big_co

I work for a big co, and we find it very hard to hire <i>good</i> product managers. They are also often the bottleneck in the organization. For e.g.: we have 5 product managers for over 40-50 engineers.

I've been out of undergrad for 2 years now, and have worked in 2 mid-sized companies, and 2 very large ones (internships/full-time).

And as I navigate the org charts of these companies, I wonder: what did the executives at these companies do differently that got them to where they are?

At first, I naturally assumed it was experience and age (or time within the company), but that doesn't seem to be the case at all.

What I have noticed is, generally, they tend to have MBAs or work on the business aspects of the company, or were executives/CEOs/Founders of other smaller companies that eventually got acquired.

I understand there is no single path or answer to this question but I'm curious to hear your opinions?

Hi, I'm a software eng. who graduated from college last year and I, mistakingly, took a job at a BigCo which is in an industry I'm not passionate about at all. And since I didn't have any say in what team I'd be in -- I've been assigned to a team that does 90% support work. I've been updating my dev skills by doing side projects after work (just to learn, nothing anti-competitive or for monetary purposes).

I'm already looking for another job and since the market is quite hot, I'm receiving a lot of requests to interview and meet with companies. This requires me to take time off work, often sporadically. It's only a matter of time before my team begins to suspect something is off, and also I don't feel that great having to take time off work to interview with other companies (not to mention, it often requires rescheduling meetings due to obligations at work).

So, I was wondering if I should just quit and spend all my efforts on looking for a job (and doing side projects in the meantime). How would potential employers perceive that? I know the general advice is to secure a job before you quit your current one, but I think an exception can be made in this market.

Just to add, I've had a few decent internships under my belt during college, which I believe is helping me a lot with getting that first call from potential employers.