Companies

🍩 Product management careers get treated differently than engineering, design, and most other tech careers in that there isn’t a point where you can comfortably stay an individual contributor – the idea is to move up in your rank, or move out. There seems to be a much lesser focus on the PRODUCT part than MANAGEMENT in product management, which is why Ken Norton (previously Director of Product for Google), argues that we need to fight for  a dual product management career path. What he means by this is a role where you manage the product resources for a project rather than a full division, because the reality is that not all people are suited to (or even interested in) being leadership. This non-management role can be key to innovation for big companies as well, because it enables the employee to be an individualistic thinker and avoid the sometimes cumbersome process and structure you find in big co’s.