Are you short changing your career by not managing people?

Nikhyl: Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Skip podcast, the podcast, helping you get ahead in your career.

I'm your host, Nikhyl Singhal and this episode is a little bit special for a couple of reasons. One is I've been taking a couple months off getting settled, transitioning things at home to a new house and getting settled at work as well.

This is also about a one year, anniversary from the time that I started the podcast. Actually, I was chatting with some friends about the concept and one thing led to another, and I recorded my first few episodes late in the year, last year in 2022, and now I just hit my one year and this is a episode 18.

So I'm really, really happy that, uh, I made it this far.

I know that, Chris Hutchins a friend of mine mentioned that, you know, you can succeed as a podcaster when you hit your episode 10 and, I've exceeded expectations. So I appreciate all of you that have, signaled how much the podcast means to you and certainly means a lot to me as well.

So, one of the things that I've been doing over this past year is experimenting with different formats. I started with this sort of conversations with others and realized that format, works, but not for me. I think when it comes to career coaching and counseling, it's very personal.

And a lot of the concepts and frameworks that I have are very much built on my own experience. And since I started to write those and speak about those directly in the summer. And that really helped, I think, get the word out around my coaching content and what I've been doing in these small one on one conversations.

And though that's gone well, one of the big pieces of feedback from all of you has been that these frameworks are good, but it's hard to sometimes see how they apply to your own personal situation. People want both the frameworks and the examples. And, you know, that's a very reasonable ask. It's hard to sort of translate something that's abstract into something that's a bit more detailed, but my challenge has been, you know, doing so with some amount of efficiency and making things tangible, but making them generalizable

is not a simple task. And so what I'm experimenting with starting in this episode is what I kind of coin as sort of live coaching for The Skip. And so what I've been doing is taking calls with people that have reached out to me. On LinkedIn, on Twitter, or even email. And they posed to me a pretty specific question or dilemma they're working through in their career.

And, you know, it's hard for me to get to all of those questions. But I realize that often the person that emails me on Tuesday is asking a similar question as the one who emails me next Tuesday. And so I thought, well, what would it be like to actually record one of these conversations and publish it? It would be interesting because I think I not only would use a framework in that conversation, but you would hear how people react and we'd be able to have a real coaching conversation.

And if we are lucky, maybe it generalizes into a problem that you're dealing with with yourself or someone that you know. And so this live coaching thing I've been working on over this past month and recorded a few conversations. And the way it works is. When someone reaches out to me, and I think that they have an interesting situation that might be applied to others, I record those discussions as coaching calls, and then we anonymize it.

So I want to make sure that people can publish the content, but that it's not personally identifiable. So they don't feel like they're revealing something that they're not comfortable with, or somehow impacts their employment or their employer. There's plenty of content out there that doesn't involve a specific employee or employer or product name that I think is going to be really applicable. And today we're going to try the first one and not only would I love to get feedback, but hopefully this will be a turn of this blend between these frameworks that I've been building and these specific examples, and maybe also a little bit of entertainment and interaction, which is what I really prefer

Okay. So this episode, I want to set some context. So I'll start by saying that, this individual is sort of what I would call a super IC. Very seasoned person who's able to solve very complicated technical problems for a large technology company.

And the question that they're asking is, am I short changing my career by staying in this army of one type role? How do recruiters? Look at someone who isn't managing someone And what should I be doing both within my own role? And how should I be thinking about future roles as I consider my career and the constraints of this company in the market which does tend to lean towards smaller teams, more hands on, more complex, directly owned projects.

Now, what I like about this question is that it's incredibly common. At Meta, this is a big topic of discussion around what's the career path for individual contributors and how do you remain hands on but still have career. I think it's a common conversation happening across industry, probably happening at your company and maybe even happening with yourself.

And so, because of its popularity, I thought it was a great one to start with.

Kind of a sneak preview for a lot of my advice is that I actually think that individual contribution being hands on is the future of the product management function, at least for the next set of years. As more and more employers are looking for people to build the products, and not as much to build the orgs that build the products and that correction actually leans in the favor of this caller, but knowing the exact phrases, how to frame the work, how to work through a discussion with a recruiter or your manager is an art.

And I hope that the examples that I use in this call can apply to you and actually shed some light as to why I think this is the future state of our function, but also

by hearing the specific phrases and framing that I use to explain the person's work, both to a recruiter or even to a manager, it helps gives you confidence if you're in this situation on how you can position yourself and hopefully build some optimism that I have for folks that are found in this situation.

