Why changing from Software Engineer to Product Manager was the best decision I made

It all started in 2011. I studied Computer Science for 4 years in Brazil and 1 year in the UK. For 3 months I was a software engineer intern at the BBC Sports in Manchester. I finished university and started working in 2016, also as a dev. Basically, I spent 5 years of my life coding. Actually, I thought that all I could do as a computer scientist was to code. I used to make fun at all my friends who didn’t like coding, such losers. “What the heck are you doing in computing if you don’t want to program? Does that even make sense?”. Well, turns out it does… a lot!

In 2017 I was working at Passei Direto for seven months as a dev. At first in one of the main premium features we had and then developing an internal system that helped all the other areas inside the company, such as Marketing and Customer Support. Life was good, I enjoyed what I was doing. Nothing to complain.

One day, the CTO/CPO of Passei Direto invited me to an 1:1 meeting. He told me that there was an open position for Product Manager and he wanted to ask me to apply because it seemed that I could do a better PM than I was a dev 🤔

What? That can’t be right. First of all: product what? I don’t even know what a PM does, never studied it my life. No, I’m a software engineer, I code, I learned it, that’s what I do for living. What did he see in me that made he think that?

Let’s go to the facts, he said. And then he started listing:

• I used to care a lot about the users (more than an usual dev does)
• I used to follow all the metrics we had, not only the ones directly connected to the code I wrote. DAU, MAU, attach rate, onboarding and checkout funnels… I did it all just for fun
• I used to write my own cards/tickets, or sometimes I would rewrite the ones assigned to me when I saw that they were poorly written 🙈
• I used to talk to, basically, everyone in the company. When I was developing the internal system, I conducted all the meetings with my “users”, aka co-workers from the other areas of Passei Direto. I would listen to their needs, follow them as they work to understand how I could improve their routine and write down the specifications for the product

Okay, okay, he had a point. But I didn’t feel like I was prepared for that. Because, let’s be honest, I wasn’t. But who is? If you feel like you’re 100% confident at doing something, then maybe you’re in your comfort zone, and I don’t like being in mine. I started thinking that maybe I was. I asked him for some time to process all that information, too many things to think about.

I went back home that day and revisited all my graduation in a different point of view. All the group projects I had to do, I was more like a manager, organizing what each one in the group would do, writing documentation, talking to the professor, all these PM stuffs and, in a very little part, coding. But I couldn’t see that before. I thought I was coding. I just did all these things because, well, someone had to. But why me every time? Now I know.

After almost 2 years being a Product Manager, I can see now that it fits me way more than being a dev. By 2017 I had the basics of the basic foundation to become a PM: I liked the code, but I loved the product. I didn’t need any specific course, I didn’t need to know to code, I just needed to care about the users, be very communicative and product-oriented. I had that, it just took me 6 years to realize it.

All my background does help me a lot. Code complexity, user experience, agile development… but my product knowledge is something that I started building after I became a Product Manager. It’s something I’m learning in practice, everyday.

My point is that if you’re thinking about changing your career path to become a Product Manager, the only thing you need to be sure is that you’re passionate about products. Other than that, don’t mind your graduation, don’t mind your current job, don’t mind if you code or not. Just read… a lot. Books, articles, blogs… follow other PMs in every social networks. Try to look at the products you use today in a different point of view, as a PM would, not as an user. Don’t just use them, study them. How they make you engaged, how they started and how they grew, what hacks they used. It’s not too late to pursue and start building your product knowledge. Don’t be afraid. Go ahead.