By Damien Peters
Damien Peters is an Adjunct Professor of Product Management at the University of Maryland and Managing Partner of WNCP AI (wncp.ai). WNCP AI helps product teams and startups use AI to solve real problems and unlock growth and move faster. Damien was an early product manager at Meta (Facebook) working on machine learning products, was CPO at Spanish startup Camillion, founded Wealth Noir in 2017, later acquired in 2022, and served as an EIR at Citi Ventures. He started his product career at gaming startups Zynga and TinyCo, after years of software engineering. He holds an MBA from M.I.T. and dual degrees in Computer Science and Economics from the University of Maryland.
Listen to the accompanying AI generated podcast, with tips and tricks on Navigating the Layoff Era
I want to start with a bit of a personal story—my layoff story. Back in 2013, well before Meta was even called Meta, I worked at a startup called TinyCo. Right after grad school, I turned down my return offer from an internship because I wanted the experience of working at a small, scrappy 150-person startup. My focus was on stock options, and I was eager to get to work.
The CEO would leave the office around 11 p.m. every night, and most of the PMs stayed late as well. I barely saw my wife—I’d catch a glimpse of her in the morning as she woke up while I was still sleeping in, recovering before heading to work later than her.
Until five days before my one-year mark. Both my one-year anniversary and my 30th birthday were approaching at the same time. I had been out celebrating, popping bottles at the club, and decided to organize an outing for my coworkers to mark the occasion—both my birthday and their own one-year anniversaries at the company. The one-year mark is significant because it’s when your first equity grant vests, officially becoming yours. But just five days before both of these milestones, I was laid off.
The company had a down round, raising capital at a lower valuation, and the layoffs even made it to TechCrunch. I didn’t see it coming. That morning, I went out for lunch, unaware of what was unfolding. When it happened, it blindsided me.
Luckily, everything worked out. That layoff led me to Facebook—an opportunity I wouldn’t have pursued otherwise. I wasn’t passionate about gaming at the time, so I was already considering a move. It also gave me a chance to do product management consulting, which has since become a cornerstone of my career. People often say layoffs can be a blessing in disguise, and in my case, it truly was. In just two years, I had more than tripled my total compensation. TinyCo was my first six-figure role, and seeing how far I had come was incredible.
Quick note—when I say PM, I mean Product Management, not project management If you prefer, you can use PJM for Project Management, but when I say PM, I’m referring to product management.
Product Management applies to people at different career stages and offers insights for anyone in tech or industries facing disruption. While many of these ideas are useful to a broad audience, the focus here is on Product Managers.
Product managers represent the user and lead a product team. These teams typically own specific features or products, such as the Facebook Like button, Messages, Events, or Google Search. They are cross-disciplinary, usually including engineering, design, and other functions.
As a PM, you don’t have direct authority over the team, but you are responsible for defining the vision, aligning stakeholders, and ensuring execution happens in the right order.
Many product managers work in software and technology, but this isn’t a requirement. There are plenty of hardware and non-technical product roles as well.
One key point to keep in mind as you navigate your career: product managers are not required. Unlike engineers, designers, or manufacturing teams—who are essential to building a product—a PM’s role is additive. You don’t need a PM to ship something, but a good PM acts as a force multiplier, making everything run smoother and better. Your job as a PM is to serve the team, align efforts, and elevate outcomes. The goal isn’t just to contribute—it’s to make the entire team more effective because of your presence. That’s what defines a great PM.
I’ve been a product manager for over a decade. My first experience was in 2011 as an intern, but I really started in 2012. Looking back, I see three distinct phases in product management’s evolution.
Back then, product management wasn’t as widely known. My mom didn’t understand what I did, and neither did many of my friends. The role existed, but it wasn’t mainstream. This was also when big tech—what we now call FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google)—was on the rise. High salaries, extravagant perks, business-class travel, and lavish off-sites were common. As an intern at Zynga, they even flew me and my girlfriend (now wife) to Vegas for an off-site.
At the time, there were no PM books, no influencers, no YouTube tutorials, and no boot camps. Most people stumbled into the role, often through business school, as I did.
This was the golden era—big salaries, massive bonuses, and an explosion of interest in product management. If you interned at Facebook and returned full-time, you could expect a $100K signing bonus, and salaries in the $200K–$300K range were common.
This was also when product management became more structured. Books were published, boot camps launched, and more professionals pivoted into PM from other industries. Many of my business school peers either entered tech or became product managers.
Now, we’re in what I call the layoff era. It’s a temporary phase, but part of the market’s natural maturation. The reality is, companies can’t sustain endless $100K signing bonuses and inflated salaries forever. Tech hiring has tightened, and layoffs have reshaped the industry, but this is a cycle. Product management is evolving, and while things may not return to the excess of the 2010s, opportunities will continue to exist for those who adapt.
Back in the boom times, demand for product managers was sky-high, and so was compensation. The day I got laid off, I already had an interview scheduled. In fact, a Facebook recruiter had reached out before I was even laid off.
Title growth was rapid—three years in, and you could be a director. Compensation reflected that. Uber, for example, was offering junior Facebook PMs $1.2M to $2.1M in stock and equity just to switch over. Of course, as a private company, that equity wasn’t guaranteed, but the numbers were staggering. At the time, layoffs only seemed to happen if a company went under or had a down round.
