It’s been a hot minute, Medium. It’s been a hot minute for many reasons. I’ll try to be brief.
As my probation with Royal Greenwich was coming to a close, I knew, deep down, that despite coaching and a lot of work, it wasn’t a good fit.
It’s always really hard to have honest conversations with yourself that you know will trigger the ‘YOU’RE SUCH A FAILURE’ gremlins. Handing my notice in involved facing up to a lot of things; I am not as flexible as I thought I was, my core values dictate much more about the happiness I feel from wok than I ever gave them credit for, I am basically obsessed with efficiency and effectiveness which can be a hinderance and that my best efforts can’t change who I am and what I want to ‘fit’.
I gave those things the space to be heard and then filed them away using logic and evidence rather than emotions. Greenwich taught me so much about myself and how I work which I am incredibly grateful for. It meant I could move onto a new role with clarity, confidence and real intention. I bade Royal Greenwich farewell in early 2022.
When pondering my next role, I did so with more thought that I ever have before. My top things were:
- I want to make a difference with the work I do.
- Challenge (but not too much). I wanted a sector that felt fresh but not totally unfamiliar. I wasn’t ready to take my bruised self too far into the unknown. Having been a LocalGov bod, I reasoned that central gov would fit that better than not for profit.
- Career opportunities. LocalGov doesn’t have a huge scope for sideways or upward moves within a technology team. Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely space for this, it’s just not all that abundant. I knew I wanted to move across into product ownership. Central gov is substantially more scaled up and has correspondingly larger number of opportunities available within the same environment.
- Personal interest. I did my central gov department research and narrowed it down to the department for work and pensions (DWP) and Ministry of Justice (MoJ). It came down to these 2 for reasons of reputation, interest and diversity of work. I knew I was already interested in MoJ and liked them as I had interviewed for them before. I’d never really had exposure to the ‘Justice’ side of things in any other role but my degree (Forensic Biology) had seen me go to courts, understand laws and all kinds of other things. Definitely an area of interest for me.
The DWP appealed because I had always been interested in how such crucial services for some of the most vulnerable people in the Country were delivered. I had a view and some exposure to this from the local gov perspective but getting the central view really appealed to me. - Availability. Here’s the clincher — who has the right job at the right time.
MoJ had a position I was interested open and DWP didn’t.
I started work as a senior delivery manager at the MoJ feeling empowered and open to opportunities. My first one was to get to grips with the Microsoft cloud offer (Azure) as part of a large transformation programme of work. I grabbed at this as my pervious work has been entirely in AWS and I adore infrastructure (I can’t explain why so don’t ask).
I was only a couple of months in before an opportunity came up that I had to take. The Azure team I was supporting as a delivery manager went out to recruit a Technical Product Manager. I ummed and ahhhed about applying for the role because I was so new to MoJ. Ultimately I decided that, of any product opportunity likely to come up, this was the kind of role I am most qualified and equipped to do so the timing didn’t matter. I applied and was successful after a nerve wracking interview. I officially took post on 1st July and, honestly, I am thriving.
I have not been this contented and motivated at work for a while and it is an AMAZING feeling. This is partly to do with the great people I get to work with but mostly because I am so much more comfortable with how I work now. I understand the benefits and pitfalls of my style better than I ever and feel well equipped to exploit or mitigate them. I also absolutely LOVE technical stuff. It is my happy place so to be able to work at both a technical and business level while having autonomy and authority (not afforded to DMs) in a role is an actual dream.
There are constant gremlins for me; I start every day talking my imposter syndrome down. I am greatly helped by my chats with Ian Ames. We both moved from DMing to PMing at about the same time and have been sound boarding worries and observations with each other every few weeks. My key concerns were originally around actually PMing rather than DMing — how do I turn me facilitator brain off and turn my product one on? How do I work with a DM as a PM?! What am I even doing?!?! It has evolved since then into discussing the complexities faced in a product world that have surprised us and taken us aback and how we’ve negotiated. I would recommend everyone gets an Ian.
So, yes. That’s why it’s been a hot minute since I put stuff on medium. I have been learning and growing.
