The Importance of Recruiting and Retaining Platform PMs

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I want to ask you about something you brought up you referenced will larsens point on an earlier podcast episode about how it's going to be difficult to recruit PMs or retain PMs and platform because there are often potentially more impactful problems. So I'm curious as someone who's now been in a platform role for several years. What are your thoughts on that? Have you considered moving out of platform into other types of PM work or do you see kind of being a platform PM as its own sort of career path or function?"

As product lead, Russ Nealis has been focused on introducing the discipline of product management in the Developer Foundations organization. This episode discusses the reasons why PMs are currently uncommon in platform organizations, examples of when having a PM has been helpful, and more.

Discussion points:

(1:23) Russ’s role at Plaid
(2:49) Why platform product managers are uncommon
(3:28) Backgrounds to look for when hiring a platform PM
(4:58) Deciding whether to hire a platform PM
(6:20) Signs that bringing in a Product Manager would be beneficial
(9:16) How Russ personally became a platform PM
(12:15) Whether a platform PM is a career path
(14:55) Articulating the business impact a platform PM has
(18:56) Challenges Plaid’s platform team has faced without a PM
(19:19) Symptoms of a need for product management in an internal-facing team
(30:15) Whether Twilio had platform PMs
(31:22) Example projects where PMs have been crucial
(34:12) How the book “Ask Your Developer” influenced Twilio’s engineering culture
(36:13) Getting started with introducing a product management discipline to an organization
(38:33) Org structure and where platform PMs may report
(40:00) Career ladder for platform PM when reporting to engineering leadership
(41:20) Being product-led or technology-led
(43:14) How technical skills may help when in a platform PM role

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Mentions and links:
Follow Russ on LinkedIn
Episode 7 with Will Larson - related to why it’s difficult to find Platform PMs
Episode 27 with Jean-Michel Lemieux - related to the percentage of investment that should be put towards platform investments
The Build Trap by Melissa Perri
Ask Your Developer by Jeff Lawson