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I'm currently working at AWS as a L6 PM-T ES and just got a verbal offer to join MSFT as a Principal PM 65. I have 10 YOE in Solutions Architecture and 5 YOE as PM. 8 YOE in total in Amazon. My TC back in April was $278k and now after stock drop is at $238k. Amazon has been low balling me for the past 2 years on both pay and career growth/promo.
I've seen lots of posts about how hard it is to get a PM job, people trying and failing on lots of interviews, so I was not very optimistic when I started to apply for jobs. Got some recruiters proactively reaching out and had initial chats with companies like google and MongoDB, however due to hiring freezes the conversations were put on hold.
Applied to very few jobs, a handful, then got contacted to start the process at MSFT. Got through the process, it was the only interview loop I've done and today got the good news.
One thing that help me A LOT was the fact that I've done over 100 interviews in Amazon. I can't stress it enough, be involved with interviewing as much as you can as it'll help when you're on the other side being interviewed. When it was my turn I interviewed like someone who would impress me if I was the interviewer, and it worked.
This is what I did the week before the interview loop started:
1) Write down in detail 2 or 3 stories in a narrative with measurable situations, actions and, most importantly, results (i.e. how much % in WoW/YoY adoption/revenue the action you took delivered?). I had 2 very good stories and use them in several occasions to demonstrate the value i could bring to the table.
2) Don't use STAR only, use the "U-Shape - man in a Hole" strategy described on this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU6BVxtGd5g (the guy is an engineer but the strategy works for any role).
3) This is a great playlist , watched it the week before to help me prep : https://open.spotify.com/episode/2IalwYjgkumEjysNEBZFvM?si=2Iv8OPCQQOO78UyPph61eQ (used paid one, ROI is huge IMO)
I'm not sharing this to brag but just to help other PMs and share my experience.