My First Product Job

Itay Levy

Product Manager

First product job

🐣 Joined a company as a PM in 2018

Before becoming a PM

💼 Student (University / College)

💻 2 years of exp. in tech companies

🎓 Industrial Engineering

The Story

How did you land your first job as a product manager?

Back in 2018, I graduated my B.Sc in industrial engineering. During that time I have been working in a tech company for almost 2 years doing sales operations. I loved working within the go-to-market organization, but I wanted a role that would allow me to connect my business orientation and my problem-solving enthusiasm. I applied for a Jr. PM role in a travel-tech company and after a series of interviews the position was mine. Throughout the interview process, I felt like the 2 main qualities I was asked to demonstrate are creativity and critical thinking. It’s an iteration of identifying the problem, tailoring a solution, and optimizing it to answer the needs. What I love most about being a PM today is seeing thoughts and ideas take shape and get adopted by users. It doesn’t get much better than that :)

The challenge

What was the biggest challenge in your first year as a PM?

Seeing the bigger picture. Every day brought with it new unexpected complexions, making it hard to maintain and follow a plan. This often made me focus on the wrong things, thus not creating the impact I wanted to.

Getting sucked into the day-to-day chaos will result in delivering unremarkable products. I strongly believe that one of the skills a PM should master as soon as possible is the ability to see the bigger picture and act upon it. It will help a PM to maintain his/her product’s edge and stay relevant in the ocean of tech solutions and services out there.

Connect with Itay Levy on Linkedin

How Itay Levy Got Into Product Management

Aspiring PM?

Yay! Almost there 🙌