Hi Guys,

I'm currently working in finance in big tech company (Amazon) and thinking about making the switch to Product Management (PM) and wanted to get BFIs thoughts on PM vs Finance.

Pros of Finance:
Easier to go up the chain - atleast till Senior Manager.
Worked 5 yrs in finance so am experience and very good at finance (would rate myself probably in top 10% in terms of being able to do analysis/use data correctly/provide guidance to business)
Highly fungible career

Cons:
Very controllership oriented so a lot of repeat activities monthly.
Only provide guidance to business, so you don't fully own decision making in business.

Pros of PM:
Essentially CEO so you get to own end to end of product and get to truly impact product/business/company.
Get to become very well rounded since you deal with all aspects of product (legal, marketing, finance, etc.)
If successful, can make a lot of $$ and be very successful

Cons of PM:
Very hard to go up the chain
I will be good with analysis/finance of product, but will be (potentially big) learning curve with other aspects of product.
If you go into wrong product, you can potentially end up as Project Manager and have very little impact.
Career is not as fungible and I'm not sure how career looks 10-15 yrs later/outside of a tech company.

I'm thinking about going into PM for advertising fwiw.

I'm very unfamiliar with career trajectory of product management and how long term career really looks like.

I'll take curtain number 3 Bob ... Work for yourself