So let's get to our caller, our super IC.

Guest: I've been in this situation now for the last two years where I am on this IC path and I actually had a team when I was at Microsoft, but when I moved here, I knew I was not going to have a team immediately and I was fine with it, so I've been on this IC path where I'm working as a builder.

I'm leading these complex projects across *beep* and they also have an IC path to the VP title. So I think it's fine from that point of view, but if I go and I interview somewhere outside, right? There's a company that's reaching out, they're reaching out, let's say they look at what I'm doing.

So it's not really visible to them that, or they don't really know because these are smaller companies that it's possible to have that kind of an impact. And that kind of influence across the company while being in an IC role.

So I'm effectively in a position where I have like dotted line PM leads, dotted line edge leads, you know, design, marketing, legal, biz dev, all of whom I'm working with to release a lot of products that you're seeing from *beep* going out into the market.

But going into these VP of product roles, when they ask about my team size and things like that, I feel like I'm embellishing the truth if I say my, my team size is X or Y, right?

Because I'm not, I don't really have that direct team. Um, there's a promise of all that, but I don't really have that.

I'm really trying to figure out how to frame what I'm doing. Like I know how to build an org. I know how to build a team. You know, I'm closely involved in the hiring and performance reviews of all the people who are, who are working on the projects with me, but I am, but I cannot really claim that I have a team size of X when I'm going and interviewing for a role that I think is the right next fit for me.

Nikhyl: It sounds like you had a management career in your prior role and you, you said that you have confidence that you can set up an org, manage people, but in the current role, you've been more focused on this very complex cross company set of initiatives, which is deeply hands on and heavily dotted line.

That's essentially what you're describing. My question was like, why did you end up in this situation though? I think it's a very positive one versus more traditional, you know, manage one of these big org team thing. Was it because that was what was more challenging, more connected to your skills, was it as constraints that the company had?

Guest: Yeah, I would say there were two things. The main reason I left Microsoft was because, I felt I had outgroomed the job and I was unable to find a group within the company that was moving fast enough, for what I wanted to do.

My current manager was a colleague of mine a long time back. So when he reached out, I don't know, this is a good opportunity. Let me just go talk to them. And when I heard what they had to do, it sounded like this was the right next role for what I wanted to do after this, like the idea behind what you have, like The Skip idea. Right. So what, like, what I really wanted to do was to move into, I would say an executive product role at a smaller company where I could leverage what I've learned over time.

And I looked at the, at what the opportunity I had here as a step towards that. And, uh, I would say. Everything is, everything else is actually great. If I just look at how much I have gained, how much I've been able to leverage what I knew before, like how quickly I have grown and opportunities I've gotten, it's all been great.

The only thing that I don't have is that, is that team.

Now that those conversations are starting up again, that I might get a team like next year. But irrespective of that, I'm kind of in a similar situation here now. Like I've delivered what I had to deliver over the past two years and all of those are bearing fruit now.

So I have to find new charter, uh, where I am. And I'm in the process of getting that now. I can either try to get that within the company. There are some pockets where I might be able to do that. Or I have these— there are people organically reaching out to me, uh, from places, which is exactly why I wanted to get into this role here, which I want to be able to go for, and I want to be able to ultimately, that's my goal that the next job after this was my goal.

So I want to be able to go for that versus, doing. Uh, I would say another iteration of what I've been doing here in the past two years. So those are the two main reasons. That's why I joined and that's why I'm thinking about now looking at opportunities outside.

Nikhyl: I have a couple of thoughts that I think will be helpful here. So I think one is that you have a path forward, perhaps a senior IC, VP track within the organization. The second is perhaps as the company starts to grow again, you know, being someone who's respected and who's been on some of the more strategic projects, You might be top of the list of folks that might get an opportunity to lead and manage, but ultimately your note was this was in service to something else.

And the question is when it comes to sort of head of product or leadership roles in the next company, perhaps smaller companies, the challenge that you face is people are like, well, you don't check the boxes when it comes to team size and team organization. And you can kind of say, well, I've influenced a relatively large team, but then when push comes to shove.

And they actually say, well, you know, tell me how many you actually managed and how many are reporting to you. You know, you have to be open and honest.

I think that what I would say is let's go through this, this stage of companies that you might be able to move to and how they'd react to your background.

