I absolutely agree, but this comment [0] lays it out well. In a non-TikTok news article:
"During her senior year at UCLA, Riley Rojas decided to pursue a career in Big Tech — and she wanted to work for the best ... This week in #KeepingtheBalance, Rojas shares how she landed her job at Meta with a political science background. Spoiler: It took a whole lot of studying and manifestation."
I worked my ass off in Engineering school, and as an engineer, to get into FAANG. She manifested with a background in Poli Sci. There's going to be anger about those optics. It's not surprising to see PMs decimated right now, based on the poor growth numbers, declining user engagement, and said optics.
That post you link seems skeptical about her three start ups due to her being a political science major. But if you look at her LinkedIn account they appear to be actual start ups, just not tech focused. But it seems like the type of skill set that I would look for in a product manager.
People who go out and make things happen are rare. Regardless of major.
This interpretation rings hollow - if you've worked at any tech company, you've seen the hoards of people who manage to create meetings about meetings, grow their empire, and amass massive salaries with no relevant skills. A lot of it is about showing a record of "getting things done" - but things that don't matter.
If people are getting things done, but these things don't matter -- that's the fault of leadership. Leadership should have clear goals/OKRs/outcomes that they've agreed to. These people should be getting these things done. If they do these things and they don't matter -- it's likely not their fault.
And this applies doubly so for a junior product manager. I was not long ago VP of Engineering and if my team built stuff, using best practices and on time, but what we built didn't matter -- I couldn't blame them. It's my fault. It's my job to make sure what we build matters.
But if I can give a set of OKRs and you can drive to make those happen -- those people are gold. Now you can argue with me that the OKRs were bad. That's fine. Fire me. But the person that delivered it -- those people are worth their weight...
Yeah, when the PM's have no coherent vision for products and their suggestions are only harming engagement/metrics then its not surprising the next line is: "What would you say you do here?"
I think the better question is what if the PM has a coherent vision and is helping engagement/metrics. Is delivering on the outcomes that leadership wants. And can do it all by 2pm?
Our culture has become so obsessed with working for the sake of working. We talk about being outcome focused, rather than just doing busy work. But when someone is actually outcome focused then we want them to stay busy.
I agree that if the person isn't delivering results then they shouldn't do the job. But if they are delivering results then why do I care what they do with their afternoons?
