Hey folks, Is it common for PMs to work remotely or do consulting? (compared to engineers). Considering a switch and want to know what opportunities are available to PMs outside of work. Consulting, freelancing etc. If anyone has done this or knows someone, would be great if you can mention some details!

There are many remote first companies and doing PM remote is quite possible. Ex: Meesho is fully remote now with 1 week in a quarter co-working model. To my knowledge there are very limited opportunities for consulting and freelancing especially if you are a newbie PM. Typically they are limited to startups with non-technology founders. Most consulting opportunities are for senior PMs who are hired for their experience in building certain kinds of products, stage, scale, skill set etc.

Interesting, thanks

While a PM is an IC, the role as you know is very embedded in to the org i.e. its cross-functional and interfaces both up and down the hierarchy. So opportunities for external / part-time PMs on execution oriented roles are very few overall. I have seen consulting opportunities for following: • Product Coaches (for individuals or teams) • Process Coaches (Agile-Scrum, Customer Development etc) • Product Strategy for younger companies • Specialised Experiences (like AI-ML PMs, Regulations in fintech, health-tech, crypto etc) • Non-techy founding team wants someone to manage both PM /Tech functions as they don’t have background in product development. As you can see almost all of the roles are for people who have done similar things in the past and have experience. Those are the ones who I was saying as Senior PM. Overall there are very few side gigs for PMs even in US. India is even more rare. Those few companies which do offer gigs expects 4+hr overlap with EST, PT timezones and expect 20hr/week making things a bit challenging. Would love for things to change but so is the role and the market.

Thanks @loud-artist-61521 Few more questions • What's an IC? • Understood - PM roles are cross functional and it's hard to operate remotely/independently like Engineers, Designers and other roles • What do Senior PMs consult on for AI PM stuff?

Apologies for late response, was on a break. • IC = Individual Contributor (all those who don’t manage people are technically ICs) • PM is not designed to operate independently. Remotely is possible. Lots of job postings for remote roles is a testament. Most of Web3 / Pandemic started companies are remote first. • I have seen some companies ask for PMs who have worked around ML / Vision stuff in their previous products. Just like there are PMs who specialise in B2B or B2C. PM is you remove the execution bit is essentially lot of judgement. Someone who hasn’t previously worked with Datascientists/ML researchers wouldn’t understand how to use their skills to solve consumer problems. Imagine Google Photos PM or Gmail Spam PM as an example.

Hey sorry for the late reply, was travelling