you will be able to choose companies and projects, and a way up, to a product lead and beyond, will be clear. So far, I don’t dream that big and haven’t thought so far ahead. On the contrary, this summer, when/if the vaccine becomes available, I want to take my foot off the gas a bit and make my social life a priority, just as much as my career is a priority for now.
