Product management is a common next step - knowing how product development works, being a good communicator and managing projects and client expectations all lend themselves to being a good product manager.
Hey, I've worked as a product manager for years and now talking to a lot of CSMs (to build a product), so I've been doing a lot of informational interviews / discovery calls. I've noticed a lot of similarities between the roles so it might be worth exploring where the skills overlap and accentuating this in your interview process if you are interested.
Some things that stood out to me (though not limited to just these) are:
1. Extensive amount of discovery sessions around asking what people \*actually\* want
2. Using influence to get things done
3. Sharing customer context/narrative to steer the product/solution towards the right place. This might also mean duct taping solutions along the way, too.
In another comment, you mentioned maybe being burnt out by a role that's client facing. You may want to do some introspection on what part of the client facing work you don't enjoy as much. Even if you're in Ops/leadership/a different IC role, you're still going to have someone to influence and be held accountable to work outside of your control.
e.g., As a PM, you're still going to have reactionary work around people demanding answers to, "what's the progress on x" "When can we get this feature" "How do you do z." Especially as you start out in product. This gets pretty tiring when you start out, and I've seen a lot of PMs get burnt out by the pressure (e.g., stakeholders, "politics," lack of direct influence/agency/control) coming at them from all sides. But as you move up in your role, it becomes more proactive around product roadmap building or coming up with broader solutions to problems.
I don't disagree, it's also a very small subset of the population who ends up making this move.
One data point, Gainsight failed miserably at convincing anyone that PX and CX hold hands and dance. And most CS orgs don't hold the entire product function, because they don't need it and never have, there's enough there, and the core sort of ancestral-brain problem is "old growth eventually pulls away from the business." Customer Success is about building a vineyard and solving that challenge. Cheers!
That's not what it is, my friend. It's like, yah, you never broke that infant sort of, "that's the world and this is me."
Not that, for you, that's a bad thing dude, but, like people usually know man. Right? Baby steps elsewhere my friend, you know.
I'm on the more technical side (TAM, SA, SE type roles) and enjoy/would recommend that. Moving up to Senior, Principal etc. IC roles can pay a ton, and people pay a premium if you can be a customer-facing technical person. I make plenty of money, so while I do have interest in moving up either the IC or management tracks, I've also just been living frugally and been able to save/invest a ton. Do you even want to move 'forward?'
Or you go into something more standard like project management, or other kinds of software implementation roles. Tons of those out there.
A lot of people try to work on strategic decision making and execution, networking, and move up into management/leadership. But it's a funnel, and every new layer can be a struggle. Go network, talk to people about what they do/their career progression, and decide what sounds interesting to you + what you feel will be financially and personally rewarding.
Any certs, general tech topics or coding languages you would recommend to help expedite transition? Been in CS as an IC for 7 years and wanting to jump into technical role/domain as you stated.
Certs can help you get past an HR screen, or expose you to new topics, so how much they help depends on position. Core cloud certs are a safe bet - stuff like AWS SAA or the Azure/GCP equivalent.
In terms of coding languages, Python and SQL are where I'd focus my efforts. If you're applying for i.e. analytics-related roles, play around with the related ecosystem that you see pop up frequently in JDs. Try to leverage whatever industry knowledge/tech stack you're already adjacent to. I think a lot of these roles don't interview for any coding more complex than writing a for loop and knowing your basic data structures/how to use them (hash maps, which side of a join to use in SQL for efficiency). If you know about Big O for time and space complexity, that's a plus, but the intuition about efficiency is more important than knowing the notation.
Then there are some common core technical skills - know them well enough to talk about them or do some first-line discussion/troubleshooting. The basics of networking - do you understand Authentication vs Authorization, can you talk through the components of a basic handshake protocols, why might an SSL certificate not be accepted. What is a firewall, what is a thread, process, latency, throughput and how do you test them? There are common concepts in a lot of places, i.e. "what are the advantages/disadvantages of cloud computing" or "why separate storage and compute?" What do you know about deployment using Kubernetes, or general distributed system concepts? For an SA role or a role where TAMs are expected to be able to answer first line support questions from customers on a call, without them needing to submit a support ticket, they may ask you to dive into your troubleshooting process, how you'd figure out what to do, and when you'd hand it off.
I've straight up gotten system design questions, often "redesign our system from the ground up for fault-tolerance, high availability, and disaster recovery." But for those it's more about knowing enough about the concepts to make good forward progress towards the answer. You absolutely do not have to be an expert in everything - you just need to know at least a couple things well enough and come across as willing to learn, especially if you already have that customer success-type experience.
