Invisible Career Asymptotes (Part 1)
I will be doing a fireside chat at the Product Excellence Summit on Oct 29th - join myself and Eric Ren (Head of Product Marketing @ Productboard) for this virtual event as we talk about breaking through plateaus in your PM career) - you can register for free via this link - hope to see you there!
As I've been mentoring PMs (and other functions) in my network recently, I'm hearing from a lot of people who are having a career crisis - folks have hit a wall and aren't just looking for a new job, but also a new approach to work. You can check out one flavor of these discussion in the comments section of my recent LinkedIn post.
Folks have heard me reference invisible asymptotes before, but usually in the context of product plateaus. Today I’m going to stretch the idea to encompass career plateaus. Because what’s happening for a lot of PMs is that they’re bumping into an invisible ceiling that was always there but not obvious because they were in an environment where rising tides were lifting all boats. But now, with a lot of companies under pressure performance-wise, the career growth that felt free flowing is harder to come by.
As I tend to do, I started enumerating the feelings of career constriction I was hearing:
job takes up 110% of mental bandwidth, no time for anything else
network is homogeneous, everyone I know is doing the same hustle
job mates are clones of me, so not learning from peer group
job emphasizes functional expertise, no room for x-functional learning
learning beyond core role not encouraged (because time, budget, etc)
have a diverse network but not sure who's an expert in what domain
have network and resources, but can't structure a learning / growth plan
learned a lot, but don't know how to showcase it / tell my story broadly
After some public iteration on these symptoms of careers stalling, I’ve arrived at the root causes below. Going back to the invisible asymptotes concept, when you’re tackling a problem, it’s important to tug on the thread of immediate problems until you find the ultimate problem. When I’m serving as a sounding board for PMs in a career crisis, I tend to hear phrases like “my boss doesn’t care about my career growth” or “this place is a just a feature factory” - these are all valid issues, but my mind tends to jump to solutioning, which requires control of the problem, which is why I prefer to frame them more as issues that are within your power to affect.
Bandwidth - don’t have time to think
Network - don’t have connections
Mentorship - don’t get guidance
Learning - don’t get to expand skills
Storytelling - don’t know how to brand
Opportunity - don’t know options
I’ve turned this list of “soft” ceilings that can combine to make you feel like you’ve hit a “hard” ceiling into a visual, which you can share on LinkedIn or Twitter.
To go one step further, I’ll highlight what this looks like in conversation with fragments I hear while mentoring PMs.
Bandwidth - don’t have time to think
“I’m already spending every waking moment on my day job.”
“I feel so burned out, I don’t know how I’d do a job search.”
“I get pinged all the time, but nothing looks that interesting.”
Network - don’t have connections
“Everyone I know is struggling in the same space as me.”
“I’d love to break into <new domain> but don’t know anyone.”
“I’ve been learning <new domain> but need someone to give me a shot.”
Mentorship - don’t get guidance
“Everyone else in my product org is complaining about the same stuff.”
“My manager only cares about hitting our ship dates, not my growth.”
“I’ve tried to get outside mentors but it usually ends after 1 courtesy call.”
Learning - don’t get to expand skills
“I’m just doing more and more of the same - I’ve been pigeonholed.”
“We use to have learning budget, but not anymore, so I’m stuck.”
“Our product domain is so niche, I don’t want to be an expert in this.”
Storytelling - don’t know how to brand
“I feel like there are so many strong PMs looking right now.”
“I’m having a hard time coming up big wins for my resume.”
“I’ve done so many random roles, recruiters can’t place me.”
Opportunity - don’t know options
“What if the grass isn’t greener? And I leave just to come back?”
“I never get picked to do the cutting edge stuff, like AI projects.”
“I think taking this role has put my career in a dead end.”
These conversations got me thinking about why people hit these ceilings and what can be done preemptively to find and nurture future opportunities before you desperately need to exercise them. Look for my thoughts on how PMs can be more proactive about managing their careers in Part 2 (coming soon)…
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As always, I’d love to hear from readers on their career navigation tips - please chime in via comments👇 or join the chat via the Substack app.
further reading / references
the original invisible asymptotes post by Eugene Wei is one of my favorite frameworks - it’s a reminder that your long-term strategy has to focus on solving critical path problems vs getting lost in the day to day minutiae of shipping tweaks
the PM mindset ladder is a good model for gut-checking what type of product work you’re doing and what your next level of growth could / should look like
if you’re transitioning from an individual contributor to people management role, check out Your IC Prime, and if you’re a manager looking for frameworks to better understand your direct reports, check out SCARF
if you’re operating at the next level and trying steer a promotion conversation, check out my 3-part Promo Playbook
childish drawing / interpretation
I will be doing a fireside chat at the Product Excellence Summit on Oct 29th - join myself and Eric Ren (Head of Product Marketing @ Productboard) for this virtual event as we talk about breaking through plateaus in your PM career) - you can register for free via this link - hope to see you there!
the link for eugene’s post is broken fyi!