Before joining Citrix in June last year, I had spent over four years in product management when one day something dawned on me - my product management experience was limited to a single market need; unlike the experience accrued in development, test and support roles! Sure my experience at Neverfail had been broadened by working closely with OEM partners like VMware but this was still solving the same set of problems for customers.
What sparked this realisation? An opportunity to work at Citrix came up. Having never worked for a large software vendor it forced me to take stock of my decision to always work at startups. I enjoyed the startup vibe, there are always opportunities to do something different, and ultimately it proved to be an excellent inroad to product management.
Sure you can learn new skills, push yourself to do things differently wherever you work (in fact this is essential if you want your career to progress) but if you simply move between similar environments there is a danger you view problems through the same lens, fall into the same habits or work patterns. So I figured if I wanted to become an experienced product manager not only should I manage different products but I should do it in a different environment...
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