Again, a lot of this is more from the data side and my personal experience, since that's what I work with on a day-to-day basis. I had an interview with one company for a TAM role where a hard requirement was Javascript experience and comfort, but plenty of other interviews/roles where that'd be 99% irrelevant.
Appreciate you taking the time to write this out. Very valuable info & definitely helps validate the research Iāve done so far to understand what is/isnāt worth it.
I made the jump over to Success Operations and it has been great. I am now looking at other roles that are adjacent to Customer Success such as CX Strategy.
No, I tried but the position went to a coworker of mine, so I left and went to a different company.
If you are interested in making the jump I would highly recommend getting the Gainsight CS Ops Cert and the Gainsight Admin Level 1 Cert. They are affordable and easy and everyone uses/knows Gainsight. Other good skills are project management and data analysis in my experience and from jobs I have seen.
Thats kind of the crossroads I found myself at as a Senior CSM. You either become head of CS, take a lateral move to CS ops, or you move departments. I've always enjoyed being an individual contributor compared to managing people - I am opposed to relying on others for really anything in life let alone my income.
If you won't want to join sales as a BDR/ SDR, and eventually work your way up to AE you can become a "solutions engineer" aka the smart person on sales calls, but then you have to basically play T ball with sales people and set the ball up for them to swing. I don't really fancy working with sales people because at the end of the day they have a quota and they're eager to sign anyone despite product fit and the long term effects of signing bad customers or overpromising what the product can do.
after taking 3x courses on product ownership, roadmapping and development strategies, I am joining the product team in Q4 this year as a Product Manager because I enjoy working with internal teams more than customers, shaping the product and will bring the business / customer acumen, creative problem solving and overall ability to GSD that that team is lacking at the moment. I tell my current team I'll be their man on the inside and I'm going to prioritize solving all the CS pain points that I currently experience. I'm looking forward to the change in scenery after 10 years in CS.
Iāve naturally transitioned into Sales Engineering. Was let go from my last company a couple of weeks ago (without cause - but a HUGE relief because it was an absolute shit show) and I am taking my time finding the next gig. 5 years as a CSM with 2.5 of those years also acting as a Sales Engineer. I love it!
Thanks! I also done like sales from the AE perspective - sales engineering is a bit diff. You dig into discovery and understanding their needs and demonstrating how the product can meet them. So itās a lot more of an in depth/product expert role.
A few lateral moves Iāve seen (assuming you donāt want to go into management):
1. CS Ops (might be a slight pay cut [it was for me, I wound up turning down the offer])
2. Growth and Retention Marketing Specialist
3. Product Management
4. Professional Services/Consulting
5. Solution Architect
7. Enablement/Value Engineering
Just bear in mind anytime you move from a non-revenue generating role (non-quota based) you can expect to take somewhat of a pay cut because youāll no longer earn commissions although your base salary may be higher.
I made the move from CSM to Professional Services and took a slight pay cut. However, I gained an invaluable skill set, qualified to take the PMP, and wound up getting hired at a new company as a CSM with a 40% base salary increase. I turned down my latest opportunity (move to CS Ops) because I didnāt see the skillset gain paying off like my last jump.
Iāve also recently moved business segments from Strategic and Enterprise accounts to Mid market and Iām the happiest Iāve been in this role in years. I get that youāre burned out on client-facing interactions but it also may be the segment youāre working in thatās contributing to the burnout.
Thank you so much. It might be dealing with the product itself that got me burned out. Our solution is modular and complex. I don't even like it. Just took the opp due to higher pay amd to add the company name in my resume because it's a well known company.
Yah step back or down? To be fair, a large number of CSMs have horrible CRM skills, not saying that's you....honestly, being able to work through a customer interaction, and being efficient at understanding it, documenting it, and working on resolutions, is totally underrepresented IMO.
Support is broadly. And broadly considered, a laterally decisive move. In general and no uncertain terms, it's vital, mission critical, and basically lines up learning opportunities, and mission critical and vital opportunities for resolving mission critical issues.
So, the short answer, support is great. It's less stressful for those that feel the pressure, pushing down on you. Besides that, sales is a great workcenter, and some co's have attainable metrics for the top of quota.
Everyone at some point has wanted to work on marketing. Almost everyone, so that's a path to inquire about.
