I have been a generalist project manager for a few years and am now a product manager.
I am drawn to user research, data analysis, and figuring out the why hence I spent a year after getting laid off during the first wave of covid-19 in early 2020 to transition into product management as I felt like my interests + my cross-functional experience in tech would benefit me in a product management role.
Since becoming a PM, I have been more focused on execution than discovery and noticed that the role has weighed me down a lot and made me seriously think about my long-term goals as I am not exactly sure if a cross-functional role is a good fit for me anymore.
I chose project management right out of college (Bsc in Nutrition) as I needed a stable full-time job to apply for permanent residency and settle in Canada. I found I was able to leverage my organizational skills in the role so I stuck to it and used it to get into tech from consulting/analytics project management.
Lately, I have been feeling uncomfortable being in a role that brings the team together instead of specializing in a certain function ie be a designer, data scientist, or engineer who contributes their subject matter expertise to solve a problem.
Transitioning into a product adjacent role seems like the right step and I have been mapping out my interests and my dislikes to figure it out. I am trying to decide between a few roles; ie product engineer (building) or data scientist (discovery). I am finding it hard to create a clear roadmap for myself even though I lean towards discovery as a lot of the data scientist roles that I am seeing require a masters degree, which I am not too sure if I want to go back to school for and my savings aren't that high.
I am also currently taking some beginner coding courses to see if it sticks with me.
Would love to talk to anyone who has been in a similar position or would like to offer any advice.