I think that'll be helpful. And I think that it really comes down to a basic framework around there are two big ambiguities that we face when you're hiring someone in a leadership position. If I am talking to a CEO. You know, the first question I'm going to ask is, do you have a product ambiguity problem or a team ambiguity problem?

If you have a product ambiguity problem, it comes in two flavors. I'm trying to find product market fit. And so I need someone who can really understand the problem of the user, the product we've built, and the iterations to get from here to there. Second product ambiguity problem is, look, I've got a hit product and I need to expand.

My, uh, my, my suite of products, I need to move from a single threaded product to a multi threaded product. This is not, uh, uh, typically just a team problem. This is an expansion of what, what do I have that I can leverage into a new product? In both of these cases, your background is exceptional. And so what you would effectively say is companies that are really facing a product ambiguous problem are going to be a bit allergic to someone who's a manager of a manager who doesn't get hands on, who's not in the details, who doesn't work closely with the engineers.

The first question that that individual is going to ask is, what's the number of people I can hire? What's my budget? That person is too uh, abstract too high level to be able to have impact and frankly, in the market today, I would say two thirds to three quarters of the companies are struggling with their product problem.

They're trying to crack the code on how to twist the product. I have to be more effective or how do I get the second product? They're not excited about hiring someone to take the product management team from 15 to 50.

And I think that in that way. You have to be somewhat cautious as to the expectation of the company that you're interviewing for.

Now, the flip side is there are going to be companies that are looking for someone who has managed a large team because they believe the problem is a management problem. Well, what would that entail? Well, one is we need to go from 30 to 20. That is probably not a problem I would hire you for, because frankly, that is a very team and organizational problem.

It is less about the product complexity, the product ambiguity, the user is much more about how do I identify the people that will remain? What are the constraints around moving the budget? How do I then set up the org to be efficient in this new world. Now, perhaps you have that skill. I wouldn't know you well enough to say you could or couldn't do it, but by background, that isn't necessarily going to come out.

So now if you were to interview for a role like that, you would probably very openly say, look, I had built teams and organizations in the past, but what really compelled me in this sort of next phase in my most recent phase of my career was to work on a really complicated cross company set of initiatives that are top priority.

And so I sat down and I worked through that and I went from sort of start to middle. And I think my next role is to do that in a smaller setting. And yes, team is probably a small, scrappy team that I'd be able to build until we get to some level of scale in which case, then I'd be building that next skill set.

I don't believe that on day one, my job and my expectation, and frankly, my experience is going to be in managing a set of managers that hasn't been my experience. That isn't really what the market calls for. And rarely are companies in that state where that is the need.

But I do think that you want to remove those companies from your list.

Because those are just not going to be great fits for you.

So like as an example, you see a hot series B company and they come to you and say, look, we don't have product management installed at this company.

We, you know, are starting to see challenges where we have multiple engineering teams and they need. A little bit of process, but they need a lot more clarity as to what the prioritization is going to look like.

We also need a lot more of a technical product manager that can come in and understand the technology and then figure out what we don't build. That person needs to be in consultation with our sales team and our end user base. You can then say, well, let me walk you through the last few years of how I've done exactly that.

People are like, wow, you're a terrific candidate. Then they say, hey, by the way, what's the size of team you've managed? And it's like relatively small in my current company, mostly indirect past. I have done some management, but it hasn't been the focus of my skill. And they're like, well, that's good because we only need a couple of PMs at this stage.

So it's not a big, team build role at this stage. Right? So that's your prototype. Now the downside is that role is going to have mostly equity that is privately held. So your comp is not going to look like it does in a late stage public company in terms of liquidity. And so you'd have to be willing to take that risk.

The alternative is there are many companies right now who want the equivalent of you, but they're later stage. They are essentially, you know, let's say near public or recently public companies and they're sitting there and saying, look, we have this huge product management team. We've cut it down over the last year, so it's much smaller, but the challenge is none of the folks here have the skills that we need to work across the company.

Growth had all — growth hid all problems. And because growth hid all problems, we have multiple teams all building the same thing. We don't have accountability. We don't have a shared platform. We don't have a clear understanding of what customer we're building for. And frankly, we're not that efficient when it comes to functions like product marketing and, and how we think about technical product management, program management, and all this stuff.

Now you walk in and say, well, that's pretty much been my job in the last handful of years. I know how to get more out and much more consistency. And so they're like, would you be willing to do what you did for your last company, because you come in as a super IC. You know, be part of the leadership team, but really work across these projects because you're the only person in the company who's had that experience.

