How to Transition from Quality Assurance to Product Management

What Made you Want to Transition to Product Management?

I wanted to transition to product because I wanted to build the products since I know out how they work and how they break, and I saw a lot of poorly designed things. People in testing and QA see that a lot. You also get an understanding of how do you release and reliably evolve a platform safely without causing problems. As somebody in QA, you learn how to do that, so that you make sure you’re not affecting clients in a bad way. The thing you have to recognize when transitioning to product is that the technical know-how is valuable, but the important part is recognizing that product management is very much a stakeholder management role.

After Joining Product Gym, How Many Interviews Were you Averaging a Week?

Before joining Product Gym, I basically had zero interviews. This was before the resume and LinkedIn reviews from Product Gym. They were valuable. There was a whole strategy to that I didn’t understand and Product Gym definitely helped me in that arena. After that, I was getting at least five to seven contacts a week from recruiters. Now, I haven’t been interviewing as much in terms of volume, but my conversion rate for applications or recruiter calls is much higher than before.

How Much More Clarity do you Have on the Hiring Process Now Compared to Before you Started with Product Gym?

There’s so much more about the tactics and rhythm of how onboarding a new candidate happens that if you don’t practice or understand the processes, you can get blindsided, make the wrong moves, and push you out of opportunities. In terms of how much Product Gym helped, it’s helped a lot. It’s hard to quantify, but I have gotten to final rounds, and with recruiters, I feel that I’ve been recruited for the right opportunities so far.