Hi,
Crypto PM’s need to be flexible. This flexibility can feel uncomfortable to PM’s who are used feeling in control.
The flexibility can feel like you’re letting things go a little farther than you usually would. It takes some trial and error to determine how far to let things go.
Not letting things go far enough means the team may start to feel frustrated. They may feel you’re trying to tighten the reigns more than a decentralized team needs. This is especially true in crypto projects, since there’s already a bias against the need for any centralized coordination to begin with.
You may fear you’re letting things slide more than you’d like them to. One way to mitigate this fear is by doing some work in the shadows.
It's what I call shadow PM. The idea is you do the PM work around the team, as the work continues. You ask for their minimum required inputs, then build the structure using the inputs. You can read more about shadow PM here.
At the other end of the spectrum, letting things go too far means the project may tip into chaos. At this point, what's the point of you being there?
Striking this balance is a key to managing crypto projects well. Doing this will allow you gain the team's trust. It will also let you build the structure needed to increase the project’s chance to succeed.
Not doing it may mean an uncomfortable tension between you and the team begins to build. Then you’ll be at odds, working against, rather than with each other. But not doing so means the project runs along without the structure required to make it successful.
Either way, the chance of being able to do what you do well will suffer. When this happens the project will too.
If you find this happening, I’d encourage you to assess where this balance is. Doing so honestly and adjusting accordingly could be what’s needed to get the project back on track.
And now, on to this week’s jobs…
General Pulse - Slow 😬
Note: I (still!) haven’t been able to add Coindesk jobs to the list yet. I’ll add jobs from this board starting soon. In the meantime, there are a few product and project manager jobs listed.
0x -Product Manager - Developer Experience
Bison Trails Co. - Product Lead
Coinbase - Crypto Product Manager
Product Manager at NEAR Protocol
Product Manager, Growth at Dfinity
Product Manager at Coda
Technical Program Director at Tezos Commons Foundation
Program Manager at Protocol Labs
Filecoin China Program Manager at Protocol Labs
Filecoin Product & Business Development at Protocol Labs
Product Manager at Gnosis
Product Manager at Bloxroute Labs
Product Manager at Oasis Labs
Other crypto projects I don’t know much about or would probably not apply to myself, at least without doing more research, yet are hiring PM’s include Bittrex, Ethx, bitpanda and Coinmarketcap.
(If you’re interested in corporate jobs at places like Visa, JPMorgan, EY, Amazon and Consensys, you can find links in this spreadsheet. It’s the raw data master spreadsheet I use to track the job listings.)
Catch you next week,
Chris
P.S. - Help advocate for more PM’s in crypto by sharing this issue on Twitter 💪