Everybody else has grown up here or has basically been a product of growth. And we're about half the size as we were before. And in that case, you can do very, very well. But the one that you want to avoid is, Hey, we need a number one person to come in and either expand the team or shrink the team. And the conversation is 50 percent about that and very little about the product you build.

And in that case, in some ways you're actually lucky. Because the fact that you don't have that skill avoids those types of roles, but it also makes you ineligible for the really hottest growth number one companies. But that might be expected just given the background that you face right now.

Guest: How do you suggest to look for companies that might or might not fit that role?

Would you say this? I just sort of just go out to all of these and then figure out and then take myself out or wherever I feel I'm a weaker candidate.

Nikhyl: The sense that I have is for just a moment, think about who hires recruiters and what stage of company are they in?

if you are a mid stage company or later stage, and you're looking to build out the leadership team, but not the number one role again in a budget constrained environment, recruiters rarely are employed for non number one roles.

Then where you end up seeing recruiters primarily spend their time where they get the retained dollars is on later stage team building roles, which is exactly why you're hitting the issue that you're seeing, because they're basically employed for the exact role that you're probably not a great fit for and frankly, what we just described as probably not the healthiest roles in our industry today.

And so it's a very unusual kind of situation where you're getting a sense. Well, the market feels like it's all about this. But if you actually think about it, the number of open roles is more tilted towards what you're qualified for. But the core of your question is, look, I'd probably find those to be the hardest to find.

Because they don't have this basically sales team that's running against it. So if you just said, well, I could just wait until recruiters reach out. You're probably going to get stuck. And that's probably how you're feeling the frustration you sit in today.

I think that the number one place to go for the series B is to actually go into the talent teams for the venture.

Recruiters, because they're desperately trying to find people like yourself. And in your example, you have some unusual domain experience. It's very, very valuable with your AI background. And so if you're essentially saying, look, I've worked in two late stage companies. I have some experience in doing messy, messy problems across the company that is in a very hot area, in this case, AI, and I understand the technology and I have that technical background.

What you want to do is go to the top 10 venture capitalists and you want to find ways into their talent teams who get paid to connect with people like you on their portfolio who don't have the budgets to go and actually hire recruiters. And so if you're a CEO and you just get raised money from one of these top venture firms.

The first thing you're going to need is you're going to say, hey, I need some help on some talent, but I don't have budget. And they're going to be like, well, let me see who's in our network, who could be helpful. And the partner that joins that board is going to say, well, we should, you know, hey, our talent team is here for you because obviously we want to make a good impression of value add that we provide.

And so in that case, these early stage investors have these talent teams want to network with you. You get the breadth of their portfolio, not the one position that happens to be recruited. And then you build a relationship, which can actually transcend this job search into multiple and maybe lay on the road, if you had some success, they may tap your shoulder and say, hey, you're ready for this next role. So, my advice, even though those teams have also been, been hit and they're smaller, is almost all the firms have this, uh, particularly in this area of AI and deep hands on talent. They're actually not as excited in keeping the list of big name manager teams because there's just not as many roles.

And frankly, when they hit that. They go hire a firm and then those talent teams are not as valuable.

Guest: The questions these recruiters were asking me were like, you know, they're asking me about my leadership principles and all that, which is fine.

They're asking question, what size is your team? But when I asked them, like, what is the state of the, of the product itself that needs to go out into the market? But then they tell me it's not ready, it has to be done. It's probably going to take some time, at least, it's going to take at least 18 months to build something meaningful, in general, let's say.

So on one side, it sounds like they need that help to really give structure and create a meaningful product out of the different pieces that the company has. On the other side, it also looks like they're looking for someone with essentially a team and org management skills that I cannot claim I have.

And that's when I kind of got a little frustrated because I was like, okay, I'm really, I fit everything that you want to do, but, uh, you are bringing up this one thing where

I don't really have a way to like, uh, counter it, uh, other than saying, given the opportunity, I can take care of it.

Nikhyl: Well I mean, I have a slightly different interpretation. I think that one interpretation is, look, these recruiters are going to go through for any of their leadership roles, this core question, which has been built for 10 years on team size. So there's a bias in the question that you're kind of going to get tripped up on.

