Don’t Climb Someone Else’s Career Ladder

You don’t always have to follow the path in front of you

Robert Drury
Getting Started in Product
3 min readMar 26, 2024

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I listened to a talk by Susana Lopes from the 2023 Mind The Product conference, entitled “Embracing a dual-track career ladder in product”, during which she discusses the fact that the standard career path (shown below in a slide from the talk) doesn’t have to be one that you follow.

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Robert Drury
Getting Started in Product

Helping people kick start their product management career with product coaching, job application prep, & resources at gettingstartedinproduct.substack.com