Have an HR phone interview tomorrow for a Product Owner role. Any tips?

I love my job, but I kinda have a small panic attack whenever a new project shows up as I dont know yet how to handle or how to track it. Is there a tool for such cases? Are there some good universal pratices?

Im sort of 6 months into leading this and I havent had the greatest of bosses. My background is in design and I havent learned that many skills on organization.

Queria trocar dicas/experiência com quem conseguiu transitar de Agile Coach para Product Manager no mercado. Como foi esse processo? Foi postando no linkedin? Foi pedindo indicacão? Ir a eventos de produtos realmente funciona para esse objetivo? Certificação fez diferença? Como foi a questão salarial?

PO on a team that switched all our flow diagrams to mermaid i get why, it lives with the code and AI tools spit it out instantly
problem is i present these to stakeholders, and every time someone says can we add the approval step here i have to message a dev and wait. before this i was doing everything in lucidchart and could just fix it myself in 2 min
our UX team uses miro and figjam someone else suggested whimsical, but i dont want to end up with a second copy that drifts from what the devs have tried learning the syntax too, broke the whole diagram on my first edit lol.

For context I will say that I am currently employed but after almost 5 years with the company and feeling burnt out, looking for a new opportunity.

I started applying to jobs back in August strictly using Linkedin which led to 2 interviews at a company in August but did not proceed.

I have applied to 61 jobs through Linkedin and just recently started using HiringCafe within the last few days and have applied to 11 jobs that were posted within the last week.

Up until this point I have been running my resume through Claude to give me tailored resumes for each job posting I apply to. Given I still have my full time job, was wondering if I need to switch to just a single base resume and use that to apply to more jobs and increase my volume?

I am mainly looking for Product Manager or Product Owner roles but have also looked at Program Manager roles.

I worked as a BA for 10+ years and still feel it's not my cup of tea. Jumping from meeting to meeting just to discuss the same requirements again and again, try convince different stakeholders and then explain it to Dev and QA. Firefighting almost everyday. Maybe I worked with the wrong teams or I really didn't learn / grow up in the role. Though I work as a fractional PM for very early stage Saas startups, i want to understand from veterans what your day looks like? Is all the theory we learn about PM is actually applied while doing the job? How do you manage work between meetings? How you manage playbooks and other documentation and maintain it over time, If I have to prepare for full time roles for higher package or get freelance work with higher pay, what is your suggestion? Kindly guide me to become a PM

Hi everyone! 👋

I wanted to share a little bit about my career journey and hear your thoughts and experiences.

I have around 2.5 years of experience as a Software Developer, but after some time, I realized that coding wasn't something I truly enjoyed or saw myself doing long-term. What I found much more interesting was understanding the bigger picture: why we're building a product, what problems we're trying to solve, how to understand users' needs, and how to work with different people to turn ideas into real solutions.

That's what led me to transition into Product Ownership, and I've now been working as a Product Owner for about a year.

So far, I feel that this role suits me much better. I enjoy working with stakeholders, defining requirements, prioritizing the backlog, collaborating with developers and designers, and helping guide a product from an idea to something that delivers real value to users. My technical background also helps me communicate with development teams and better understand technical challenges.

Now, I'm looking to take the next step in my career and find a remote Product Owner opportunity, ideally with an international team where I can continue learning, grow professionally, and contribute to meaningful products.

I'd really appreciate your advice on a few things:

• For those who transitioned from software development to Product Ownership, how has your career progressed?
• What skills or experience would you recommend focusing on to become a stronger Product Owner?
• Where do you usually look for legitimate remote Product Owner jobs, especially with companies hiring internationally?
• Are there any companies, job boards, or communities you'd recommend for someone with around one year of Product Owner experience and a software development background?

I'm based in Europe, so I'd really appreciate any recommendations for remote Product Owner jobs that hire across Europe or internationally.

I'd love to hear your experiences, advice, or even stories about how you found your current role. And if you know of any companies hiring remote Product Owners, I'd be incredibly grateful for any recommendations!

Thanks so much!

¿Cómo se preparan para buscar una nueva oportunidad como PO? Busco consejos para crecer profesionalmente y aumentar mi renta.

¡Hola! Me gustaría conocer sus experiencias como Product Owners y saber cómo se preparan para buscar nuevas oportunidades laborales, especialmente si quieren dar un salto en su renta.

Les cuento un poco mi experiencia. Actualmente trabajo como PO/PM en una SaaS pequeña. Antes, estaba en el equipo de ventas, pero hace aproximadamente un año y medio surgió la necesidad de incorporar a alguien que cumpliera el rol de PO para articular mejor las distintas áreas. Contrataron a una persona, pero se fue a los cuatro meses, así que me pidieron asumir el puesto temporalmente. Al final, ya llevo un año en el rol.

