Mastering Product Management: Isabel Scavetta’s Journey and Success Strategies
How to career switch into Product Management
If you’ve read our career pathway blog on becoming a Product Manager and are eager to venture into this thriving and dynamic field, you’re in for a treat! Pop open your notes app or grab a pen & paper, and get ready to discover how you can elevate your product management journey today!
Product is an exciting place to be for tech-curious visionaries
Isabel Scavetta is a product professional known for building technology products that customers love at fast-scaling startups in cyber, fintech, and AI. She has led the creation of high-performing tech teams that drive innovation in global digital payments, cybersecurity, AI/ML, and safety-critical industries.
Product is an exciting place to be for tech-curious visionaries, due to its high levels of autonomy and exploration. However, it can also be notoriously difficult to get started, and the career development path can often feel less defined than for similar disciplines.
By sharing Isabel’s journey into product, we can demystify some of the tangible steps you can take to accelerate your product career path. She’ll also share her top 5 tips for a career in product management!
Isabel’s journey into Product Management
As of 2024, I’m a multi-award-winning Product Manager with a deep love of the tech industry and its future. As one of the top 100 voices in the UK tech sector (TechWomen100), I’m an internationally recognised advocate for the future of emerging technology and advancing opportunities for underrepresented groups in the sector.
My tech journey – like thousands of women in the UK – started with Code First Girls. I had been curious about the tech industry for years, so began studying the CFG Introduction to Python course and built my first coding project. I loved the process of figuring out how technology can improve people’s lives.
I followed this interest as a Team and Product Lead on the Code First Girls Vodafone Diversity Hackathon, where my team were top 5 finalists for our product to improve inclusion in the workplace. This was when I realised that the product encompassed so many skills that energise me day-to-day – setting a clear vision, testing and validating assumptions, rapid design iteration and enabling people to do their best work. It also gave me hands-on experience in managing a team of talented people and owning a product from ideation to execution.
At this point, I realised that community and mentorship were the backbone of changing the future of technology. I started getting involved in the wider tech space, such as helping Microsoft design their tech upskilling community for women studying in the UK, coordinating partnerships for companies to share their educational resources with graduates affected by the pandemic, and returning to CFG as a Python instructor to teach 30 women how to code.
I also began my full-time product career, joining Rolls-Royce within their internal Data & AI innovation startup. The knowledge I had gained from learning about key issues in technology through my diverse Code First Girls and volunteering experiences was critical to my success in enabling international software development teams to innovate and deliver new products for safety-critical industries. Alongside this, as a CFG fellow, I supported CFG to improve their coding teaching practices and mentored 2 additional cohorts of Fellows to achieve their professional goals.
For me, startups offered the flexibility for my ambition to learn quickly and dive straight into the heart of tricky product problems. Over the years, I’ve specialised in B2B (Business-to-Business) SaaS (Software as a Service) product management across data & AI startups, behavioural science cybersecurity, and fintech startups. I like the scale and complexity that comes with operating at the B2B level, as well as the breadth of industry knowledge that you can develop.
Nowadays, the product combines my outgoing nature, curiosity, organisation and scepticism, as I cross-examine my reasoning and logic to make major business decisions. I’ve also learned how to make data-driven decisions and build strategies that deliver in high-ambiguity areas.
I’ve also continued to develop as a tech advocate, speaking on national stages about building a digital future that reflects the society we live in. I’ve advised 500+ people from diverse backgrounds on developing their digital careers and I promote the next generation in technology to enterprises and policymakers on the national and international stage. My expertise has been featured by organisations including BBC News, the Financial Times, the UK Cybersecurity Council, Microsoft, Code First Girls, the Chatham House Journal of Cyber Policy & several industry podcasts.
"Product" is an incredibly broad umbrella, and the day-to-day responsibilities of a PM role can vary widely!
5 Must-Know Tips for Aspiring Product Managers
After advising 50+ individuals on how to get started this year, I wanted to share my top 5 tips for aspiring product managers:
Step 1: Update & tailor your CV
💫 Make sure your CV is strongly tailored to product skills, like user research, UX and prioritisation. Pull out tangible examples where you’re already doing product work within your current capacity. For example, you can call “Acting [X]” (PM / PO / Scrum Master) for these responsibilities where appropriate. If this is a challenge, it’s a good point to reflect on where you could seek this out in your current organisation.
Step 2: Get involved with or start a tech side project
💫 If you’re struggling for interviewers to see your product experience, I’d recommend either taking on more tightly coupled product duties at work (as above), or building your own side project where you can demonstrate and refine these skills. Don’t want to go it alone? There is some great tech for good initiatives / Hackathons to support this.
Step 3: Lean into your strengths!
💫 Move one anchor point at a time (i.e. domain, job role, company size). It is a really tough job market at the moment in tech/product generally. Even as an experienced Product Manager, when I moved roles recently, I found the bulk of my interviews were from organisations who were doing almost exactly what I had specialised in before. Playing to your existing domain strengths will help counteract the added challenge of starting in product.
Step 4: How to combat rigid hiring processes
💫 If you’re struggling with the rigidity of mainstream processes, you can look for
- Skills-focused application processes
- Startups who are more willing to take a chance on a career changer
- Product Manager-complementary roles as a foot in the door e.g. Product Owner, Sales, and Research.
I’ve found bigger organisations to be a lot more rigid in hiring – startups are how I began my Product Management career!
Step 5: Ask questions and learn from other Product Managers!
💫 “Product” is an incredibly broad umbrella, and the day-to-day responsibilities of a PM role can vary widely. Reach out to current Product Managers to learn more about the strengths and challenges of different company sizes, product maturity, technical depth etc. This will help you to niche down on what Product Managers set up will help you to thrive, and focus on your best fit.
It's now your turn!
Finally, congratulations on embarking on your career change. That takes a lot of bravery and introspection, and I’m excited for you!
Just getting started in product management and want to know more about job roles, progression and salaries in this field. Click here to read our blog about How To Get Into Product Management.
