Bavaro describes management as lonelier, more painful, and often less fun than individual-contributor work. Managers carry confidential information and face conflicts between what a report wants and what the company can justify. Since warnings would not have stopped her younger self from trying it, her practical advice is to treat management as reversible and return to an IC role if the work does not fit.

Managers are treated differently from the rest of the team
Confidential people issues limit the transparency a manager can offer
Employee aspirations and company needs do not always align
Trying management does not require staying on that path forever

“being a manager is not as much fun as being an IC”
Jackie Bavaro

“consider it a two-way door, consider it something that you can try for a while”
Jackie Bavaro

#management#individual contributor#career choices

Hot Take· 1

Hot Take

You Can Grow Impact and Income Without Becoming a Manager

Bavaro argues that many PMs climb toward management because they do not understand the alternatives. Senior individual contributors at large technology companies can earn substantial compensation, and changing companies may increase pay more than another internal promotion. Growth can also mean choosing a more consequential product, a more innovative domain, or work with greater social impact.

Senior PM compensation can remove money as the reason to manage people
Switching companies can outperform internal title progression financially
Impact can grow through product reach, depth, novelty, or social value
A career path does not have to be a sequence of management promotions

“you don't necessarily need to like climb that career ladder forever to make a lot of money”
Jackie Bavaro

“there's different ways to grow your impact and grow your career, other than getting promoted to people management”
Jackie Bavaro

#career growth#compensation#individual contributor

Explainer· 1

Explainer

Why Truly Senior Individual-Contributor PM Roles Are Scarce

Bavaro explains that a company creates a very senior IC PM role only when it has a problem large enough for director-level impact but compact enough for one person to product-manage the whole team. Platform work and major partnerships sometimes fit that shape, but most high-impact areas eventually require layers of people management. The scarcity reflects organizational design more than a lack of respect for IC careers.

The role must deliver director-scale impact without director-scale headcount
Platform teams can create sufficiently broad leverage for a senior IC
Major cross-company partnerships can also fit the role
Most large product surfaces require managers of managers to aggregate impact

“there's only a few problems out there like that”
Jackie Bavaro

“It's a lot easier to have a big impact if you have if you're a manager of managers and you kind of can add up…”
Jackie Bavaro

#principal pm#career ladder#org design

Story· 4

Story

A Google Rejection Led Bavaro to Level the PM Interview Playing Field

Bavaro expected to pass a Google PM interview and was shocked by the rejection. After joining Google later, she saw that candidates could sound structured without having good ideas, while qualified people often misunderstood what unusual interview questions were testing. Sharing the hidden rules only with friends felt unfair, so she put the knowledge into books and public guidance.

Bavaro's first Google PM application ended in an unexpected rejection
Interview performance often reflected familiarity with hidden conventions
Polished structure could disguise weak underlying ideas
She published the guidance to extend access beyond privileged networks

“even good PMs don't know how to answer these questions”
Jackie Bavaro

“If I'm willing to tell it to a friend of a friend, I have to be willing to like put that out on the internet…”
Jackie Bavaro

#pm interviews#career#access

Story

The Two-Week Yes Experiment That Made Bavaro More Collaborative

Early at Asana, Bavaro saw the PM as the person who protected focus by saying no as quickly as possible. After her boss told her to stop shutting him down, a coach challenged her to spend two weeks finding truthful ways to say yes. She learned to affirm the underlying problem, explore the suggestion, or test the proposed design without committing the team to every solution.

Defensive prioritization made suggestions feel like attacks on her judgment
A coach prescribed two weeks of finding a valid yes
Acknowledging a real problem does not require accepting the proposed solution
The experiment replaced protectiveness with genuine collaboration

“the problem they're talking about is probably real”
Jackie Bavaro

“I think you can find a way to do your job and still say yes to people, right?”
Jackie Bavaro's coach

#collaboration#product management#coaching

Story

How Bavaro Talked Her Way Into Asana's Planning Committee

Bavaro's manager would return from Asana's planning committee with decisions, only for her to raise follow-up questions. She began preparing questions and possible follow-ups for him, then proposed joining the meeting because direct participation would save his time and energy. The seat exposed her to business, finance, marketing, and organizational decisions beyond feature delivery.

