todd_sherman

Joined 10 years ago

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Member since

Dec 10

Product Manager at YouTube. Before, Snapchat & Twitter. www.todd.sh

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Recent submissions

Comment · 8 years ago

I used to log into Datalink BBS in 1994 in the 904 area code. Were you the sysop of that by chance?

Comment · 8 years ago

YouTube | Engineering Manager, Mobile, YouTube Stories | San Bruno, CA | Fulltime, Onsite

Our team at YouTube is looking to hire an eng manager for our mobile client dev team! Ideal candidate will have front-line client dev experience, 2+ years of eng manager experience on consumer products, and love building the future. Check out the link below and apply online!

https://careers.google.com/jobs#!t=jo&jid=/youtube/engineeri...

Comment · 9 years ago

If you want weather news and/or official updates, tweets might be better. If you want video from thousands of people sharing their experience, there is no comparison.

Comment · 9 years ago

Full disclosure: I'm a PM at Snap, Inc.

Best coverage is on Snap Map. Zoom to the Keys and the west coast of Florida and check out the first hand accounts.

Comment · 9 years ago

If anyone wants to have a quick chat (10 mins) about getting into PM'ing, what PMs do, etc., I hold office hours here: https://officehours.io/people/toddsherman

Comment · 9 years ago

Hey!

Comment · 9 years ago

On behalf of all PMs, I'm sorry you had this experience. Good PMs tend to do just the opposite. If you are in this situation now, I encourage you to share this feedback to the person that is most likely to help change it (ideally with the PM directly?).

As a company scales, there is a tendency to embrace specializations through a division of labor. Of course, different companies adopt different models for various reasons. e.g. Do you need dedicated QA or does that fall upon the developers? With these decisions come trade-offs because you can't optimize for everything. Your proposed model can work, but is far less common in large tech companies because of the overhead of coordinating/communicating across lots of people which tends to fall upon PMs.

Comment · 9 years ago

I'm a PM at Snap Inc (formerly Snapchat). Before that, GPM at Twitter.

how did you get there / background

For me, engineering was the path that led to being a PM. I was a decent developer, but always found myself more interested in what we should be building opposed to how to build it. Background includes BS computer eng, masters in systems eng and an mba. Did software dev for years and gravitated toward roles that increasingly positioned me for PMing while getting those last two degrees.

"junior product" positions

There are junior product positions, just very few. Google/Twitter have an APM program. At FB it is the RPM program. There are many paths that lead to being a PM. Look for stepping stones and be persistent. I know PMs that were previously a software developer, product marketing manager, project manager, technical program manager, designer, etc. If you are able to take on one of those roles at a company that also has PMs, you can probably work towards a transition.

skills

In terms of skills, this thread on Quora is good, especially Ian McAllister's response: https://www.quora.com/What-distinguishes-the-Top-1-of-Produc... Keep in mind that different companies will put more or less weight on a particular competency. e.g. Google requires PMs to have a technical background will ask technical questions, facebook does not. Facebook will ask a lot of questions around data, experimentation, data-driven decision making, etc. because they are a very data driven culture.

Comment · 9 years ago

Sorry, I don't have that information.

Comment · 9 years ago

Snap, Inc. (Previously Snapchat) | Tons of Openings Noted Below | Los Angeles - New York - London - Seattle | ONSITE | Full-time

Snap Inc. is a camera company. We believe that reinventing the camera represents our greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. Our products empower people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together.

Snap, Inc. is hiring for a ton of positions: Software Engineer, 3D UI/UX Engineer, Corporate Security Engineer, Data Engineer, Director of Engineering - QA, Electrical Engineer, Engineering Program Manager, Front End Software Engineer, Hardware Reliability Engineer, Information Security Engineer, Interactive Engineer, Mobile Software Engineer, Packaging Engineer, QA Engineer, Release Engineer, Computer Vision Research Engineer, Software Automation Engineer, Web Developer, Web UI/UX Engineer.

If you are interested in any of the roles, check out www.snap.com/jobs for full details. I recommend you apply online but if you'd like to email me at [email protected] and I'll do my best to help in any way I can.