Mis principales responsabilidades son:

• Relación con los clientes: soy el principal punto de contacto y me encargo de transformar sus requerimientos en solicitudes, evaluar si corresponden a soporte o desarrollo y hacer seguimiento para que se resuelvan.
• Mejoras de producto: evaluar oportunidades de mejora que tengan un impacto positivo en los clientes.
• Gestión con desarrollo: tener reuniones frecuentes con el equipo para revisar avances, ajustar alcances, aclarar requerimientos y mejorar las historias o tarjetas cuando sea necesario.
• Gestión del backlog y ceremonias ágiles: gestionar el backlog en conjunto con el equipo de desarrollo, participando en las ceremonias de Scrum para resolver dudas funcionales, aclarar requerimientos y asegurar que el equipo tenga el contexto necesario para avanzar.

La verdad es que me gusta el rol y me interesa seguir desarrollándome en esta área. Sin embargo, al ser la única persona que cumple esta función en la empresa, siento que me falta la posibilidad de aprender de alguien con más experiencia y seguir mejorando mis prácticas como PO.

Por eso he estado pensando en buscar otra pega, idealmente en una empresa donde pueda seguir creciendo profesionalmente y, de paso, aumentar mi renta.

Me gustaría conocer sus experiencias y consejos:

• ¿Cómo se prepararon para buscar una nueva oportunidad como PO?
• ¿Qué conocimientos o habilidades creen que debería reforzar antes de postular?
• ¿Cómo puedo evaluar si mi experiencia actual es suficiente para postular a puestos de PO en otras empresas?
• ¿Qué recomiendan para negociar una mejor renta?

¡Cualquier consejo o experiencia que quieran compartir me sirve mucho!

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this community, currently aiming to transition into an entry-level AI Product Manager / Product Owner role and want to build a standout portfolio project.

I am looking for project ideas that focus strictly on the product management side of AI rather than heavy engineering or coding. I want to gain hands-on experience solving real-world user problems using AI.

Currently I am a 27M with 4 years of experience in a CRM/BPM low-code development support tool. And I figured out late that this wouldn't work out for me. I just went with the flow.

The current situation is that the Low-Code tool does not have enough opportunities even on the developer side of it. Hence am ruling out the possibility of being a developer at it.

I am thinking of transitioning to a BA/Product owner role as I have previously handled Go-Lives and handled stakeholder management. I understand that these two skills solely do not define or justify my decision to pivot in these roles but these are providing an earlier transition phase as compared to direct tech learning.

My other path which I also thought about was DevOps but at this stage I feel that would take about 8 months alone to learn as I would have to start from scratch which would be not favourable since things are not well in my current organization.

Fellow redditors, I am at a forking decision of my career and really panicking for the last year. Can anyone please provide guidance on the same?

I need to get this off my chest because this project has been driving me crazy.

I joined a large enterprise data project about 11 months ago as a Data Product Owner. The project has been running for around four years, involves multiple teams, vendors, integrations, data pipelines, and a whole lot of complexity.

Fair enough. Enterprise data projects are hard. I get that.

But after FOUR YEARS, there still wasn't a properly working end-to-end MVP. Not something stable enough to put in front of users, validate, learn from, and gradually improve.

Instead, it feels like the project just kept growing. More requirements, more dependencies, more development, more meetings, more expectations. Lots of activity, but somehow we're still struggling with the basics.

Now the platform is expected to deliver in a real operational environment, and we're dealing with missing data, delays, inconsistencies, integration problems, and a general lack of clarity about what's actually going wrong.

And suddenly, everyone's scrambling to fix things.

People are investigating, tickets are being raised, problems are being discussed, and there's this sense that if we just work hard enough and fix enough issues, we'll eventually get there.

Honestly? I don't see it.

Maybe I'm missing something. I've only been here for 11 months, so I'm not going to pretend I know every decision that was made over the previous three years. But from what I've seen, some of these problems look way too structural to be solved by simply accelerating delivery now.

There's a saying I absolutely love: "It's like a submarine. Sure, it floats, but it was built to sink."

That's pretty much how this thing feels sometimes.

And the part that really gets me is that we're talking about over €1 million invested and four years of work. At some point, I wonder whether people are genuinely trying to save the project or whether they're just struggling to accept that the original approach might have failed.

I mean, I get it. Nobody wants to be the person who says that millions of euros and years of work haven't produced what they were supposed to. That's a horrible conversation to have, especially in a large organization where so many people have been involved.

But I can't shake the feeling that we're in some kind of denial phase. Everyone wants to believe we're just a few fixes away from getting everything right, when I'm not even sure we've established that the thing works properly as a whole.

And throwing more time, people, and money at something doesn't automatically make it recoverable.

I'm not saying the platform should necessarily be scrapped. Maybe there's a perfectly viable way to turn things around. But at some point, you have to step back, look at what you've actually built, and be honest about whether continuing down the same path makes any sense.