She first improved her manager's preparation for the senior meeting
Her follow-up questions showed that relaying decisions was inefficient
She framed access as useful to her boss rather than as status for herself
The committee expanded her view from features to company-building

“it might be easier if I just go”
Jackie Bavaro

“And it was a way that I sort of talked myself into this higher level meeting, framing it as something that was gonna help out…”
Jackie Bavaro

#career growth#influence#business strategy

Story

The Manager Match That Grew Bavaro From Slide Support to Strategy

Bavaro credits her long-time Asana manager J.R. with a relationship built on mutual respect and complementary strengths. He first asked her to assemble vision slides, then let her shape parts of them, and eventually trusted her to create the first draft for his review. Her growth freed his time for larger work, making development a genuine win for both manager and report.

Manager effectiveness depends partly on the match between two people
J.R.'s strength in vision gave Bavaro a craft she could learn
Responsibility expanded gradually from production to shaping to first draft
Her development created capacity for her manager to take on bigger work

“I think there's gotta be a match between you and your manager”
Jackie Bavaro

“if I grew into something, then that would free up his time to take on something bigger and better”
Jackie Bavaro

#management#mentorship#career growth

Takeaway· 3

Takeaway

Bavaro Uses Coaches for Specific Problems, Not Permanent Support

Bavaro distinguishes continuous coaching from focused coaching around one defined behavior. She prefers to hire a coach when she has a concrete issue to solve and to stop once it is resolved. Without that focus, she found herself enlarging small problems simply because she needed something to bring to the session.

Some people benefit from an always-available independent sounding board
Bavaro prefers coaching tied to a specific development goal
A defined problem makes sessions more action-oriented
Ongoing coaching can make small issues feel larger for her

“For me, I find it's better to have a coach when I have a specific thing I want to work on.”
Jackie Bavaro

“I would make things bigger when I had a coach”
Jackie Bavaro

#coaching#career development#self-awareness

Takeaway

Early-Career PMs Earn Bigger Problems by Solving Small Ones Well

Bavaro advises early-career PMs not to force novelty into deliberately narrow assignments. A constrained problem may call for a conventional, well-executed solution rather than a sweeping redesign. Completing the simple work reliably builds the trust required to receive broader, more creative responsibility later.

Early assignments are often intentionally narrow and constrained
A highly creative solution can be wrong for a straightforward problem
Solid execution is enough to clear early-career expectations
Reliability earns access to larger and less-defined challenges

“just like do the simple thing, get it done really well, and that'll earn you the trust to be able to take on bigger things…”
Jackie Bavaro

“you just need to be doing like a solid good job”
Jackie Bavaro

#early career#execution#product management

Takeaway

A PM Must Contribute Without Crowding Out Design and Engineering

Bavaro identifies opposite failure modes for young PMs. Some defer so completely to a strong designer that they become note-takers who add little judgment; others try to lead everything, deny colleagues visibility, and damage peer relationships. The effective PM adds ideas and momentum while creating room for each function to lead where it is strongest.

Excessive deference can make the PM a passive note-taker
Excessive control prevents engineers and designers from contributing visibly
Product managers should multiply the work of the whole team
Peer trust matters because peer feedback shapes performance reviews

“some PMs I see get paired with a really strong designer, and you sort of let your designer take the lead on everything”
Jackie Bavaro

“And then some people step in too much. They're trying to lead everything and they're crowding people out”
Jackie Bavaro

#collaboration#product leadership#peer feedback

Frameworks in this episode

Cross-Application Strategy Transfer

Future-Framed Career Growth Conversation

PEARL Interview Story Framework

Six-Month Strategy Draft Cycle

Three-Part Product Strategy

Insights & moments

⚡Myth Buster· 1

Management Is Not a One-Way Promotion From a Better IC Job

◆Hot Take· 1

You Can Grow Impact and Income Without Becoming a Manager

✶Explainer· 1

Why Truly Senior Individual-Contributor PM Roles Are Scarce

❝Story· 4

A Google Rejection Led Bavaro to Level the PM Interview Playing Field

The Two-Week Yes Experiment That Made Bavaro More Collaborative

How Bavaro Talked Her Way Into Asana's Planning Committee

The Manager Match That Grew Bavaro From Slide Support to Strategy

▲Takeaway· 3

Bavaro Uses Coaches for Specific Problems, Not Permanent Support

Early-Career PMs Earn Bigger Problems by Solving Small Ones Well

A PM Must Contribute Without Crowding Out Design and Engineering

Myth Buster· 1

Hot Take· 1

Explainer· 1

Story· 4

Takeaway· 3