Out of curiosity, how did folks get started with product management in the PE space? Were you already PMs and got drawn in this direction, or something else? I've been a (technical) programme manager working with platform-y or sre teams and have been contemplating trying to move into the platform product management space, so am interested in the journeys y'all have been on :)

Hey Don, the most effective platform PMs I've worked with have typically come from a PM background before getting interested in ops.

I pivoted from PM of payment and billing (which is generally a shared capability in most of the companies I saw) towards platformization as a whole

@Daniel Bryant that was an interesting video, thanks for sharing!

Aw 🙇‍♀️ thank you Daniel! It’s a whole chunk of the LOPUG talk I gave last night too - I’ve met lots of engineers who have gone into platform PMs because they see a gap. These folks are great at knowing the domain, talking details with engineers and users, but struggle with moving out of solution space and articulating the business value of the platforms in a way the business wants to hear it (sometimes leading to lower investment or platform initiatives being canned :( ) The other direction typically has the opposite problem of it being hard to understand a domain that moves so fast and is mega mega complex unless they are lucky enough to have a great team around them (like I often had!)

My background is analyst, developer & Architect.. typical platform customer :) and Platform Manager today with 5 years exp in that role. You can visit my blog to catch that perspective: khalasa.com