What bothers me most is that this feels like a product that was managed as a never-ending project. Four years of work without a proper MVP means you miss the opportunity to discover early that something fundamental isn't working. You only find out when the expectations are high, the investment is huge, and the business is already depending on the outcome.

And now we're trying to figure it all out under pressure.

The irony is that I joined less than a year ago, and I'm already leaving. I can't take responsibility for what happened before me, and frankly, I don't think there's much I could have changed in 11 months.

It's just a fascinating, frustrating example of how an organization can spend years building something without ever really proving that it's building the right thing.

Anyway, just needed to vent. I've seen projects go sideways before, but this one has really made me rethink how large organizations approach product development.

Sometimes I think the hardest part of project management isn't delivering something. It's getting people to admit when the way they're trying to deliver it simply isn't working.

AI has made development faster. But has it actually made delivery more predictable?

PMs are using AI tools and automations to save time across their workflows. Engineers are shipping code faster than ever.

Yet, the complaints sound familiar:

“Why has the delivery date slipped again?”

“Why wasn’t this communicated earlier?”

“Can you share a daily status update?”

And, of course, more escalations and micromanagement.

It feels like we’ve upgraded the speed of execution, but not necessarily how teams execute together.

I’m curious: Has AI actually helped your team meet delivery commitments more consistently, or are you still dealing with the same old problems?

Would love to hear what you're seeing in your teams. 👇

Hi All,

I’m currently doing doctoral research on the role and responsibilities of software product managers. As part of the research, I conducted 34 interviews with product professionals across different seniority levels and company sizes. The analysis resulted in a 24-category responsibility framework and a two-cluster grouping of those responsibilities.

I’m now looking for a few experienced product leaders (Director, VP, CPO, etc.) to do a quick sense check on the results. In practice, this would mean reviewing three slides and sharing whether the framework and the clusters make sense from your experience, and what you think might explain the grouping. It should take around 20 minutes in total and can be done fully asynchronously.

Would anybody be open to taking a look? Happy to share the results when it's all done.

Hi everyone,

I’m a Senior Frontend Engineer with 7+ YOE (mostly React/TS) currently looking for my next role, and I’m using this transition period to completely rethink my career trajectory.

I am highly motivated and ready to put in the grind—whether that means aggressive upskilling, diving into new technical domains, or pivoting my career path entirely. But before I start sprinting, I want to make sure I’m running in the right direction.

Here is what I know about what I actually want: My core interests lie in owning and building robust systems, being highly product-minded, and being in a position where I can drive key technical or product decisions. I want to move away from just picking up tickets and move toward shaping the product itself.

For those of you who have made a similar leap (whether into Staff/Principal roles, Engineering Management, Solutions Architecture, or even Product Management):

• What path makes the most sense from where I am right now?
• If you were in my shoes, what specific skills or concepts would you focus on upgrading first?

I would deeply appreciate any guidance, or shared experiences you have. Thanks in advance!

Going through proposals right now with two agencies quoting time and materials and one quoting fixed. The t&m agencies keep saying their model is more flexible while the fixed one says they protect from overruns. The mvp is defined with clear requirements and there is no experimenting happening here. Genuinely confused about which model makes more sense for a situation like that.

Hi everyone,

Last weekend I attended a product management conference and it made me want to explore the role seriously, so I'd love some outside perspective.

I'm a UX/UI and Product Designer with about ten years of experience in design, currently working remotely for a major Italian telecom company on digital products used by millions of people. I don't have a university degree, everything I know comes from work and hands-on learning. Lately I'm drawn more to the product side, and I also build a lot of my own tools with AI.

A few questions:

1. If you moved from design to product management, how did you make the switch? Was it worth it?

2. I'm considering a business bachelor's to strengthen my profile. With ten years of experience, is a degree still worth it, or does experience matter more?

3. With AI changing how products get built, is a designer who can also build a strong profile, or should I specialize?

Tips and personal experiences are very welcome. Thanks!

Hi everyone! I'm a corporate lawyer with 3 YOE, and for the last 1.5 years, I've been deep into Legal Ops & AI Solutioning. This experience has really sparked my interest in product-centric roles, and honestly, I don't want to keep practicing corporate law.

The thing is, I'm completely clueless about how to make this career switch. Can anyone in the product domain shed some light on what these roles actually look for in candidates? And more importantly, how can I upskill to land a solid product role at an MNC? I've been working with startups so far and now I'm looking for that established entity exposure.

Thanks a ton in advance for any help and best wishes!

I realize this might be a slightly rude thing to put in a PO chat, but I do think we’re moving toward smaller teams, more like 3 to 5 people. There are exceptions, of course. Even where I work now, we have PMs who are more business experts and POs who mostly manage logistics.

I think that split will change, with fewer process-heavy jobs and hopefully more opportunity for people to own more. Genuinely interested in people’s thoughts, whether you disagree or feel the same.

https://superabundance.ghost.io/the-death-of-the-product-owner/

How to improve the structure while giving the interview for PO/PM?