This environment was unique to tech, especially in the Bay Area and New York. When I later interviewed at Capital One in D.C., the hiring manager was shocked at the compensation I was making at my age. Outside of tech, salaries, expectations, and skill sets were vastly different.
Back then, product management was still evolving. There were no standardized job titles—Apple called them Product Marketing Managers, Microsoft had Program Managers, and every company had its own version of the role. There were no LinkedIn Learning courses, PM boot camps, or master’s degrees for product management. If you had any experience or even just an interest in switching, it was a great time to break in.
The product management landscape has changed. It’s not bad—but it’s not what it used to be. Since 2022, the tech job market has cooled rapidly, and we’ve entered what I call the layoff era. Here’s what’s happening:
Junior roles have practically disappeared. Job postings demand extensive experience, and highly qualified candidates—ex-Google, ex-Uber PMs who network with top tech executives—are now applying for the same positions. With so many layoffs across major companies, the market is flooded with experienced PMs, making competition fierce.
Product management is no longer exclusive to tech. It’s expanding into banking, government, and even the military. I met a former Army product manager who transitioned into the private sector, highlighting how much the role has diversified. The demand for PMs is still high, but there are now far more PMs in the market—including a surge of fresh talent.
That said, experienced PMs (10+ years in the field) still have an edge. Since the profession wasn’t as established a decade ago, fewer long-time veterans exist, making them stand out.
AI is reshaping product management. Companies are optimizing roles, especially at the middle-management level. With AI tools, managers can oversee more people, reducing the need for as many middle layers. Additionally, direct skills in individual contributor (IC) roles are more valued than before.
Beyond that, companies want PMs who can leverage AI. If you’re afraid of tools like ChatGPT or aren’t using AI to optimize workflows—whether it’s writing PRDs, analyzing data, or automating processes—you’re already falling behind.
When COVID hit, big tech thrived. Suddenly, every company embraced remote work, making it easier than ever to land remote roles. I was in Spain at the time, and you could work from practically anywhere.
Consumer behavior shifted overnight—everyone was online, shopping on Amazon, streaming content, and engaging with social media like never before. This meant explosive growth for tech companies:
With money pouring in, tech companies hired aggressively, inflated salaries, and burned cash without hesitation.
Everything changed in 2022, marking the beginning of the layoff era. Two key figures set the tone: Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.
Meta announced 11,000 layoffs—about 13% of its workforce. In tech, this was unheard of. Layoffs were once seen as a last resort. Companies would rather pay employees not to work than risk them joining a competitor. (If you’ve seen Silicon Valley, that "rest and vest" culture was very real).
Suddenly, that mindset flipped. Major companies were cutting employees instead of hoarding talent.
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he slashed 40% of the workforce almost overnight. The assumption was that such deep cuts would cripple the platform. Reliability engineers warned that Twitter would break. But it didn’t.
Behind the scenes, billionaires and CEOs were watching. The whispers in private Signal groups were clear: If Twitter can survive this, why are we keeping so many employees?
By 2023, layoffs hit their peak. More than a quarter of a million tech workers lost their jobs (source: layoffs.fyi). What was once unthinkable became routine.
Now, companies like Meta and Microsoft have moved beyond cost-cutting layoffs to performance-based layoffs. Instead of cutting jobs due to economic uncertainty, they’re actively removing low performers—a major cultural shift for the tech industry.
What Defines the Layoff Era?
This is why we’re in the layoff era. The mindset has shifted, and the industry is adjusting to a new normal.
Competition in tech, especially in product management, has intensified. The industry saw a massive influx of people, many drawn in by YouTube influencers claiming that anyone could become a PM and make $500K with no prior experience. That promise brought in thousands of new entrants, many of whom now have one to five years of experience and may have been affected by layoffs. As a result, competition for roles has skyrocketed. While tech unemployment remains relatively low, landing a top job is significantly harder than before.
The generalist approach no longer works the way it once did. Product managers used to be valued for being jack-of-all-trades, but hiring has shifted toward domain expertise and specialized skill sets. Companies want PMs with deep experience in a specific field rather than broad but shallow knowledge. If you’re already a PM, leveraging your industry background—whether in finance, pharma, health tech, or ed tech—can help position you more competitively in the job market.
AI has emerged as a major factor in hiring trends. It remains one of the few areas with more demand than supply, making it a strong differentiator. Those willing to put in the effort to develop AI-related skills can stand out in a crowded job market. Despite the industry-wide obsession with AI, many professionals have yet to fully engage with it. A friend in the Bay Area estimated that only about 25% of tech workers are deeply focused on AI. This means there’s still an opportunity to get ahead by mastering AI tools and integrating them into your workflow.
Networking has become more critical than ever. Personal referrals now play a major role in securing jobs, and nearly everyone who has landed a new role quickly has done so through a direct connection. At the same time, online applications have become increasingly ineffective. AI-driven hiring tools have made it easier for candidates to apply but also for companies to filter out applications, making it harder to stand out. Online applications are still necessary, but they require twice the effort to yield results compared to previous years.