* Product managers are not good at administrative managerial activities. This creates a lot of extra work and surprises mid quarter. Even with help from Technical Program Managers (TPMs), it's still hard. Part of the problem is the reliance of too many people with engineering backgrounds. You need to bring some people in with non-eng backgrounds to think a little differently. Of course, this is true for any company that's eng-first.
* Despite the company age and being public for many years, everyone is still in a highly reactive mindset, rather than a proactive mindset. Basically, the customer bullies us into implementing functionality before we are ready. So engineering codes a half-baked MVP, and we have to fix it later, which never really comes because everyone else wants the same thing. Tech debt accumulates and then it kills us later. So we scramble and it's a big mess.
* Easy to get pigeon-holed into your role. It's hard to make a transfer to a different role, and there's no guarantee that you can make that happen. Basically, you have to go through the whole interview process again, and you need your current manager to advocate for you to the new manager. That's really hard when you are already red-lined with your workload. Even if you do get the other role, your current team has to backfill your role and that takes time. It's hard to replace someone who has a few years of in house knowledge. Knowledge transfer, which no one seems to know how to do, is never complete, and the team you are leaving suffers. Plus, your new team is wondering if you can actually do the new role. You start over when it comes to earning trust. The phrase "set you up for success" is talked a lot but I haven't actually seen it implemented well in the context of role transfers.
