The Perils of Being a 21 Year-Old Product Manager | Hacker News Reader

The Perils of Being a 21 Year-Old Product Manager

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20 pointsjimsojim20 comments

At 21, your title is just meaningless words to sucker you into working longer hours. The unfortunate thing for the author is that he thinks he's learned something about being a good PM, but he's really just learned how to be a good junior; "listen to the experts and leave your ego at the door".

To me a product manager needs to have vision and empathy. Vision, to know where the product needs to be in 5 years. And empathy to be able to truly understand your users needs. From the article, it doesn't sound like the author learned these things.

> At 21, your title is just meaningless words to sucker you into working longer hours

Hah! Having been made "VP of Engineering" at 22 by a rich asshole who treated me like dirt until I left his company 2 years later, this quote resonates.

I feel so stupid growing older and remember that I used to think and express myself like him (in this subject). Youth is totally overrated, at tech, arts, sports...

Calling a "product manager" a "strategic leader" is a bit of an exaggeration. At most tech companies, entry-level software engineers are on the same "level" in the corporate hierarchy as "product managers," and product managers aren't "managers" in the same sense that they are managers of people -- they actually don't have anyone under them, they are only managers of the product itself.

Yes, in some sense, everybody is a strategic leader -- even engineers at big companies, but this argument is really just a pleasantry.

A good product manager is a manager of other product managers, that happen to not be product managers.

Yes, and that's in my latter pleasantry category -- you're still effectively on the bottom rung (assuming you aren't a Product Manager II or a Senior Product Manager).

Many people think if they got "Manager" in their job description they're suddendly cream of the crop.

I worked with two <25 year old PMs and none of them had any clue what PM is, they just did some pre-sales stuff.

He's only 21, so don't be too hard on him.

Right, I wouldn't call it "perilous," but hey, there's plenty of rhetoric on this site that I disagree with.

A bit off topic, but is it ubiquitous throughout the industry that product. managers are on the same rung of the ladder as entry level software engineers?

At a previous gig, the lead Android device transitioned to being a product manager and I assumed that it as a step up. Granted, the CEO of the company had a background in pre-web marketing surveys, so it was a tech company in name but not culture.

So much of being a good product/project/general manager is watching out for and avoiding pitfalls you have experienced previously.

Or being good at listening to, understanding, and learning from other people's experiences to recognise those pitfalls when you encounter them yourself.

This is exactly why accelerators like YC put so much emphasis on mentoring. Being able to talk to someone who has already been through something makes you much less likely to handle a similar situation poorly. You don't have to have direct experience of a pitfall yourself to understand it.

The autor wrote a long humblebrag post. A 21 year old kid does not have the experience it takes to lead.

A talented 21 year old could have 10 years experience working on software projects with 5 years leading a team on product strategy. It's unusual but it's not unheard of, especially with today's level of access to computers and programming languages. 10 years ago was 2006 - every browser was a programming environment even then.

Equally possible, a 51 year old might have spent the previous 50 years in non-management roles and have no experience at all.

In project management and tech, experience and age are not related.

But in life they are. Try having a male virgin with no hobbies lead a team with working parents and see how that works out ;)

The implication of what you're saying is that there something fundamental about gender, sexuality, outside interests, etc that stops someone being an understanding, empathic manager. That simply isn't true. Someone with any set of life circumstances can be a good manager, just as anyone can be a bad manager even if they have a very similar set of circumstances.

It's management skills that dictate how good someone is at their management job, not whether they've had sex or not.

With any life circumstances? Do you really believe that?

There are circumstances that would stop someone who would otherwise be a good product manager doing a great job, but they aren't simple things like how old they are or what gender they are.

Even if the manager's "skills" were good, he wouldn't be respected by the working parents. If he somehow hid his age, virginity, and not having a family (obviously difficult in practice), his reports would probably treat him differently.

If a product manager has the skills and ability to do a good job but a team member is refusing to work with them due to their age, marital situation, whether they have children, etc, then the problem isn't the manager. If I was responsible for that team I'd seriously consider removing that team member.

That's a nice sentiment in theory, but hiring is difficult for most companies (everyone wants to work for the usual suspects, after all). You often can't afford to remove skilled employees because they're being petty. Plus, the executives are probably also older and have kids, so they might agree with the team members' viewpoint.

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