#83. Three Years in Product Management at QuantumBlack: Part 2 - The Product Manager's Career
Lessons in growth, culture, and the courage to start over
In Part 1, I shared 33 tactical lessons from building Kedro-Viz at QuantumBlack—everything from user research to stakeholder management to strategic thinking. But there's another product every PM manages that we rarely talk about: our own careers.
Through reflecting on my three years, I realized that product managers actually manage three interconnected products: the actual product, their team's effectiveness, and their own career development. Neglect any one of them at your peril.
Today, I want to focus on that third product—the one that's perhaps most important but least discussed in PM circles. This is the story of how I learned to think about career management as product management, what QuantumBlack's culture taught me about leadership, and why I've decided to become a beginner again.
Table of Contents
You and Your Career
QB Culture
What's Next: Becoming a Beginner Again
For Aspiring PMs
A New Chapter
📻 AI Audio Version Available (Disclaimer: Slight transcript variation) 11 mins
You and Your Career
The product that is your career is an aspect I suspect most product managers are too busy to think about weekly or monthly. We get caught up in the day-to-day of development, and maybe you come to the conversation during one-on-one meetings and performance reviews, but rarely does the career conversation with ourselves come up.
In my career framework article, one of the frameworks I talked about was—are you earning and/or learning in your existing role? I always believed learning and taking on more challenging projects, getting actionable feedback was an important indicator for growth. And if you grow, you would earn.
I wrote: "Learning is where you want to start, as early as possible and as quickly as possible. It is important to become good at doing things" He advises you to focus on first learning about yourself (your interests and preferences) and then learning about a particular skill, putting in the 10,000hrs.
QB Culture
I thoroughly enjoyed the QuantumBlack culture; every day I got to come in and work with incredibly intelligent people who were equally humble and always ready to share what they know. I loved how we just wore our signature black shirt and jeans—so simple—and did great work. I experienced a high quality of design, engineering, and product management.
A highlight for me when I joined was the Friday 'What's Going On?' session where everyone could get together and present what they were working on, review the lessons learned from a client project, introduce new joiners, and share ideas in a laid-back environment of drinks and free pizzas. We also had a ping pong table which many times when I was stuck on a problem, a quick game with one of my teammates would unblock my thinking.
But gradually that changed, especially as key members of leadership left the company. It's interesting how leaders are not only the keepers of the vision but also the culture. Culture is what we do.
The key lesson for me was that every product manager is the keeper of the culture of their team. Culture is what we do, and also what we've decided not to do.
As a product manager for my team, I tried to pay attention to the team culture—how we conduct meetings, interact with each other, and celebrate together through dinner or karaoke sessions after a significant product release.
I also tried to make my daily standup meetings interesting by encouraging everyone "to subscribe to Kedro-Viz and smash the like button" 😊. The little things.
But change is constant.
Thinking of my product management career over the last 3 years, the growth, the impact, and learnings, I believe it is time for a change, a new chapter.
What's Next: Becoming a Beginner Again
Last year, while recovering from a charity climb, I sat on a beach in Zanzibar reading Steve Jobs' Make Something Wonderful. When I put the book down, I thought: I want to be a beginner again.
I want to relearn how to build products again —not held back by what I've learned, but fuelled by curiosity and a drive to build better. Especially in this age of AI.
I don't want to stay siloed in "product management." I want to understand all aspects of delivering exceptional product experiences: design, engineering, marketing, user research—the whole ecosystem.
Three years at QuantumBlack taught me that the best products come from teams that think holistically about user problems. The best PMs are those who can facilitate that holistic thinking while staying grounded in user needs and the business context.
One More Thing…
Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact – and that is: everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you.
And you can change it. You can influence it. You can build your own things that other people can use.
- Steve Jobs, Make Something Wonderful
For Aspiring Product Managers
If you're considering a career in product management, here's my advice:
Start with user research - It's the fastest way to add value and build credibility
Learn the language of your users - If you're building for data scientists, learn enough data science to speak their language
Focus on problem framing - Half of product management is ensuring everyone agrees on what problem you're solving. Stakeholder alignment.
Build trust systematically - Through 1:1s, transparency, and consistent follow-through
Embrace being wrong - The best PMs change their minds when presented with better information
Think in systems - Everything connects to everything else for example the Amazon press release method.
Resources That Helped Me
Books: Build by Tony Fadell, My Product Management Toolkit by Marc Abraham, Creative Selection by Ken Kocienda, Obviously Awesome by April Dunford.
Writing to Learn by William Zinsser, Made in America by Sam Walton (my review), and 12 Notes by Quincy Jones (my review).
Hardcore Software by Steven Sinofsky, UX for Beginners: A Crash Course in 100 Short Lessons by Joel Marsh, and The Mom Test: How to talk to customers. (my review).
Practice: Regular product reviews on your favourite products, user interviews, and ruthless prioritization
Community: Other PMs in the organization who became mentors and sounding boards, and the BPM Product Community.
From my Year One Article:
What is Product Management:
How to get a job as a PM:
Building products, leading a product team, and talking to users:
A New Chapter
As I write this, I've already started an exciting new role (more on that in my next article). But the lessons from QuantumBlack will guide whatever comes next.
To everyone who shared this journey—teammates, users, mentors, and the broader Kedro community—thank you. Building products is fundamentally about people, and I was lucky to work with some of the best.
The adventure continues.
Until next time.
Nero
The Best is Yet to Come
What resonated most with you from this reflection? What challenges are you facing in your PM journey? I'd love to hear from you in the comments.
If you enjoyed this article, you would also enjoy Part 1: #82. Three Years in Product Management at QuantumBlack: Part 1. You might also find What Does It Take to Build a Successful Startup? and Sam Walton Made in America. My Story interesting reads.
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