Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior PM?

61 points · LifeIsBio · 25 days ago

Inspired by this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42656184

I'm starting a new job in a few days as a senior PM at a ~1000 person company, but I've never been a PM before. My career path has been: PhD -> Engineer -> Founder.

My time as a founder has given me some unique perspective on products in my space, but I'm less experienced with the day-to-day of a PM in a medium sized company. My exposure has been second hand watching the PMs while I was an engineer. Any advice on how to help ensure things kick off well?

48 comments

aneeqdhk · 21 days ago

- understand as much about the product as possible, primarily from a user point of view

- meet as many different verticals as possible and understand how they work

- speak with all other senior PMs and tech leads and understand their workflows

You're going to be working with multiple teams and stakeholders and it's crucial you have a mental map of how everyone's workflow is. You also will have an 'outsiders' view for the first 30-90 days as you look at the product with fresh eyes. Use this to drive insights for the product if applicable.

Lastly, don't ever stop customer meetings. It may not be on the agenda for other Senior PMs, but don't let that stop you. Customer meetings will keep your insights fresh and valid.

Prunkton · 21 days ago

Since you may not have seen it in your previous career: be aware of politics in companies (that size). Especially when you are interacting with other departments, PMs and positions generally above yours.

I'm not saying its the most important thing or specific to the first days. But getting the dynamics early on will benefit you, your project and the people involved.

Also more specific to day one: have fun and be excited :) good luck!

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fhd2 · 21 days ago

Probably a bit against the grain, but I don't think you need to try and act like you are an experienced PM. No amount of blog posts or books will quickly get you to that level, only experience will. They were well aware of your background when they hired you. Perhaps they hired you _because_ of it? At a company that size, PMs are often just corporate animals playing politics a good chunk of their time. You'll probably have to become more similar to them over time, but for now, you might just have a honeymoon period where you can add your own flavour to how the product you're assigned to should be run, and make it more successful.

As a founder, you probably already have a lot of the skill set that's needed for that. If you listen to people and apply your intuition, I bet you'll do well.

Sure, understand what the role is generally about, what the expectations are and all that. But I don't think it's a problem that you didn't hold it before, no need to make it one. PMs are in my experience a slightly different job at each company anyway. The most important thing with your background is probably to develop an eye and tactics for the games other PMs and middle managers play.

cloudking · 21 days ago

This is not just first day advice, but more general advice for new PMs:

Talk to your users relentlessly, find out how they use and don't use your product. Get a deep understanding of their workflows and user journeys in the product.

Trim the fat (shift focus) and solve problems they have that the product doesn't solve yet or solve well.

Reduce the steps in their critical user journeys. For example, if it's something they do every day, going from 5 clicks to 3 clicks adds up over time and improves satisfaction.

Dive into metrics and implement quantitative metrics where they don't exist. Survey users for qualitative metrics.

Bring data (metrics, market research, customer quotes etc) to executive meetings to back up your ideas, data speaks louder than your words.

Basically, if your product is in the market you don't need to always guess what to build, your users will guide you. That's not to say you can't innovate too, but a large part of being a PM is bringing the user experience and their frustrations to your team to action.

mellosouls · 21 days ago

You should clarify what you mean by PM; product and project management are different things. I assume its one of those rather than Programme Management or Prime Minister...

ps. a cheatsheet for a famous general management-onboarding book The First 90 Days; while it doesn't specifically address your question a lot of it will apply:

https://sourcesofinsight.com/doing-the-first-90-days/

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