But I think that my note is, just in the discussion that you had with me, I have some inkling that you have point of view on how you would go about solving this problem. You know, you and in fact, your last job probably prepared you quite effectively for that what you failed to do in that discussion with the recruiter, who obviously is not as in tune with the challenges and is not a product person. You failed to convince them that you knew how to solve the problem. You did not come across, like if I, for example, had this question and I didn't have this worry about team size, and if they said, hey, what's the, you know, this is the setup. And then this is now the question around what are you qualified to do?

I would say, well, here's how I'd approach the problem. These are the three things that we would need to understand. One is we need to understand the assets that we have. Two, we'd have to understand the customer base. And three, we'd have to understand how do you influence people when you're new, which frankly will be the biggest challenge in the job for you is you'd be new and you're trying to influence the organization through a product management structure that's a little nascent.

But team size wouldn't come up as a big challenge. You would say, look, I wouldn't hire a big team, much like my current job, because that wasn't the necessary to go solve it. It's an influence role. So the last thing I want to do is walk in and hire 10 PMs to go solve this problem. The really important thing is to leverage the 10 PMs across the organization, because they would know what are the different priorities and what are the trade offs. In this discussion, the person's going to be like, this guy's the guy we should move forward and my guess is that you did have it, but you were a little too passive. I mean, this is me projecting, but you're a little too passive on checking the boxes as opposed to saying, like, I've seen this problem before. Here's exactly how you would solve it. Here's the things I heard that makes sense to me.

Here's a few things that I heard that I think is actually going to be risky in the way that the role is being pitched to me. And here's a couple of things I'd worry about. This being the influence point that, hey, as a new person, this is a very influenced type role. I'm surprised you aren't looking for someone internally.

I'm surprised the skill doesn't exist already that you'd have to go outside and take the risk on that. But I would make it so obvious.

That this person knew that I could solve the problem that the team thing would be the last thing on people's mind. And you would say, yeah, I've managed teams in the past in the current role that's just not what I chose to do, because I was looking at a problem similar to the one that you're describing.

You see how I sold your asset, your, your, your skills and didn't end up hiding behind the team of two versus eight.

I think the reason why I'm being a little aggressive here is imagine the conversation with the traditional manager, the sort of so called director or VP who spent the last eight years servicing growth, managing and building teams.

How would they answer the question? They would answer the question, well, I built something really big in the past when we hired a bunch of folks and we ended up talking about these big organizations and I've been able to manage it through priorities and accountability.

And you'll basically say, yeah, that person is going to give a lot of hand wavy examples. They're not solving a similar kind of mashup, platform, talk to customer, look at the organization. It's a very rare skill. And so what you gain is trying to make sure that that individual looks quite foolish compared to the notes that you made.

Now you have to ask yourself, did I leave that person with that impression? Or I leave them and I'm a, maybe a lighter version of that individual. And I think you may have done the latter when in reality, you could have really crushed it because you're very much more qualified than the traditional, you know, executive.

Okay, just quick aside what I found in talking to this caller is that he had fairly substantive amount of anxiety about managing people because of past experiences. So as we were discussing things, I really wanted to dig in here because I think that was holding him back as much as how he frames the work that he's already doing. So let's listen in.

Guest: When I had a team, I was always worried about like their wellbeing. and I get the idea of, the team is like, a sports team, not like a family, but whenever I had to deliver a hard message to someone, it would weigh on me. Very deeply. And I found myself like really worried about that one person who I might have to like give a harder feedback.

I had to spend maybe extra time with them.

For example, there was one guy I had to let him go and. It, I, I, I really fought with my,, leadership team because I felt he was just the right person in the wrong place. And ultimately, yeah, he went to Meta and he found a good role and he is now fine there, but I wanted to also make sure I was spending more time with people who were, who were actually performing well. I wanted them to do even better because those are the people who are really assets. Right?

So I am personally okay to, let's say, continue in an IC kind of role, staying within the product domain. But what is not clear to me, if that's a sustainable long term path— working as a product manager.

Nikhyl: There's a few things there. There's one is, if I find the team building part less enjoyable than the, they'll call it the IC building part, is that a terminal state? Because certainly if I love the team building part, there's lots of great top roles that are huge organization build roles.

And then your, your second point is, you know, how, how is this industry shaping? Because in engine, even in design, we see this sort of path forward. What I would say is that, um, to a degree, things have shifted. That now, instead of using the word IC in management, I tend to use the word hands on and indirect.

