The Great Resignation in SaaS Product Management — How did I survive?

In September 2021 alone, the Department of Labor found that some 4.4 million workers, or 3% of the total workforce, quit their jobs… marking the highest number since the government started tracking the data. Behold, the Great Resignation! In 2021, things were absolutely insane with people leaving their Product Management jobs to see if the grass really IS greener on the other side.

I don’t have the insight to know all the reasons certain individuals chose to leave their roles at my company, but I am qualified to write about how I survived this event (and stayed where I was), and how I’m thriving. I have ridden the emotional rollercoaster, multiple times, through the last year due to this unfortunate event. While the Great Resignation caused some to panic and fear for their careers and others to seize different opportunities, I was able to observe the impact of this event on myself and on others and come to my own conclusions while forging a path forward for my own professional growth.

I did it through practiced patience, persistence, and emotional awareness.

Quick Context

Let me set the stage here. In 2021, ALL of our product leadership left the company, even the CPO. I’m not joking — every. single. product. leader. left the company, with the exception of the individual contributing PMs. I was hired in August 2020 by a product director who left the company a month later. Before the end of 2021, my direct report and the VP of product both left the company. We had a product director start in 2021 and within three months they were gone. On top of that, many long-tenured individual contributing PMs left the company. These were PMs that I latched onto for a solid example of product management culture, too. Needless to say, all of us who remained were very confused and anxious.

Please be Patient 🙏

I noticed that these product leaders leaving the company started to take a toll on our newly-hired CTO With the CPO leaving all product responsibility was placed on him. First of all, I really like our CTO. He’s a normal human being who makes normal, human mistakes. He’ll be the first one to admit that. His first move as our new CTO was about bringing efficiency and speed-to-market tactics to the company on an unprecedented scale. While I agreed with his direction, his methods were flawed. He would be the first to admit that, too. This is why I have enormous respect for him. To make matters worse, a lot of the attrition and turnover from our product org seemed to be attributed to this new CTO’s methods and vision for the company.

I could tell that he was struggling to maintain talent. I spoke to him about the number of product people that were leaving, and I knew that he would pitch for me to stay. I genuinely wanted to hear what his plan was for retaining talent for the rest of the year as well as bringing in new leadership. What really struck me, though, were the three words that he said to me: “Please be patient”. I realized that he understood that my concern was not necessarily about the pay or benefits at my company vs. others, but the direction and consequences that our company as a whole would have to endure as a result of the Great Resignation.

When I realized that he understood my true concern, it was a matter of trusting my leadership team. I’m glad to say that I did my best to be patient, and it has paid off in spades. Leadership promised that they would do their all to bring in new, fresh leadership AND individual contributors, and they have been delivering! So, what’s the point of “patience” here? One thing I want to make very clear: I’m not addressing an audience here whose main concern is that they’re not being fairly compensated or they don’t have enough say in the strategic direction of the company. This article is geared towards people who love their job, but are spooked because everyone is leaving. If this is you, please, be patient. Don’t panic just because others are leaving for seemingly better opportunities. The grass is NOT always greener. Remember — as product managers we are essentially getting paid for an education. You’d be surprised what you can learn on the other side if you wait it out.

Persistence through Pain 😤

Of course, along with Patience came one of my practices of patience: persistence. Just because leadership promised that help would come, that doesn’t mean that it arrived immediately. It took months before things started to turn around. So, how did persisting throughout the pain help me survive?

Well, for one, it gave me a thicker skin such that I was able to shed off the emotional toll of my closer coworkers leaving the company in order to focus more energy on the more important things: our customers and their problems & needs. When I realized that I was able to shed off the emotional weight by focusing on my work, it allowed me to free my emotions up to be there for my coworkers who were still at our company but struggling. A lot of these people cared deeply for the PMs that left, and that’s hard. There’s no way around it.

I found that due to the timing of my hiring, I didn’t have as much of an emotional bond with some of these product leaders, and thus I was in a unique position. I had a great opportunity before me: I could turn into a culture leader; a harbinger of culture, if you will. I figured that the only way we could rebuild what product culture really meant at Weave was to persist! Stay the course and let your personality shine as you continue to work on problems for customers. The earth may seem to stand still for your department, but it’s definitely not stopping for your customers. Our customers still need our help, and we need to be there for them. We have to persist and continue to help them; we can’t let the burden of the Great Resignation affect the customer’s experience with our product as much as we’re able to prevent it.

Emotional Awareness for the Crew 🤝

Of course, nobody wants to just turn into a robot with no feelings as they get used to the emotional toll of something as impactful and difficult as the Great Resignation. Indeed, one of my biggest concerns through this time was the fear that I would turn into a hollow shell of myself; I would never really recover and be able to be 100% again in my job. I was honestly worried I would resent my company and just have a victim mentality for as long as I was there. However, as I persisted in my role, I started to recognize instead that a ton of my value as an individual contributor revolves around my attitude and personality. I have always wanted to bring the best of myself to my job and have a positive attitude. I don’t always do it right, but not for lack of trying. I also strive to be there for my coworkers and turn them into my friends in a genuine way.

I realized that I could turn this unique trait into something that could benefit both myself and my remaining coworkers through this troubled time. Yeah, the job kind of sucked for a few months, but at least we’re all together and on the same team, right? We’re a team — I’m lucky to have a team at all! I tried to have (and spread) this kind of attitude and mindset as I navigated through the Great Resignation. I found that as I tried to be more positive in my actions and words, I was able to gain a greater awareness of the emotional state of my coworkers. How did this help?

It brought those who remained closer together, which has somewhat led to us becoming the next “pillars” of the product org for the newcomers. It’s honestly ironic really; having the original pillars of product culture at my company leave helped me understand what made them who they were. They were coworkers, turned to friends, who stuck together through hard challenges at the company for a really long time. We all recognize the struggles we face, and thus we are able to easily relate to each other. This has led to an increased desire to achieve alignment and “return to the basics” as we lead the charge of bringing in new contributors and leaders.

Above all, it has taught me to never suppress the pieces of myself as an individual that I know can help other individuals just like me in the same position.

Conclusion

The Great Resignation continues. I know that I can’t predict the outcome, but I can certainly control how I approach it. I’m going to stick to what I’ve found to be the most effective because it has really helped me and brought me closer to my coworkers. Things have definitely been getting better! We now have some serious talent in product leadership, and more than ever I want to be on the front lines of developing strategy and direction for our product’s ecosystem as a whole. It’s not perfect, but it’s improving, and that keeps me coming back.