Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior PM?
48 comments
·January 10, 2025aneeqdhk
- 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
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!
lnsru
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
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
> 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
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
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.
benhoff
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
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!
fhd2
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
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.
mellosouls
You should clarify what you mean by PM; product and project management are different things. I assume its one of those rather than Programme Management or Prime Minister...
ps. a cheatsheet for a famous general management-onboarding book The First 90 Days; while it doesn't specifically address your question a lot of it will apply:
cpfohl
This is true. Although, I’m not sure how many medium size companies have their own Prime Ministers.
Your first few weeks at any company in any role, though, are well spent meeting people and learning the product really well.
I also like to get or sit in on a sales demo and an onboarding call.
patrickjd
Since I've seen a growing number of Chief Of Staffs in startups, I'd guess the number of companies with Prime Minister roles is non-zero.
Maybe even with very sensible titles like 'Junior Prime Minister'.
simonw
Befriend someone in the customer support function ASAP. Ask to see their notes, in particular notes they share with other customer support people.
I once got shown a customer support tips shared spreadsheet that was more valuable documentation than anything else in the entire company.
pluc
Ask for sales to give you the same demo they give customers.
Ask the engineering team for a demo.
Ask the founder/execs for a demo.
Ask tech support for a rundown of the most frequent issues.
Each of those will show you what each silo think is important.
remus
Also, ask customers for a demo to understand how they use the product and what they think is important.
metahikari
I don't know if it will help, but I wrote a series of three blogs about this topic roughly 10 years ago. Very much informed by my experiences as a brand new PM: https://learntopm.com/2019/11/11/your-first-30-days-in-a-new...
Lionga
Love that "senior" PMs need to have exactly zero years experience as PM to be a senior PM.
codingdave
I had the same thought, but if it is a 1000 person company, that is large enough that the seniority level of their title is just as likely to be based on the compensation band of their HR structure as much as having any relevance to their actual skills.
mewpmewp2
Depends how rest of his career experience has been. He was an engineer and he has been a founder. If the product is technical it very well makes sense for me that he is well beyond junior or mid level depending on overall experience.
louthy
Founder is ‘PM on steroids’
dandellion
Not if the "founder" experience as a founder was micromanaging a startup of 10 people. I had a PM like that once and he was one of the worse PMs I've had.
bsaul
curious to know more : what about him / her made it that bad ?
SketchySeaBeast
Founder implies wearing a lot of different hats all at once but also the power to make choices, including defining bureaucracy and processes. Senior PM implies a much more limited silo of skills but also limited powers and a need to be able to fit in with existing bureaucracy and processes.
jph
I maintain a repo of topics for new PMs, plus one-page explanations, in web page format and also as a free ebook. Constructive feedback welcome.
https://github.com/sixarm/project-management-guide
This guide doesn't tell you what to do; it give you much of the lingo and a bunch of framework choices that you can use, or perhaps that the existing teammates are already using.
peterprescott
This is for Project Management, but I think OP is a Product Manager...
Cypher
whats the difference?
robertlagrant
Project management is "create, maintain and drive the ticking off of a to-do list being done by multiple people inside/outside company to achieve a goal" - e.g. "move from Dynamics CRM to Oracle CRM", and it cares a lot about setting exact timelines and ticking off when tasks are done. Most quality control or creative input is done elsewhere.
Product management is "understand a market and customers to create or improve a product, prioritising features to feed to teams to deliver based on some metric (e.g. "creates most new sales" or "slowly improves the lives of existing customers without breaking anything"), and is often highly involved in quality (and perceived quality matters such as UX) and is fairly creative, as it decides what features go into the product.
pavlov
Product companies tend to have more product managers and less project managers (they’re usually called something else, like simply software engineering managers or tech leads who have take on the project management duties).
Traditional enterprises and software consultancies tend to be organized around projects rather than user-centric products and their features, so they will more often have project managers instead. The product responsibility in turn tends to become more ad hoc, sometimes with someone assigned as a “product owner” outside their regular title.
(My personal view: if a company has project managers and product owners, that’s a sign that it’s probably not the place for me.)
rswail
Product Managers decide what they want the Project Managers to manage.
eg: "New Feature X" or "New Product Y" or...
Project Managers are about estimates and critical paths and resolving bottlenecks and competition for resources.
Product Managers are about features and sales and product roadmaps and marketing campaigns etc.
raymondgh
Depending on the culture of the company, the product management function will come with a range of expectations from the powers that be — figure those out asap. Figure out the big personalities, the values of the company, and obviously start talking to their customers on week 1 and every week (day?) thereafter.
As a senior PM, you probably need to pay a lot more attention to your executive stakeholders than a junior PM who might focus instead on lower level cross functional needs, developer focus, design, etc. I would also suggest that after you’re comfortable with your onboarding that you embrace high visibility and even fight for it if anyone discourages you or devalues your communication efforts. Good luck!
daniel_iversen
There’s probably advice and books and other things that PMs here and elsewhere can give you, but also get a network together with the other senior PMs and head of product/CTO I reckon and see what’s working and what’s not. Bit of a “listening tour” (and even outside product; what does sales and support think about the product, and about working with the product). One is not a substitute for the other and I’m sure there are some institutional aspects in the company that’ll influence how you manage the product and it’s roadmap. Our ex-PM Jackie who was/is very good also wrote a book specifically for this, that helped build Asana :-) Cracking the PM Career: The Skills, Frameworks, and Practices to Become a Great Product Manager https://amzn.asia/d/3CP2Jex
argiacomi
Great book. A couple of others I’ve also found super helpful:
- The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter (https://a.co/d/dRDXQtg)
- Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love (https://a.co/d/aw73ped)
I’ve also found some good stuff in Lenny Rachitsky’s Podcast/Blog (https://www.lennyrachitsky.com)
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?