Mark Russell Filaroski - Faith, Family and Fairways’ Post

Too many software engineers/product managers/startup founders DON'T want to do unscalable “dirty work” like cold calling or talking to hundreds of users. But it’s the simplest thing you could do that will give you an advantage over everyone else. When I worked on Facebook Marketplace, I was tasked with getting more car dealership inventory on the platform. Getting more “higher end” inventory was strategically important at the time. I sat in a room with an engineer to brainstorm ideas. We spent a few months shipping “scalable” A/B tests and looking at the data. All our ideas failed. We didn’t know the first thing about car dealerships. So I literally rented a car and drove around to car dealerships in the area to talk to them (thanks to my manager for supporting me!). About 50% told me to go away. The other 50% were gold mines of information. I learned what they cared about (high quality leads), what they didn’t care about (leads for the sake of leads), and where our product fell short (no integrations = hours of manually creating listings). We now knew what to build! More importantly, we gained a unique insights, like LOVE talking to people who come in person. We even experimented scaling this out by hiring a team of people to go door to door and help bring dealerships onboard! The main takeaway here is to not be afraid of unscalable “dirty work”. Yes, it’s hard. But it gives you insights that people often overlook.

At a mediocre tech company, engineering leadership hire engineers and don't clearly tell them what to build. At a good tech company, engineering leadership hire engineers and clearly tell them what to build. At a world-class tech company, engineering leadership hire engineers and let them figure out what to build. This is bottom-up culture, and it's why Google and Meta are so successful. In their prime, engineers at these 2 FAANG companies had massive autonomy. From the Facebook Like to Google Chrome, countless era-defining products from Google and Meta came from the engineers organically, not executives. As an engineer, you can learn a lot from this. Don't just wait for your manager to tell you what to do. Look for opportunities yourself and create scope. To learn how the world's best engineers come up with innovative, impactful ideas, check out my in-depth guide stemming from my experience discovering multiple million dollar projects at Instagram: https://lnkd.in/gqqbCF9W #techcareergrowth #softwareengineering #google #facebook #growthtips

Hey Folks We are looking 💻Group Product Manager (#Senior) #Permanent #Remote $200,000-$300,000 Annual #Worldwide ▶️ Hiring Criteria: ✅ +10 years of Engineering background/experience across product and engineering ✅ Previously a Director of Product or higher at a smaller organization/ Success as a Group Product Manager or higher at a larger organization ✅ Successfully launched and managed products that serve developers ✅ Experience coaching and mentoring product managers/overseeing their work directly ✅ Significant experience with #Web3 or #Crypto We are building a high-performance blockchain operating system that provides high throughput without sacrificing decentralization or security. Our project is a full-stack solution that lets anyone deploy a chain using any configuration they would like (Rollup on Ethereum, Sovereign chain, Appchain, etc.). Our focus is to launch a Rollup OS built on top of Ethereum to enable the next generation of blockchain applications. We are remote first and globally distributed, with English as our primary language for communication. We are looking for self-starters who are excited about working in a fast-paced startup environment. We do not require contributors to live in specific time zones, but much of the team lives and works in the European and US time zones. Contributors should endeavour to make themselves available as needed for scheduled team and company events Our core product is all of the infrastructure, language, and packages that are required for any developer to build smart contracts and applications on top of our rollups. We need someone who cares deeply about the needs of blockchain developers & infrastructure providers, has seen the shortcomings of other chains from a developer perspective, and needs to fix those issues. You will be the voice of our developer customers and a key driver of our project’s success. This is a senior position with extremely high impact. Someone who succeeds in this role will likely have the skills to be a Founder, VP of Product or CPO at most web3 or tech startups ▶️Technologies #web3 #Blockchain ▶️ Requirements Must have an engineering background 10 years, plus or minus, of experience across product and engineering Success as a Director of Product or higher at a smaller organization; success as a Group Product Manager or higher at a larger organization Empathy and first hand experience of what developers need from highly available, mission critical applications, release cycles, etc. Successfully launched and managed products that serve developers Have successfully coached and mentored other product managers, or have overseen their work directly Able to build immediate respect with engineers Demonstrated experience driving change within an organisation, all the way up to the C-Suite Management of both internal teams and vendors Significant experience with Web3 or Crypto a large plus Bonus Point a background in Philosophy 📨 [email protected] #Web3 #crypto #remote

