Standing Up a Product Discipline From Scratch
Turn an implicit PM function into a real one by writing the ladder first, then wiring hiring to it
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 92%
A sequence for formalizing product management at a company that grew without it: define the discipline and role expectations on paper, encode them in a leveled career ladder built on top of company values, then rebuild the interview process to test for exactly the skills the ladder names. Borrow heavily from other companies but keep your own weird, values-specific signals.
Origin
Rohini Pandhi's playbook for revamping the PM discipline at Mercury, drawing on her time at Square/Block plus interviews with senior product leaders across companies.
Core principles
- 01'Well stolen is half done' — borrow proven ladders and interview loops, but you're only halfway there until you adapt them
- 02Alignment starts on paper: leadership and ICs must share one written definition of the role and its expectations
- 03Layer PM-specific expectations on top of the company-wide values ladder, not separate from it
- 04The interview process must test for the exact skills the ladder names, or the ladder is decorative
- 05Keep company-specific 'superpowers' beyond table-stakes PM skills, and let candidate personality show
How to run it
- 1
Define the discipline on paper
Write down what a PM is and what's expected internally, so PMs stop asking 'am I doing this right?' and leadership-to-IC are aligned on the role.
- 2
Build a leveled career ladder
Create a matrix of the role across levels. Anchor it on company core values (e.g. humility, low ego) then add PM-specific vectors: building products customers genuinely love, delivering outcome-based business impact (not necessarily revenue), building and communicating long-term vision, and working cross-functionally in a regulated space.
Pro tip Make 'positive impact on the business' outcome-based rather than a narrow revenue goal so the ladder fits diverse product areas.
- 3
Rebuild the interview process to mirror the ladder
Update hiring to find signal for the same criteria: product sense, customer and quality obsession, analytical skills, and strategic/system-wide thinking. Take the ladder and apply it directly to the loop.
Pro tip Consider adding a written/essay component — quality writing demonstrates depth and the ability to align people with a crisp two-pager.
- 4
Keep a signature 'stay weird' exercise
Retain a generic-prompt presentation ('talk in depth about something you're interested in') that tests attention to detail, craft, care, and passion for going deep, letting personality show.
Pro tip A candidate once went soup-to-nuts on why a Boeing/Airbus plane uses specific bolts — depth of care on any topic is the real signal.
In the wild
Mercury had 'business leads' doing cross-functional PM duties, then officially retitled them PMs ~two years ago. Because they lacked PM experience, basics like strategic planning, roadmapping, prioritization, goal-setting and deep customer research were missed. Rohini then wrote the ladder and rebuilt the hiring loop.
→ A defined discipline with aligned expectations and an interview process tuned to Mercury's valued skills; in hindsight the official transition should have happened sooner.
Common mistakes
Retitling generalists as PMs without the skills
Renaming business leads 'PMs' without PM training left gaps in strategy, roadmapping, prioritization and research that hurt the org.
Copying another company's ladder verbatim
Borrowing is half the work; a ladder that doesn't encode your own values and superpowers won't produce the right hires.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders or first product leaders formalizing PM at a company that scaled without it
Not ideal for
Seed-stage companies where the founder should still be the PM
From the transcript
“one of the first things that we put together was a career ladder. It was just literally a matrix of the role at different levels…”
“Well stolen is half done”
“we pretty much took what we had in that career ladder and applied it to the interview process”
“quality in writing demonstrates this ability to go in in depth with something”
From the episode
How to build your product team from scratch, attract top product talent, go multi-product, and more
Rohini Pandhi (Mercury, Square)