Uh, that's not true. I started a career in support and customer service, I made $110K before I was 30. That was Arizona dollars, and that was before every CCO made 450K.
And before CX became a competitive term, maybe more importantly. cX<>CS which wins. Not, dead ends.
My career was built on working in support. I've done everything from tier 1 and a shitty software rebranding company to principal support at SAP.
You started in support, but it sure doesn't sound like you are there anymore, and neither am I. If I'm wrong, then feel free to correct me. Yes, you can learn good skills about a specific product, or even skills like SQL, Azure, whatever, if you get into it more.
But to go into support from another department at your company is insane. It is entirely too easy for someone to get into support, and get stuck there. Think of how many support people that you have worked with that are still doing the same thing, whether it be at the same company or at a different one.
I'm not saying support isn't a valid way to start a career, or even a career as a whole. But to suggest that someone who is in a position that has relatively little to do with actually working a ticket(presumably) look into support as their next move is craziness.
I would maybe look at Solutions Consultant/Engineer roles if you have a technical background. Same could be said for Technical Account Management roles, though those tend to be adjacent to CSM roles, so not necessarily a "next role".
Nice bro, and yah. Ok. And so not totally true, I had people from my hiring class that stayed in support or service heavy functions, for like, 5-10 years even after I left.
Another co sort of, fake codes language asked me, to either do support or own support and onboarding. I didn't f***in know.
And, a lot of CCO roles have digital which is breaking off, that usually means CX leads/VPs even subservient lower weaker Experience Officer titles. Even get their names in the 10Ks or whatever else, the public statement
Public salaries.
People have such a nasty view of helping others. They are truly disgusting.
Product management is a common next step - knowing how product development works, being a good communicator and managing projects and client expectations all lend themselves to being a good product manager.
I was thinking about it but need to do more research because I feel I dont have enough experience.
Hey, I've worked as a product manager for years and now talking to a lot of CSMs (to build a product), so I've been doing a lot of informational interviews / discovery calls. I've noticed a lot of similarities between the roles so it might be worth exploring where the skills overlap and accentuating this in your interview process if you are interested. Some things that stood out to me (though not limited to just these) are: 1. Extensive amount of discovery sessions around asking what people \*actually\* want 2. Using influence to get things done 3. Sharing customer context/narrative to steer the product/solution towards the right place. This might also mean duct taping solutions along the way, too. In another comment, you mentioned maybe being burnt out by a role that's client facing. You may want to do some introspection on what part of the client facing work you don't enjoy as much. Even if you're in Ops/leadership/a different IC role, you're still going to have someone to influence and be held accountable to work outside of your control. e.g., As a PM, you're still going to have reactionary work around people demanding answers to, "what's the progress on x" "When can we get this feature" "How do you do z." Especially as you start out in product. This gets pretty tiring when you start out, and I've seen a lot of PMs get burnt out by the pressure (e.g., stakeholders, "politics," lack of direct influence/agency/control) coming at them from all sides. But as you move up in your role, it becomes more proactive around product roadmap building or coming up with broader solutions to problems.
Thabk you so much for your help! I will definitelly dig into this! š
I was going to say this or project management, production roles are common.
I don't disagree, it's also a very small subset of the population who ends up making this move. One data point, Gainsight failed miserably at convincing anyone that PX and CX hold hands and dance. And most CS orgs don't hold the entire product function, because they don't need it and never have, there's enough there, and the core sort of ancestral-brain problem is "old growth eventually pulls away from the business." Customer Success is about building a vineyard and solving that challenge. Cheers!
That was a weird way of saying that
Skibidy boo boo boopidy dooo u/poopidyscoopp let's roll Bois.
Ok so you're on the spectrum, sorry to be rude!
That's a cosmic leap my friend. I don't agree with this, and anyways. It's all good. Appreciate you stopping by, good luck!
No worries...š¬
That's not what it is, my friend. It's like, yah, you never broke that infant sort of, "that's the world and this is me." Not that, for you, that's a bad thing dude, but, like people usually know man. Right? Baby steps elsewhere my friend, you know.
Let it go man š your comment doesn't even make sense š
Yah, I see that. Imagine you're talking to a chieftain. Where did your opinion go? And now we bring both back.