"I'm exiting my CPO and we're not hiring a replacement." Yesterday a Series B founder said this. My response? "Yeah, this seems normal in today's environment." More and more, founders are worried about building the wrong thing. And many have realized the best way to counteract this is to stay close to the product. The product function is undergoing a lot of change as a result. More and more, founders want product managers who know how to have a damn opinion. Just getting things done, moving things along, and shuffling JIRA tickets isn't a job well done. In fact, it downright makes founders nervous. Here's how I've heard this expressed recently from multiple CEOs: "I want my product leader to have a strong opinoin, rather than a bunch of loose hypotheses." "I'm looking for a product lead who knows how to make big bet swings." "I want someone who has built great product off of user intuition, not just looking at the data." Product teams are getting smaller and smaller. And founders, realizing that staying away may have caused them to lose a sense of the "soul" of their product, are jumping back in. I'm seeing founders value product leads who execute instead of pontificate. Who relentlessly test and ship versus overthink. And the new unicorn product leader archetype? Someone who is commercially minded and can partner with a VP of Sales really, really well. In the long run, founders know that they can't sustain this kind of hands on work forever -- but the prevailing opinion right now among so many is that they want to jump back in. Multiple times each week, VPs of Product ping me to ask what the market looks like. Here's another data point for how founders are actually thinking. Scrappy, quick, and opinionated is the flavor of the year.

Software engineer (or developer) never felt like it accurately described my role at startups. Then on Twitter I saw people talking about product engineer, which sounds like the job I actually do. This role describes a person who has some level of ownership which extends beyond just writing code. They have a larger hand in the direction of the product and the UX than a developer would typically have. A software product engineer helps make sure you have a product which meets the user’s needs. It’s the glue between real world needs and technical engineering. They replace what would be a number of roles (or even teams) at a larger company. This saves a bunch of costs, but also makes them more nimble and cohesive. They can do user research and then design features in a way which is efficient and achievable, then they can dive into the code to get the job done. It’s someone who takes pride and ownership of the software being developed. In lots of ways titles don’t matter. But it also helps to have clarity about what someone’s job is. I think product engineer should be a title we commonly use for roles at startups.

Don’t hire a rockstar, or a ninja or a 10x engineer. Ok, maybe a ninja—when I was 10, I totally wanted to be a ninja, and I’d love to work with one now, as long as they didn’t try to assassinate me. But really, don’t aim for the rockstar or the ninja or the 10x engineer. I don’t believe the myth of the 10x engineer. I’ve yet to meet one that’s truly ten times as productive as a good engineer. I’ve certainly met arrogant engineers and seen them be confused for 10x engineers, and I’ve seen engineers that use lots of complicated and inaccurate terminology (like “Markov chain” instead of “workflow”) also get thought of as the mythical 10x engineer. Building software anywhere other than a one-person startup requires you to work in a team. Everyone in the company, from customer support to sales, to be on board with the idea. If not, you’ll have zero customers, or, worse yet, thousands of unhappy customers. Some people have said that 10x engineers push past the company dogma to create brand new things. But even just creating prototypes requires a bunch of support from others. No one in a Series C company is building a product from scratch without any support from DevOps, QA, UX, DBAs, and the like, and if they are, they’re probably creating a whole new tech stack that now needs to be supported by people who have little or no familiarity with it. Plus, they’re stepping on the toes of the people they’re supposed to be working with. A truly great engineer would develop a quick paper prototype and then get folks on board with it. She would find ways to make it cost-effective and minimize the impact to the folks that would need to support it. She’d work with Product to make sure that there was a market for it and help make the case to leaders to support and fund it. She’d listen to people and incorporate their feedback to make it better. In short, she’d be part of a team. That’s a truly great engineer. Not an arrogant individual who wants to be seen as great, someone who quietly asserts herself and helps others around her be great too. #recruiting #hiring #10xengineer

With comp ranging from $110k - $1m+, breaking into product has always been competitive and difficult. That being said, there are some proven ways to do it. Here are the top 4 ways to get your first product role: 𝟭. 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗽𝗶𝗽𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 This is what I did! And I've seen lots of others do the same. (It can take a while to make the transition though) Being a founder is a great background for product work, especially for being an early PM at a startup. 𝟮. 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 These can be rare and very competitive. A lot of the big tech companies will offer an associate product program. I went through the interviews for Facebook's RPM program, it consisted of 5 interviews and it took almost two months from initial to final round.  You'll want to look up the start dates of these programs as they usually only open applications once or twice a year. 𝟯. 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗶𝘃𝗼𝘁 Connect with Product Managers at your company and starting learning from them and finding ways to collaborate and work together on projects. There are many cases where it would way its a big win to hire a PM from within the company that is already familiar with the product. 𝟰. 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 There are lots of roles which you can develop relevant experience for product roles. These include account management, analytics, and engineering. __ These are some of the ways I've seen people get into product roles, any others you would add?

