Ask HN: How would you go about finding a Product role?

Over the past three years I’ve been a PM in a tiny medical hardware/software company focused on surgical education. I worked my way into it right after film production school as this random video guy. I began by producing content and then transitioned to handling presenting the product to business partners. And then I just sort of evolved into the main “idea guy” and affable product manager.

I fell in love with the users, the problem, and the business. Along the way we built a moderately successful academy WebApp for surgeons, we implemented a product research process and a bunch of other stuff. I also became a huge nerd about surgery and the surgeons even like to invite me along into the OR. But now I’m looking around for the “next thing” and I’m at a total loss.

The 3 years aren’t really all that impressive, and all of these experiences have been so scattered that it doesn’t exactly match up with what most serious IT companies are looking for (not to mention all of those layoffs everyone seems to be talking about). I’m a bit too old for junior roles, and I’m a bit too young for the senior ones (not that I could handle them).

If you wanted to optimize for finding something interesting, something early-stage in tech; How would you approach looking for such a role or challenge? Especially assuming no proper engineering or dev experience? How would you “hack” your way into getting your foot in that door?

How would you go about portraying yourself professionally if you were me? What do you think is important in this sort of personality? Or maybe what’s wrong with this picture in your opinion?

Conversely, if you run a small team, how do you look for someone who is a jack-of-all-trades like me? How do I get into your team if you don’t even know that you need someone like me?

I should probably mention I’m an American in Europe so there’s that, but this isn’t a hire me post, just looking for pointers in interesting directions.