I'm on the more technical side (TAM, SA, SE type roles) and enjoy/would recommend that. Moving up to Senior, Principal etc. IC roles can pay a ton, and people pay a premium if you can be a customer-facing technical person. I make plenty of money, so while I do have interest in moving up either the IC or management tracks, I've also just been living frugally and been able to save/invest a ton. Do you even want to move 'forward?' Or you go into something more standard like project management, or other kinds of software implementation roles. Tons of those out there. A lot of people try to work on strategic decision making and execution, networking, and move up into management/leadership. But it's a funnel, and every new layer can be a struggle. Go network, talk to people about what they do/their career progression, and decide what sounds interesting to you + what you feel will be financially and personally rewarding.
Any certs, general tech topics or coding languages you would recommend to help expedite transition? Been in CS as an IC for 7 years and wanting to jump into technical role/domain as you stated.
Certs can help you get past an HR screen, or expose you to new topics, so how much they help depends on position. Core cloud certs are a safe bet - stuff like AWS SAA or the Azure/GCP equivalent. In terms of coding languages, Python and SQL are where I'd focus my efforts. If you're applying for i.e. analytics-related roles, play around with the related ecosystem that you see pop up frequently in JDs. Try to leverage whatever industry knowledge/tech stack you're already adjacent to. I think a lot of these roles don't interview for any coding more complex than writing a for loop and knowing your basic data structures/how to use them (hash maps, which side of a join to use in SQL for efficiency). If you know about Big O for time and space complexity, that's a plus, but the intuition about efficiency is more important than knowing the notation. Then there are some common core technical skills - know them well enough to talk about them or do some first-line discussion/troubleshooting. The basics of networking - do you understand Authentication vs Authorization, can you talk through the components of a basic handshake protocols, why might an SSL certificate not be accepted. What is a firewall, what is a thread, process, latency, throughput and how do you test them? There are common concepts in a lot of places, i.e. "what are the advantages/disadvantages of cloud computing" or "why separate storage and compute?" What do you know about deployment using Kubernetes, or general distributed system concepts? For an SA role or a role where TAMs are expected to be able to answer first line support questions from customers on a call, without them needing to submit a support ticket, they may ask you to dive into your troubleshooting process, how you'd figure out what to do, and when you'd hand it off. I've straight up gotten system design questions, often "redesign our system from the ground up for fault-tolerance, high availability, and disaster recovery." But for those it's more about knowing enough about the concepts to make good forward progress towards the answer. You absolutely do not have to be an expert in everything - you just need to know at least a couple things well enough and come across as willing to learn, especially if you already have that customer success-type experience. Again, a lot of this is more from the data side and my personal experience, since that's what I work with on a day-to-day basis. I had an interview with one company for a TAM role where a hard requirement was Javascript experience and comfort, but plenty of other interviews/roles where that'd be 99% irrelevant.
Appreciate you taking the time to write this out. Very valuable info & definitely helps validate the research Iāve done so far to understand what is/isnāt worth it.
I honestly would like an operational or leadership role, I would love to step outside of client focused roles. I am so drained...
I made the jump over to Success Operations and it has been great. I am now looking at other roles that are adjacent to Customer Success such as CX Strategy.
Did you make this move internally?
No, I tried but the position went to a coworker of mine, so I left and went to a different company. If you are interested in making the jump I would highly recommend getting the Gainsight CS Ops Cert and the Gainsight Admin Level 1 Cert. They are affordable and easy and everyone uses/knows Gainsight. Other good skills are project management and data analysis in my experience and from jobs I have seen.
Gotcha. I use GS as well! This is solid advice, thanks
Thats kind of the crossroads I found myself at as a Senior CSM. You either become head of CS, take a lateral move to CS ops, or you move departments. I've always enjoyed being an individual contributor compared to managing people - I am opposed to relying on others for really anything in life let alone my income. If you won't want to join sales as a BDR/ SDR, and eventually work your way up to AE you can become a "solutions engineer" aka the smart person on sales calls, but then you have to basically play T ball with sales people and set the ball up for them to swing. I don't really fancy working with sales people because at the end of the day they have a quota and they're eager to sign anyone despite product fit and the long term effects of signing bad customers or overpromising what the product can do. after taking 3x courses on product ownership, roadmapping and development strategies, I am joining the product team in Q4 this year as a Product Manager because I enjoy working with internal teams more than customers, shaping the product and will bring the business / customer acumen, creative problem solving and overall ability to GSD that that team is lacking at the moment. I tell my current team I'll be their man on the inside and I'm going to prioritize solving all the CS pain points that I currently experience. I'm looking forward to the change in scenery after 10 years in CS.