Monetization product manager opening, it’s like I told y’all. The majority of the product manager roles fall under a few categories these days. I have picked up other roles from hiring managers since I post so much and you can get access to interview referrals in Skool. https://lnkd.in/gtQjCfUH So many hiring manager complain to me that as soon as they post this job on LinkedIn, they get blown up, and just feel overwhelmed. They would much rather I just send over 4 or 5 good resumes, I mean wouldn’t you feel the same way? See you in Skool for the most up to date and urgent openings. https://lnkd.in/gtQjCfUH Don’t be late to Skool! https://lnkd.in/gtQjCfUH We are also doing resume reviews this week at Skool for product managers. https://lnkd.in/gtQjCfUH So many people ask me for a resume review but I just have the time, so I thought I might as well set a time block to do them all. https://lnkd.in/gtQjCfUH Please reshare for network to show other people just how many new jobs are posted a day. It’s so important that people see evidence to stay hopeful these days. #productmanagement #whatbadeconomy

Bang on, Michael Zhang. I can't help but think what's under the hood here. For early stage founders, was it important then to have a scale-up Product Leader to set the foundations of processes and ways of working? Was the relationship between founder/CEO & Product Leader not built on a jointly shaped strategy? Product 𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘 vs Product 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐆𝐘 remains a massive blurred line - more so with the expectations of the scale-up Product Leader   "𝐴 𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑦 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑠 & 𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑎 𝑘𝑖𝑑'𝑠 𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑣𝑠 𝑤𝑎𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑎 𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑦, 𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔-𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑦"   This metaphor encapsulates my self-recognition that I lean more on the strategy/creativity archetype as a Product Leader. I know this about me. I play to my strengths and develop accountable trust in those that have strengths in delivery.   For strategy/creativity archetypes, I think it's critical to operate in a balance: 1️⃣ Substantiate your bets, experiments, and iterations by defining & measuring what matters. Specify those goals and monitor the baseline, target, and proxy metrics 2️⃣ Adjust based on signals triggered by the proxy metrics 3️⃣ Collaborate with GTM to aggressively grow top and bottom ends of the funnel. Nail product positioning and iterate on the product experience 4️⃣ The 'detail' of JIRA tickets, etc should be delegated within the product org and develop accountable trust in the team to manage this detail. Accountable trust doesn't mean to be oblivious; rather remain close and unblock barriers    BUT…..It's super important to develop a really close relationship with the founder/CEO and jointly shape the strategy, in a pragmatic way. Help make the possible a reality, but 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐁𝐒 where and when it's due   I can't stress enough the importance of having a trusted relationship with the founder/CEO as a two-way street. Depending on their background, play to their strengths as a valuable sparring partner. Bring your opinions, show you're quick, and call things out when you sense outside forces may disrupt that jointly shaped path forward. Product Leaders should therefore be measured by their ability to shape, sell, and execute on the strategy. Is this any different than a CFO being measured on exceeding targets (vs measured by books closed on-time)?

Based on popular demand I am doing another session. What's working in the Product Management job market of 2024 to 2025? We consistently hear these things * I have applied to 1,300 jobs and have not heard back * I keep going to interviews and then get rejected * I had to take a 30% paycut just to get something that would sustain me Yes, we've had clients: * Take on a job offer with a 60% increase in pay * Get into competitive places like Stripe, Google and Coinbase that are accepting like 0.1% of candidates who apply to them * Get multiple offers and actually reject offers from FAANG companies * Not apply to a single job online yet get a Senior Director role * Go from individual contributor to manager of four product managers * Go from Principal PM to VP of product at a hot startup * Get offers from Meta, Google, Amazon, Coinbase, Uber and more For the first time I am going behind the scenes to uncover exactly what has made these clients so successful. REGISTER HERE https://lnkd.in/eWKPnTyY