How I got promoted every 18 months from PM to Senior Director — Part 1
In this multi-part series I will share with you the methods that I personally used to get promoted every few years as a Product Manager, so you don’t have to learn them the hard way like me. Since I started as an (associate) Product Manager in 2014 I have been “lucky” enough to be promoted every 1–2 years to become a Senior Director of Product Management today (Associate PM > PM > Senior PM > Advanced Sr/Staff PM > Principle PM > Director > Sr Director) While I put luck in quotes, this was actually a 100% deliberate effort with strategic planning and “making my own luck”, by ensuring I was in the right place at the right time. We all come to product management from different angles — tech, design, subject expertise, business, so naturally, each of us excels in certain areas while inadvertently letting others slip through the cracks.
If you’re like early-career-Garrett was, you stress about that imposter syndrome, constantly worrying about what you need to do to plug those gaps. Let me tell you a secret: understanding the nuances of your role, particularly the technical ones, isn’t about mastering every single detail. It’s about getting the gist. Very quickly I found its extremely rare you will learn all the skills you need at your job, at least the full breath of skills to be well-rounded. Sometimes you want to incorporate a new release game changer like Chatgpt into a product but your company is concerned the tech is too new, or you want to use gestures as part of your point-of-sale payment…
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