Building a long and meaningful career | Nikhyl Singhal (Meta, Google)

1. Develop Post-Achievement North Star

Proactively define a new “North Star” for your career and life after achieving your initial major goals, to maintain motivation, avoid sadness, and prevent unhealthy habits in your long career.

2. Plan Your “Act 3” Career

Actively plan for what comes after achieving your current career North Star, considering your career could span 60+ years, to ensure continuous motivation and avoid feeling lost or creating unnecessary conflict.

3. Identify Superpower Shadows

Recognize that your greatest strengths (superpowers) can create blind spots or “shadows” that become development areas as you advance; actively seek to understand how your strengths might be hindering your growth at a higher level.

4. Listen to Contradictory Feedback

Pay close attention to feedback that contradicts your self-perception of a strength, especially from trusted sources, as these “discarded” comments often reveal critical development areas stemming from your superpowers.

5. Adopt Long-Term Career View

Work backwards from your desired end-state, considering the job after the next, rather than making short-term decisions based on immediate frustrations like a bad boss, to ensure true career progression.

6. Avoid “Ex-Growth” Companies

Avoid joining or staying at companies with high valuations (hundreds of millions+) that are still searching for product-market fit, as they pose significant career and equity risks.

7. Shape Your Career Narrative

Consistently reflect on and articulate the “I” story of your current role—the problems you solved, skills you built, and headwinds you overcame—to ensure it’s compelling and meaningful for your future “skip” jobs.

8. Specialize Early as PM

In your early PM career, aim to become world-class in one specific area of product ambiguity, such as crafting, market understanding, organizational navigation, domain expertise, team leadership, or growth.

9. Embrace IC Career Path

Embrace the Individual Contributor (IC) path as a valuable career option, especially for builders, to achieve deep specialization and mastery in specific product ambiguities, which can be more impactful than early management roles.

10. Master Pulling Feedback

Actively seek “ground truth” feedback from diverse sources (peers, those who see you often/rarely), listen without justifying, and create a safe environment to encourage honest input beyond formal channels.

11. Join Authentic Community

Actively seek out and join professional communities, even outside your company, to find safety, engage in authentic conversations, share best practices, and feel less alone in your career challenges.

12. Share Steering Wheel as Manager

As a manager, adopt a “sidecar” mentality, sharing responsibility and providing counsel rather than fully taking control or completely letting go, to empower your team members.

13. Earn Right to Manage

As a new manager, earn the right to manage by asking your team members how you can help and waiting to be “invited in” to provide support, rather than assuming immediate authority.

14. Promotions Serve Long-Term Career

Understand that promotions are a company’s system for advancement, but your career should be guided by a longer-term vision, with promotions serving as a means to achieve that broader goal.

15. Seek Promotion Advocates

If you are not getting promoted, assess if you have an advocate who sees your potential; if not, consider changing projects, managers, or even companies to find an environment where your “magic” is recognized.

16. Address Development Areas

If you are not getting promoted, critically assess if there’s a substantive development area you’re overlooking or unwilling to change, even if your manager struggles to articulate it clearly.

17. Be Patient for Leadership

Practice patience when seeking leadership promotions, as these roles require developing subtle soft skills and their impact often lags, making rapid advancement less common than in earlier career stages.

18. Acknowledge Feedback Publicly

As a manager, publicly acknowledge and credit individuals for providing valuable feedback in team settings, as this encourages others to offer their insights and creates a culture of open communication.

19. Repeat Feedback for Trust

When receiving feedback, repeat it back to the giver in your own words, demonstrating understanding and valuing their input, which encourages them to provide more honest and deeper feedback.

20. Treat Meetings as a Product

Design and iterate on your team’s “meeting operating system” like a product, with quarterly versions and feedback cycles, to ensure effective communication, delegation, and decision-making, especially in scaled organizations.

21. Diversify Product Experiences

Seek diverse experiences across different product stages (pre-PMF, growth, scale) and problem types (consumer, B2B, internal/external) to become a more versatile and effective builder.

22. Focus on “Giving” in Act 3

Once initial career goals are met, consider shifting your focus to “giving” through content, volunteering, or mission-based companies, as this can be a more fulfilling and empowering path for the later stages of your career.

23. Seek Mentorship in Dilemmas

Actively seek mentorship during significant career dilemmas, such as job transitions or workplace challenges, as these “forks in the road” are when guidance is most impactful.

24. Question Conventional Wisdom

Regularly challenge widely accepted beliefs or “conventional wisdom” in your field, as this critical thinking can reveal inaccuracies and foster genuine, innovative perspectives.

25. Read “Crossing the Chasm”

Read “Crossing the Chasm” by Jeffrey Moore to learn about creating a beachhead and effectively launching your first product, a key aspect of product management often overlooked.

26. Listen to “Leadership & Self-Deception”

Listen to the “Leadership and Self-Deception” audio story to gain insights into overcoming personal walls, processing feedback, and breaking free from limiting mindsets.

27. Observe Mature Product Innovation

Observe products that innovate in mature categories, like the Arc browser, as they demonstrate that opportunities for improvement and user delight exist even in established spaces.

28. Promotion May Not Be Possible

Recognize that sometimes a promotion isn’t possible because the next-level role simply doesn’t exist within the company, especially during periods of layoffs or restructuring.