A review of Shreyas Doshi’s Managing your PM Career Seminar
Shreyas Doshi is one of the best product leaders in the public sphere to learn from. So when he mentioned that he was launching a course on Maven, I immediately grabbed a spot in the first cohort. Here’s my summary of the course, the structure, key points, and overall opinion of whether it’s worth it.
In Summary (tl;dr)
The course is aimed at senior product managers or leaders. If you are just starting out, this course isn’t for you. It focuses primarily on designing your career. Shreyas has had an incredible career thus far (Google, Stripe, Yahoo, Twitter), and he lays out what he’s learned, the decisions made, how he thinks about choices, and some harsh truths that are probably too nuanced for Twitter.
Thanks for reading TJ's Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Bottom line for me: this is a fantastic course to take if you’re in product. I’ve held senior positions for some years now, but always felt like I needed to plan my career and skillsets more intentionally, this course has given me a lot to think about and kickstart that process. I guarantee that for most product managers, you will get a lot of value from these two days with Shreyas.
But, anything new from Shreyas?
I’ve consumed a lot of content from Shreyas already, so I wasn’t sure what would be new here. But there was plenty, and one of the most important aspects of the course is Shreyas’ transparency about how he got to where he is — he shares everything from salary and equity, txt messages with recruiters, email exchanges on offers (all sensitive parts blocked out of course), and he shares his frustrations with himself and his experience. The level of openness throughout the course is refreshing, genuinely valuable, and one of the key aspects of the course.
This is what makes it feel like Shreyas is talking to his fellow peers in a humble but honest way. The kind of conversation you really want to have with somebody like Shreyas.
Course Setup
Hosted on Maven, led by Shreyas personally, but with a team of four Maven moderators and ‘Sherpas’ assisting.
It’s over a weekend, which is something I really liked. There’s no need to take time out of work, and on a weekend it’s more relaxed and gives you time to think about the content.
Four hours on Saturday, and four hours on Sunday. There are 3–5 minute breaks at various points in the agenda.
There’s a bunch of additional resources and links to consume before and after the sessions — this is rich and valuable in itself.
About 220 people were on the course, from all over the globe. All were experienced product managers. A lot from top tier companies.
Sessions are recorded and the videos are available for download — this is a major plus point.
You are assigned to ‘career circles’, around 8 people, this is where you do some breakout sessions with your peers. There were only a few, but they were fun and useful.
At the end of each day is a 1 hour AMA with Shreyas, which is optional and recorded. I found that most people stayed for this, and it had a lot of value.
Shreyas plays snippets of recorded interviews he has done, the full videos are available in the resources. They are high quality.
The course costs $750.
Course structure
There’s an official agenda, but it’s only a few points and doesn’t really convey the depth to which Shreyas goes. So I’ve made a bullet point list of some of the key talking points in both days — it’s not exhaustive, but it should give you a feeling about the topics.
Day 1
Overview of Shreyas’ career journey
Gaining competence faster as a PM, core skills: strategy, communication, editing
Deb Liu on career planning, and what your future self needs from you today
The Pygmalion effect: high expectations lead to improved performance
Set a 3 year lighthouse goal
Deep dive on lighthouse goals, with real ones from Shreyas’ career
Shortlisting companies you would like to interview at
Understanding tech company tiers — 1 to 4, and generational companies
Why tier 1 companies matter so much
Breakout exercise: defining your tier 1 and 2 companies
Crystal Widjaja on her process for getting hired
Powerful resources for finding great companies to work for that most people don’t use
Take a 20 year horizon, with 5–7 bets throughout
Chris Johnson on how top tier recruiters work
Spend at least 1% of your time each month learning about roles and companies
Austin Brizendine on keeping your eye on the market
Exercise: updating your LinkedIn headline
Sharing of lightbulb moments across the group
AMA with Shreyas
Day 2
Tactics for working on your résumé, and examples of Shreyas’ résumé
Tactics for interviewing
Kent Beck’s 3X framework
The top 3 questions to be asking that separate you from most people
What the types of interviewers care about most
Take home assignments companies give out, the good and bad
Diya Jolly on her interview experience at Okta
Breakout exercise: sharing interview and hiring process tactics
Getting offers: the many ways we fool ourselves, and how to recognise the traps
How to pick between offers: tables-stakes, ego, joy framework
Money, scope, title framework
How to evaluate the calibre of talent at a company
Negotiating compensation
How to get recognition: competence and reputation are the foundations
Diya Jolly on doing a good job first, be in the top 20%
Deb Liu on the importance of communication, there is a bias for those that do it well
Recognition is a function of your scope, outcomes, outputs, and visibility
Noam Lovinsky on Google vs Meta ways of measuring performance
Lenny and Shishir Mehrotra interview on the PSHE framework
Diya Jolly on working on the most important priorities your company has for impact
The types of managers you encounter, and understanding the spectrum
Diya Jolly on making your manager an ally in your progress
Deb Liu on getting your manager on your side, and not putting them on the back foot
Exercise: fill in the promotion drivers template with your own situation
What is success for you? Stack ranking the key factors. This was powerful!
AMA with Shreyas
Course Resources
As well as the two days with Shreyas, there’s a whole bunch of materials you get access to (and more to come I believe), plus the community and discussion from your cohort remains there indefinitely.
Here’s a list of some of the resources you get. It’s high value material, and in combination with the sessions it makes the $750 fee an absolute bargain in my opinion.
PM career skills map
Resources for improving strategy, communication, and editing skills
Examples of 3 year lighthouse goals
List of sources to locate interesting and early stage companies
At least 6 private conversations recorded with top tier recruiters, and product leaders
More interviews are coming, which you also get access to
Company tiers exercise from all breakout groups: hundreds of companies listed
Shreyas’ PM career bible
Recordings of both day 1 and 2 sessions
List of all other participants in the course
Thanks for reading TJ's Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.