Developers: you might be a Product Manager if...

This is a fancified excerpt of Liana Leahy from JS party #203. Liana spent 20 years as a developer before transitioning to product, so she knows what she’s talking about here. To get the full experience you should listen while you read.

🎧  Click here to listen along while you read. It's better!   🎧

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Before making a move into product management, make the most of your technical career. The stories and experiences you gather as a developer will help you. But let’s say you’ve been in the software development field for a number of years, and you’re looking for your next challenge. Here’s a list of “You know you’re a PM if…” statements to help you decide if this career is right for you.

If you’re the type of person who likes to know what features are on the roadmap…

If you’re questioning why a new feature is gonna be useful…

If you like to understand the problem that a feature is trying to solve…

If you like to be involved in finding the solutions…

If you care about the quality of the customer experience, as well as the quality of the code…

If you love measuring success with quantifiable analytics and you don’t mind talking with users and other stakeholders…

If you make sure the conversations that get alignment across teams happen, you’re the glue… and you might be a Product Manager.

If you’re comfortable with the 80/20 rule, and can solve for the most common use cases and balance the trade-offs and edge cases…

If you have a calm and upbeat demeanor, even when chaos swirls around you…

You might be a Product Manager!