Related Posts
Facebook (Meta) Product Management (IC5) or Google Cloud Marketing S&O/ Annual Planning (L6) role if I want to eventually be working on Product Strategy for consumer tech?
Heard it hard to pivot from Google S&O to Product Strategy even with 20% projects internally…
Facebook (Meta) | Google
More Posts
Rising Star
I quit today :)
Anyone need UBS referral?
Additional Posts in Sales Engineers
Coach
Subject Expert
Hi there. Ex Deloitte Sr Mgr here, currently in tech pre sales (SaaS / MarTech). Recently spoke to both Salesforce and Adobe recruiters for roles that I thought were lateral moves (Sr SA / Sr SC), therefore I did not proceed with the selection process. The recruiters from both companies told me they typically hire at that level, and people are considered for promotion to Principal in 1 to 2 years. I found that odd. Is that right? What’s the typical TC for SAs and SCs there? (15+ yrs exp).
New to Fishbowl?
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
About a year ago, somebody I worked with did just this. They knew somebody who knew somebody and went into product management. In the grand scheme of things it isn’t an outlandish jump, my only concern right now would be the job market in general. A lot of people are fighting for one job out there. But now may be a great time for you to network and build those skills so when things get better you are already in a great position.
My path was SC to CS to Product but I did this at a startup, not a large company. Every transition had one thing in common: I recognized a problem, learned as much as I could about that problem and the role that typically solved that problem, and started to solve it from my current seat.
Making that transition while also moving to a new company sounds incredibly difficult/low probability unless you know someone, ideally a former manager, who believes in you and endorses you.
Making that transition in a large company also sounds challenging, but higher probability. Why? You have experience and access to way more information and people. Good product management and product strategy are fueled by your understanding of the customer, and SCs typically spend a good amount of time either on the phone with customers or digging into their problems in order to recommend a solution.
The main thing that’s missing is that you probably don’t see enough customer problems and therefore it’s harder to do the pattern recognition required to fuel deeper product insights. So I would start there, increase the volume of customer exposure and do your homework on how PMs document and organize their findings. Then bring this to the folks in your company that you want to be, ideally a people manager. Show them what you’ve been doing and what you’ve been learning.
TLDR: Higher chance of doing this at current company or very small company. Start doing the job before you get the job.
I’ve seen it happen twice. Unfortunately both times the individual was let go in a RIF within a year. Pretty anecdotal but convinced me to be happy on my side of the fence.
Easiest may be internally. Need to be a decently high performer. Build your brand within the company. Network with that org and the people they work with. Express your interest and tell them if they ever need any help to reach out to you. You need to show your value to them and then they’ll advocate up for you and support you in making the move. You also have proof to the company you can do the work.
Worst case you have that work on your resume for when you market yourself to leave