How I became a product manager: My career switch from an accountant

You could be a software engineer, a business development manager, marketer, a data analyst, a lawyer or a photographer. If you have an interest in technology, solving problems and creating an impact on people’s lives, have a peek into my journey to motivate you to make the switch to become a product manager – a tech role currently in high demand!

I always had an interest in technology

I came in runner-up in a girls-only IT competition that was held amongst primary schools. That was decades ago. I remember memorising that 1 GB is 1,048,576 bytes, and learning what “string” and “print” are for C++. I didn’t tell my parents about this achievement, maybe they would have encouraged me to learn to code if I did, and I would be a software engineer now..

I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in accountancy and a second major in business management

Like many other accountancy graduates, I started my career at a Big 4 accounting firm doing restructuring work. In that role, I learned how to manage stakeholders including angry creditors, high net worth individuals, and lawyers. I also enjoyed using technology to automate tasks, such as using Excel and Word for mail merge printing of cheque details. But I decided that manipulating numbers on a spreadsheet were not impactful.

I ventured into ecommerce as a side hustle

My friend and I sold womenswear with a website as our main distribution channel. I learnt to use platforms like PrestaShop and Magento. I learnt to customize a Ruby on Rails project for an Everlane-like referral program, and the importance of tracking data for analysis of performance and attribution. I also communicated with developers using wireframes and mockups that I created on Sketch.

I built my own web app

As an avid traveller, I wanted to solve a travel planning problem, so I joined the founding team of Away Nation and focused on product management. This is where I learnt how to collaborate with outsourced developers, before we became frustrated with the pace of development. I decided to learn how to code with the same code base that the developers were building on, just so that I could communicate better with them. With Coursera, I learned how to build an app with MongoDB, Express, Angular, NodeJS with this course and realised it wasn’t as difficult as I thought. Thus, my team recruited a couple of Computer Science interns and we built a responsive web app together and launched within six months. The app allowed users to create their own travel lists and schedules into days, favoriting places on travel lists created by others, including travel influencers that we partnered with. Surprise, surprise, I contributed most to the code (budding software engineer alert!) – and that helped me gain a better understanding of how coding logic works, which now helps me a lot in communicating with software engineers.

I earned as I learned while I freelanced as a web developer

To earn some pocket money, I also customised websites for clients on Wordpress, SquareSpace, or Shopify. This helped me put myself in the shoes of the developer, understanding the effort it takes to clarify requirements, how to estimate effort for the client and how lack of specificity in requirements may frustrate both the developer and the client.

I customised my resume and interviewed for product management roles

I applied to only a few roles – so that I could intentionally customise my resume to be relevant to the job description. Two companies invited me for interviews and I went to the final round for both. I got rejected from both for a lack of experience for one, and disapproving me having a side hustle for another.

I learnt about digital marketing and how to use low to no-code tools to build digital solutions

I landed myself a digital project and product manager role in a government agency. We had to implement digital solutions in a short turnaround time for digital marketers and for our target citizens – thus we used low to no-code tools to help solve problems. Some of the citizens were using our digital solutions that we built within three days!

I updated my LinkedIn profile diligently and was open to opportunities

One year in, I received a message from a headhunter on LinkedIn. I wasn’t actively looking for a new role, but I decided to explore the opportunity with the main objective of training my interview skills. As I prepared the resume for this role, I thought I might as well apply to a similar role in another company in the same industry.

I received an offer from a Series B startup

After a few interviews and discussions, I was thrilled to receive an offer for a senior product manager role at a Series B startup! It was a big leap from my previous role, but I was excited for the challenge and the opportunity to grow my product management skills.

If I can do it, so can you

I have met people who have switched careers into product management from consulting, software engineering, photography backgrounds. You bring a different perspective to the team based on the experience and skills you have acquired.

If you’re contemplating a career change or want to pursue your side hustle, don’t be afraid to take the leap. Who knows where it might take you!