Hacker Remix

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

61 points by LifeIsBio 1 week ago | 48 comments

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?

aneeqdhk 4 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 4 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!

benhoff 4 days ago

Communication books can be useful. I've heard good things about nonviolent communication and, while I've not finished it, crucial conversations has been useful

btown 4 days ago

Along those lines: especially when coming from a technical background and dealing with non-technical stakeholders, wording like "hmm, this would likely be a pretty intensive multi-week project" might have been intended as carrying the benign context "...and the team would be excited if that's what leadership wants to prioritize" but can often be interpreted as "...and I'm going to fight you tooth and nail on this."

Pausing and engaging on the benefits of a proposal can be incredibly valuable, even if your mind has already raced to the considerations about implementation and opportunity cost. Many engineers understand that there's no higher praise than a leader diving into the weeds on something, but many other stakeholders don't have the same context!

lnsru 4 days ago

Good advice. First step is to identify your enemies. I also would call it “understand dynamics”. Because somebody wanted promotion into your senior position. Somebody just does not like you or someone wants to do things differently. It’s fine. Just know the obstacles before planing the journey.

alphalite 4 days ago

I get it, but this is just such a cynical take…devoting time & energy during your ramp up to identifying enemies seems to set the wrong tone from day 1. People will take notice no matter how hard you try to conceal it, and that will follow you around. First impressions matter, for you and those around you.

I suggest the opposite: assume good intent from everyone, listen a lot, don’t be afraid to ask dumb questions, identify people who can help your team and identify people who need your help. In leadership, the job is not about you, it’s about setting up your team for success.

Aurornis 4 days ago

> First step is to identify your enemies

The most difficult and political people I know think like this. They never see themselves as the problem. They just think they’re playing defense and playing the meta-game better than others.

If you go into a workplace thinking that your first step is to identify your enemies so you can be on constant high alert to defend yourself, there’s a high risk that you’re going to become the political problem you claim to want to avoid.

What if there are no enemies? What if nobody was denied this role, because it was added headcount to expand the team? Imagine the OP going in on the defense because HN told them to “identify your enemies” as the first step, but really their team just wants to add another person to the group? This type of advice causes more problems than it solves.

null_deref 4 days ago

What I’m saying is not criticism, I think the word enemies is quite isolating and too negative. It’s definitely true that every place with more than one human has inter-personal motivations and constraints, but I think they often can be fluid and non personal, someone contested the position you got but after the position was granted they realized they’re very much ok with not spending extra work time in the new job for example, or the employee that contested you to the promotion just wanted the raise or the ability to influence more in the company and you didn’t take their dream job. In some of those cases I found I can plaster my coworker name in large font on any work we did together or delegate to them tasks that they really wanted to, and I could win their trust and cooperation even though I got the promotion or something of that sort. It’s super subjective and my own personal experience

surajrmal 4 days ago

Or possibly find your friends and build relationships. Understand the motivations of the people you work with and identify ways to align your goals with theirs. By focusing your energy this way you'll help craft a healthy dynamic rather than be subjected to existing dynamics.

It's probably also worth figuring out who holds power and authority. It's not always based on org or chart.

fhd2 4 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 4 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.