And I think that there is far, far more opportunities to grow long term in an organization as more of a hands on leader and a hands on leader may have zero reports or it may have a small team, but increasingly but increasingly PMs who are spiked in their ability to build an influence. But are inexperienced for lack of a better term in managing organizations, or perhaps don't find that as compelling, will see a path forward, but there are very few roles.

So the challenge is that the market still requires you to have both.

The challenge that's also happening is those that are more org builders. I can easily take a call and I will probably in the next few weeks with someone who's the exact opposite of you. And that's the really scary one because they say, hey, I've been managing teams and I've had all these titles and success, and I'm struggling to find a new role.

And I keep hitting this issue where people ask me, well, what do I, what did I actually build directly? And I think those folks are also having to be forced to be hands on.

But the fact is leadership in product management does require you to have direct and indirect influence. And that can be through dotted line and organizational and influence, but ultimately.

The number one roles are going to require you to be a manager. And so I think that what I would say, even if we play out the, the, maybe the positive version, you get a job, you talk to an investor and they tell you about this great series B hot company and you join and that company starts to grow. The question that you'll be faced with is, do you want to stay in a hands on role or do you want to stay as a number one?

And get layered because, you know, you may be a victim of your own success. Now the product is actually working. And my observation is people that have a lot of anxiety around team challenges. It's like having anxiety about writing a product spec or doing an executive review, you know, you just need practice.

And you said the magic words, you struggled with managing someone out at Microsoft, and then they ended up doing actually fine at Meta. And so what you should then tell yourself is maybe this was the best thing for all parties. And the next time. You have the same challenge, you won't have so much anxiety, but it's practice.

But I don't think you should say, Oh, you know what, I think for the rest of my life I'll be able to just be an IC. I think that that opportunity to grow will be higher, but it'll still be a rare occurrence. I don't think it'll be the norm. And so I wouldn't close the door, but I wouldn't necessarily force yourself into it.

Okay, so hopefully you enjoyed today's Skip podcast and this format. In conclusion, my main takeaways or I see as I believe are very much in vogue these days. I think you need to ensure that you're solving an important problem for your company. And then when you're pitching yourself, explain the challenges and ambiguities you faced and how you overcame them.

During the interview, make sure you map then those skills and ambiguities to the problem that the company is facing. This framing will allow you to avoid the questions around how many people did you manage? But if you are asked about the team size, be very open, don't suggest that you've managed a large team when you haven't because you might end up in a role that's mostly an org building role, and that may not even be your best interest or skill but recognize that most of the senior executive roles in a company are org builder roles. So there is going to be fewer and fewer very senior, very high paying individual contribution roles in companies, which makes sense because you need your senior leadership team to be indirect, to be able to influence many, many people, and not just solve the hardest one or two problems that the company has to offer.

They are a multi threaded company with hundreds of problems and thousands, potentially of people. So they need someone who can scale in a different way. But that doesn't mean that's a great role for you or your final destination, or you're betraying your career. But if that is your destination, make sure you're not solely focused on being hands on without an eye towards that growth, that ability to manage that ability to change that direct influence to an indirect influence. But I think you have time and as the market starts to grow again, those roles will open up and they'll go to people that are really established as builders.

Who have shown credibility at solving a complex technical or product or organizational problem and then they'll give that individual a team and hopefully you'll grow with that organization and get to that final destination.

And last thing I would just say is that when I look at all the ambiguities that people have in the workplace and the different skills, managing people, though it's challenging, isn't actually harder tha n cracking the code on expanding a working product or finding product market fit or competing in a crowded market or managing a complex problem that spans multiple organizations with incompatible goals.

So don't be so shy that your lack of management experience is going to hold you back. Many, many people less skilled than you have succeeded as managers.

Okay, well, hopefully you've enjoyed today's episode. Like I said, please let me know if you're interested in coming on the show, send me a note either through LinkedIn or send me an email and let me know what your problem that you're trying to solve in your career is and maybe we can work together to skip ahead. Thanks, everyone.

Thanks for listening to The Skip. If today's episode resonated with you, please consider leaving a review or sharing it with the people, you know, who want more out of their career to get the latest content from The Skip, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you currently listen, you can also follow my newsletter on Substack.

Nikhyl: And if you have questions or feedback, particularly related to this new format, leave a comment or send me a note on LinkedIn or Twitter. I'll get back to you each one directly. As always, I'm Nikhyl and this has been The Skip.