Cracking PM job within 2 months with no experience

I think it would only be right to start off by saying my stint as a product manager wasn’t a success. What I mean is I stayed in the role for only 6 months and promptly moved back to Solutions Engg. But, here’s the thing - I would rather try and fail rather than not pursue it at all. Reflecting on that stint, my interest in product role came more out of the fancy linkedin posts I used to see and people using “Product @xyz” and felt aspirational. However, once in the role, I realized I loved to sell products more than build them. So, if you are someone who aspires to be in product, ask yourself -

1. Are you someone who loves building things?

2. ⁠Are you someone who wants to try out a mini-ceo role?

3. ⁠Do you have the nous to work with engineering, manage diplomacy, push your agenda and work through legal, design , etc before launching a product

4. ⁠Does launching a product and seeing it as a success brings your joy?

If so, do try out the product role. Another aspect to keep in mind is that product role can be intense. What I mean is lots of meetings, constantly navigating roadblocks, interfacing with different aspects , launching an alpha version, taking learnings , then launching a beta version and eventually taking it to general availability. Your success and tenure not only hinges on the success of the product but on speed of the launch. Also, like almost every role, you need to convince the stakeholders why your product needs investments. Alright, having read through my long spiel, finally lets dive in on how I prepared and cracked the PM role without any PM experience!

From my perspective, there are three key things needed to land a PM role :

1. Knowing the product thoroughly

2. Networking with peers

3. Clearing the technical casing interview

KNOWING THE PRODUCT THOROUGHLY :

To me, this was a benefit of working in solutions. Because I worked with the products all day long, it gave me a good insight into understanding the product, its shortcomings, what features needed to be added. I promptly passed this information to the product managers which did 2 things for me :

1. Helped me network with them.

2. Let them know my insights and knowledge about the product.

NETWORKING WITH PEERS :

I didn’t have any experience with product roles. So, I knew if I had to get in for those roles, I needed to network. My goal for 2024 had been to explore product opportunities. So, I connected internally with as many product managers especially those that were in a similar role as mine and made an internal switch on how they did it, what I needed to learn, how I could prepare. Here are the three top insights I got :

1. Tell me how I can prioritize features with revenue impact.

   1. Essentially, every feature is prioritized based on money it can bring. So, while a product may have shortcomings, can you size the opportunity for me. This tells me how important it is.

   2. Experience over Education : They stressed that product is on the job role. Which means a lot of things you learn holistically on the job. And it requires a dynamic set of expertise which is marketing, strategy, project management etc all of which can only be learnt with experience.

   3. Developing product sense : This is a very subjective word to use but it essentially means can you think through what features a product needs and ensure it is a market fit.

CLEARING THE TECHNICAL CASING QUESTIONS :

This was honestly the toughest part for me and it reminded me of the first time I had casing interviews. So, my strategy was as below and I am explaining with an example :

Question :

How would you redesign Instagram's homepage to boost user engagement?

I approached this with a code word called : C O P I R S

C : Clarify the problem and metrics

O : Opportunity Analysis and Current Problems

P : Propose Redesign Features

I : Implementation Outline

R : Risk Assessment and Countermeasures

S : Summary

Lets breakdown each section

Clarify the Problem :

I would first clarify the metrics and think about how I measure the success. So, in this case :

• Restate the goal explicitly:
  "The objective is to redesign Instagram's homepage to increase user engagement."

• Mention metrics you’ll measure success by:
  "I’ll measure engagement via session duration, interaction rates (likes/comments/shares), frequency of visits, and daily/monthly active users."

Opportunity Analysis and Current Problems

I would then think of the current major problems :

• Clearly highlight existing pain points or missed opportunities:

  • Example:
    "Currently, the homepage heavily prioritizes algorithmic content recommendations (Reels, suggested posts). While effective in some ways, this can create fatigue, reduced sense of community, and less genuine interaction among users."

• Consider the user perspective:
  "Users report feeling disconnected from close friends or overwhelmed by irrelevant recommendations."

Propose Redesign Features

Now, based on the problems, think about the proposed solutions

• Suggest targeted enhancements, balancing user needs and business goals:

  • Example features:

    • Customized Homepage Tabs: Users can switch between algorithm-driven content, following-only content, and community highlights.

    • Friend/Group Stories Highlight: Prominently feature stories or posts from close connections at the top of the homepage.

    • Interactive Widgets: Polls, questions, and interactive modules that encourage engagement directly from the homepage.

• Briefly justify each recommendation with user and business benefits.

Implementation Outline:

Once you have agreement with interviewer, share how you would implement and judge results based on metrics you proposed.

• Clearly articulate how you'd execute your plan in practice:

  • Immediate: Conduct user research, gather baseline data, create prototypes.

  • Short-term: Run A/B tests on selected user groups to refine concepts and measure early impact.

  • Mid-term: Gradually roll out the validated design to broader audiences.

• Long-term: Continuously monitor engagement metrics, iterate based on user feedback, and scale successful features platform-wide.

Risk Assessment and Countermeasures

Even for your current solutions, its super important to manage and understand the risks

• Acknowledge potential challenges:

  • Risk example:
    "Redesign might initially confuse users accustomed to current navigation."

• Provide clear mitigation strategies:
  "I’d implement clear onboarding tutorials, opt-in beta experiences, and iterative feature rollout to ensure smooth adoption."

6. Summarize Impact

• End strongly by restating how your recommendations will positively impact users and the business:

• Example:
  "Overall, this redesign will drive deeper connections, encourage meaningful engagement, and sustainably increase session frequency and retention for Instagram."

Some examples you can practice :

• If you were in charge of Netflix's recommendation system, how would you improve it to reduce user churn and increase viewing time?

• How would you improve Uber's ride-booking experience to increase rider frequency and loyalty?

• Imagine you're the product manager for Spotify's playlist feature. How would you enhance it to encourage more playlist sharing among users?

• If you led the product team at Airbnb, what new feature would you introduce to enhance trust and safety, thereby increasing bookings?

2 month roadmap :

Things I did everyday :

1. Technical Casing Product - 1

2. Read a medium article on how a product was built

Things I did every week

1. Coffee chat with a PM

2. Apply to internal product opps

Now

Week 1 - 3: Read through product casing questions and just create structure for myself

Week 3 -4 : Take a stab at a question and see how I performed. Understood what was wrong and where I could fix

Week 5- 6 : Take mocks with someone. Call my engineering friends and discuss their products as well.

Week 7- 8 : Read up on behavioral which I already knew from previous experiences

I will add more details as I can to this or they may be in follow up blog. But I am very certain, this will help you get started.