Thread by @lennysan

Below are a few of the most interesting takeaways from my survey to ~1,000 product managers across ~600 companies:

1. The amount of influence you have as a PM varies widely, from @Zynga at one end of the spectrum, to @Apple at the other

*Read on*

2. The top three skills companies prioritize when hiring an individual contributor PM: Communication, Execution, Product sense

3. This however varies widely by company:

• Companies who prioritize Collaboration: @Atlassian, @box @servicenow, @Spotify, @Twitter

• Companies who prioritize Raw intelligence: @Coinbase, @RobinhoodApp

• Companies who prioritize Empathy: @HubSpot, @intercom

4. To get promoted as an IC PM, broadly what matters most:

1. Showing significant impact and hitting your team goals
2. Keeping stakeholders on board
3. Shipping great product

5. This also varies widely by company:

• Shipping great product: @Adobe, @HubSpot, @intercom, @RobinhoodApp, @stripe, @WhatsApp

• Making their manager happy: @Apple, @IBM, @Oracle

• Keeping stakeholders onboard: @Atlassian, @Booking, @IBM, @VMware, @Wayfair, @Zillow

6. Which companies prioritize Heart (i.e. empathy) vs. Hands (i.e. execution) vs. Head (i.e. intelligence):

• Heart: @Asana, @Spotify, @WhatsApp

• Hands: @Flipkart, @Okta, @PayPal, @Quora, @Tesla, @Wayfair, @Yelp

• Head: @Coinbase, @Uber, @YouTube, @Zynga

7. And finally, PMs think they run the show a lot more than their peers think they do

8. A huge thank you to everyone who participated in this survey, and who helped amplify and review the final results.

If you have any additional feedback, insights, or questions, please DM me.

You can find the full post here 👇
lennyrachitsky.com/p/product-mana…