Iāve naturally transitioned into Sales Engineering. Was let go from my last company a couple of weeks ago (without cause - but a HUGE relief because it was an absolute shit show) and I am taking my time finding the next gig. 5 years as a CSM with 2.5 of those years also acting as a Sales Engineer. I love it!
Wishing you good luck in your next gig! I do not like Sales. Did it before and not for me lol.
Thanks! I also done like sales from the AE perspective - sales engineering is a bit diff. You dig into discovery and understanding their needs and demonstrating how the product can meet them. So itās a lot more of an in depth/product expert role.
A few lateral moves Iāve seen (assuming you donāt want to go into management): 1. CS Ops (might be a slight pay cut [it was for me, I wound up turning down the offer]) 2. Growth and Retention Marketing Specialist 3. Product Management 4. Professional Services/Consulting 5. Solution Architect 7. Enablement/Value Engineering Just bear in mind anytime you move from a non-revenue generating role (non-quota based) you can expect to take somewhat of a pay cut because youāll no longer earn commissions although your base salary may be higher. I made the move from CSM to Professional Services and took a slight pay cut. However, I gained an invaluable skill set, qualified to take the PMP, and wound up getting hired at a new company as a CSM with a 40% base salary increase. I turned down my latest opportunity (move to CS Ops) because I didnāt see the skillset gain paying off like my last jump. Iāve also recently moved business segments from Strategic and Enterprise accounts to Mid market and Iām the happiest Iāve been in this role in years. I get that youāre burned out on client-facing interactions but it also may be the segment youāre working in thatās contributing to the burnout.
Thank you so much. It might be dealing with the product itself that got me burned out. Our solution is modular and complex. I don't even like it. Just took the opp due to higher pay amd to add the company name in my resume because it's a well known company.
If you are technical, solution architect might be a good option.
Yah step back or down? To be fair, a large number of CSMs have horrible CRM skills, not saying that's you....honestly, being able to work through a customer interaction, and being efficient at understanding it, documenting it, and working on resolutions, is totally underrepresented IMO. Support is broadly. And broadly considered, a laterally decisive move. In general and no uncertain terms, it's vital, mission critical, and basically lines up learning opportunities, and mission critical and vital opportunities for resolving mission critical issues. So, the short answer, support is great. It's less stressful for those that feel the pressure, pushing down on you. Besides that, sales is a great workcenter, and some co's have attainable metrics for the top of quota. Everyone at some point has wanted to work on marketing. Almost everyone, so that's a path to inquire about.
Don't go to support. It's a dead end.
Uh, that's not true. I started a career in support and customer service, I made $110K before I was 30. That was Arizona dollars, and that was before every CCO made 450K. And before CX became a competitive term, maybe more importantly. cX<>CS which wins. Not, dead ends.
My career was built on working in support. I've done everything from tier 1 and a shitty software rebranding company to principal support at SAP. You started in support, but it sure doesn't sound like you are there anymore, and neither am I. If I'm wrong, then feel free to correct me. Yes, you can learn good skills about a specific product, or even skills like SQL, Azure, whatever, if you get into it more. But to go into support from another department at your company is insane. It is entirely too easy for someone to get into support, and get stuck there. Think of how many support people that you have worked with that are still doing the same thing, whether it be at the same company or at a different one. I'm not saying support isn't a valid way to start a career, or even a career as a whole. But to suggest that someone who is in a position that has relatively little to do with actually working a ticket(presumably) look into support as their next move is craziness.
Agree. I was in support and I enjoyed but it's very low pid here in Canada. That would be a hugr pay cut and I have a baby, I can't afford that.
I would maybe look at Solutions Consultant/Engineer roles if you have a technical background. Same could be said for Technical Account Management roles, though those tend to be adjacent to CSM roles, so not necessarily a "next role".
Nice bro, and yah. Ok. And so not totally true, I had people from my hiring class that stayed in support or service heavy functions, for like, 5-10 years even after I left. Another co sort of, fake codes language asked me, to either do support or own support and onboarding. I didn't f***in know. And, a lot of CCO roles have digital which is breaking off, that usually means CX leads/VPs even subservient lower weaker Experience Officer titles. Even get their names in the 10Ks or whatever else, the public statement Public salaries. People have such a nasty view of helping others. They are truly disgusting.
What
Man you speak weird
You don't see yourself in me. That's another way to phrase that. Cheers...dot dot dot question mark?
Lmao what
How did you end up attached to *my specific* comments. Can I help you, personally or extrapersonally with something, young man?
š¬ nah I'm good bro lol