A Google AI product manager has a career advice: ‘Be a crab’

A Google AI product manager’s career advice is unexpectedly crustacean.

Marily Nika, who has worked in AI product roles for over a decade, said in an episode of “The Growth Podcast” by Aakash Gupta published Sunday that aspiring product managers should “be like crabs.”

“That means that you need to move adjacent to what you’ve been doing,” Nika said, adding that one’s past experience is a competitive advantage.

Nika shared the example of a student in her AI product management boot camp who worked in the hearing aid industry and felt stuck and closed off from the tech industry. The student believed he was in a “completely different domain” and didn’t see a clear path into product management, she said.

Nika encouraged him to look more closely at how his experience could translate. When they checked Apple’s careers site, they found an opening for a product manager working on AirPods — a role where expertise in hearing could be relevant.

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