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Ask HN: How do you interview for PM when you're a Front end dev?

by adam_ellsworth on 1/24/22, 3:46 AM with 5 comments

I was a Frontend Developer for 7 years and, under a new title, FE Product lead on most of our internal client-facing applications for 3 years and find myself interviewing for positions in FE while also attempting to relate both abilities and it's not gone well recently.

(To my mind I can't just hop in as PM at a new company as there's an entire Dev culture for those prospective employers which I should understand from the ground up.)

This post is very poorly worded and omits so many of my thoughts on DevRel/DevOps, but I've found myself recently describing to interviewers why I want to work in Dev (ground-floor dev work to get a good understanding of the dev needs of those prospective companies) as well as trying to establish why I have the capacity to be a good fit for Product Management for them in 3- to 5-years time.

At this point should I even be looking into FE jobs or should I seek out PM? What intermediary steps am I missing (certifications, job titles, etc)

  • by d--b on 1/24/22, 5:49 AM

    What I’d do (and I have no idea if it’d work), is go straight for the PM role, and sell your previous experience as a PM-ish role with a FE dev title.

    My opinion is that there is very little opportunity moving up from FE to PM. So going for another FE role and hoping for PM is a weird message to recruiters. The guy who needs a FE dev doesn’t want to hire a person whose goal is to move out of the position in 3 years.

    But it is easy to pretend that you’ve been a de facto PM in your previous position. You may have done user interviews, and may have setup usage analytics and discussed various strategies to enhance engagement and all that kind of stuff. Pick up a book and read about PM and see what you can relate to your previous jobs. To be honest, PM is not a very well defined job, a lot of it is intuitive and if you interview with someone who likes what you say, it should be fine.

    Don’t downplay the FE dev experience either. It’s good to be a PM who has been in the weeds. It gives you a better idea of how much things cost. The downside is that you may be pulled back by that as well. You may not ask for something that you think is complicated technically, while some other dev may not find it hard. So beware of that.

    And make sure you say that you don’t want to code. You may do code reviews to get a grip of who’s doing on what on the team, but don’t say: “oh and I could develop some features myself”.

  • by ferdowsi on 1/24/22, 4:26 AM

    A typical journey into a Product Manager position would be a lateral move in your current company, under the guidance of a mentor that can support you as you start working as a PM. Certifications are not nearly as important as getting a year or two of actual PM experience under your belt before interviewing elsewhere.

  • by fy20 on 1/24/22, 5:10 AM

    I don't think anyone is going to really care at interview stage how you see your career in 3 to 5 years, other than thinking "oh that's nice". At that point, most likely you will not be at the company, or they will not be at the company, or there will be no company. When companies are hiring, they are hiring for an immediate need they have now, not something they may have a few years in the future.

    If you have experience performing PM duties, then I don't really see why you can't just jump straight into that. You need to sell yourself in the interview and explain why you want to become a PM and really focus on the PM responsibilities you've had before.

    If you can't or feel you need more experience, you should find another lead role that has more PM responsibilities. If a company is growing fast, a lead role could allow you to transition into a engineering or product manager role quite quickly (months not years). This will be easier at smaller companies where there is a lot of overlap in responsibilities, than larger companies. You may also need to take a pay cut until you have true PM experience under your belt.

  • by sdoering on 1/24/22, 4:55 AM

    PM = Product Management or Project Management?

    Regardless: I would advise to look at you actual work during the last two years.

    Did you manage a team of different disciplines towards a shared goal? Did you organize and lead meetings/workshops to develop solutions?

    Did you interface with (external or internal) stakeholders? Did you need to keep external demands from you team? Did you need to manage expectations and lead stakeholders towards finding shared understandings regarding timelines and trade-offs?

    Did you manage product/project/development roadmaps? Did you manage priorities for development? Did you take care of piece flow (tickets) through the system (team)? Did you take care that documentation is being done?

    How did/do you handle the people who work within the project/product team especially if they do not report to you directly.

    There are good resources regarding the mindset and how to work with people. I would recommend "The year without pants".

    A good PM has massive influence on the happiness of the team. A bad PM breaks teams in the worst case. I have experienced how working within a greatly managed project can be a breeze, freedom and enjoyment.

    Or how it can suck, when it is lead in a bad way.

  • by glasscannon on 1/24/22, 5:33 AM

    What worked from me when transitioning from dev to product was applying/interviewing internally. If you apply externally, there will likely be the expectation that you have direct experience.

    Regarding your question on should you continue working / interviewing for dev roles - if product is what you want to do and your circumstances permit it, I would recommend taking the jump sooner rather than later. Life isn't long enough to do one thing when you'd rather be doing another. I spent 2 years too long being a dev and nearly burnt out because of it.