Your Career Is Your Most Important Product — For Highly Competent Product Managers

Shreyas Doshi · 5m · transcribed 9h ago

Section Insights

# 0:00

Realizing the Need for Career Reflection

What prompted the speaker to reassess their career decisions?

After 15 years in the industry, the speaker recognized a lack of thoughtful career decisions and realized the importance of treating their career as a product that requires rigorous decision-making.

Self-reflection is crucial for career growth.
Career decisions should be as rigorous as product decisions.
Acknowledging past mistakes can lead to better future choices.

# 0:58

The Importance of Career Management

Why is managing one's career considered important?

The speaker learned that their career is their most important product, which enables them to build other products. This realization emphasized the need for serious consideration of career management.

Career management is essential for professional success.
One's career should be viewed as a product requiring careful planning.
Feedback from others can highlight areas needing improvement.

# 1:57

Introspection and Learning from Past Decisions

How did the speaker approach understanding their career decisions?

The speaker engaged in introspection, analyzing past career choices to identify biases and assumptions that influenced their decisions, similar to postmortems conducted for products.

Introspection can reveal biases in decision-making.
Learning from past choices is vital for future success.
Regularly evaluating career decisions can lead to better outcomes.

# 2:56

Gaining Clarity Through Reflection

What was the outcome of the speaker's introspection?

Through a year-long journey of reflection, the speaker gained clarity on their career path and began to help others with their career choices, recognizing the shared challenges faced by product managers.

Clarity in career direction can emerge from self-reflection.
Helping others can reinforce one's own learning.
Shared experiences in career management are common among professionals.

# 3:54

Recognizing Common Challenges in Career Management

What did the speaker discover about other product managers?

While recruiting for product managers at Stripe, the speaker found that many product professionals struggle with managing their careers, despite being competent in their roles.

Many professionals face challenges in career management.
Competence in a job does not guarantee effective career planning.
Addressing career management issues can benefit the entire team.

Transcript

0:02 So the way it started for me with regards to sort of thinking about career was as with everything with myself and my own career decisions. And there was a time when I realized that if I was being honest to myself, I wasn't making very thoughtful, very rigorous career decisions. And this was after being 15 years in the industry and 10 plus years in product management is when I really had to contend with this truth.

0:37 And then I started thinking about product decisions I've made. And that's when I realized that, you know, I've basically been paying a lot more attention to making more rigorous and more correct product decisions for the actual products I manage, the products I lead. And I have a sense of pride around that. I have a sense of almost this kind of professional identity around making great product decisions. And just maybe a year or two before this realization, one of my managers had pointed out to me that you are great at managing your product, but you're terrible at managing your career. At the time, I heard that statement and I said, "Okay, yeah, maybe there's something to it." But I didn't pay that much attention to it if I'm being honest again. But then that came back to me at this time when I myself realized that I haven't been making great career decisions and certainly not as rigorous as I would like them to be.

1:39 And that's when it hit me as well that my career is my most important product because my career is what is going to enable me to build any product that I want to build. So I ought to think about it very seriously. I ought to try to get good at making career decisions. So that's how it started and then I embarked on this kind of journey mostly within of understanding almost like we do postmodms for our products but we don't do that much postmodm for our career decisions and particularly even when we do it they either come from a place of confirmation or come from a place of resignation where well things happen to us and you know what can we do right that sort of approach but we don't do as rigorous postmodms terms of our own career decisions as we do of our products and launches and other things outages or whatever the case might be.

2:41 So that journey was really looking inside looking back at some of the choices I had made. Now that I had the luxury of looking back trying to be honest about why I made these decisions and what biases crept into these decisions and so on. So that was foundational for me as I went into this kind of introspection and it was maybe the right time in my life, the right level of maturity in life and all of that which made me realize no actually yes there's lots of biases, lots of assumptions that I made that you know frankly weren't as rigorous. Once I did that a lot of things started making sense. I don't want to say or pretend that it was just a week or a month's long journey. This was maybe over a year or two, right? But once I realized that again right time in my life, I also started getting more clarity on what I ought to do looking forward. And it's only after all of that and after getting a better understanding of ways to think about my own career that I started becoming somewhat helpful to others with their career choices. And this time I was at Stripe during its earlier days.

3:55 So, we're talking 2016 or so. It also so happened that I was recruiting a lot for product managers at Stripe. We were just getting product management off the ground. As part of that recruiting, I ended up giving people advice on career choices, which had nothing to do with the specific role we had, but it was an important aspect of what would make them join Stripe or not make them join Stripe at the time. And then as I was kind of also helping some PMs within my team at Stripe and broader stripe that's really when I started seeing that the problem I faced was not at all unique and that actually most product managers most product people while they can be very competent in their own products can be like me highly incompetent with their career which again is their most important product. So that's a brief view I guess of the journey that got me there.

Summary

The speaker reflects on their career journey, realizing that they had been more diligent in making product decisions than in managing their own career. After a pivotal moment of introspection, they recognized their career as their most important product, leading them to adopt a more rigorous approach to career decision-making. This realization not only improved their own career choices but also enabled them to assist others in navigating their career paths.

- The speaker spent 15 years in the industry, with over a decade in product management.
- A manager pointed out their lack of attention to career management, prompting self-reflection.
- They recognized their career as their most important product, deserving of serious consideration.
- The speaker began a journey of introspection to analyze past career decisions and biases.
- This process took over a year, leading to greater clarity about future career choices.
- While at Stripe in 2016, they started advising others on career decisions during recruitment.
- They discovered that many product managers struggle with career management despite their product expertise.
- The speaker's experience highlights the need for a more rigorous approach to personal career development.