This Is What a Google AI Product Manager Tells People Who Want Her 6-Figure Job
Product managers at Google make annual salaries of up to $280,000.
Key Takeaways
- Marily Nika is a Google AI product manager with over a decade of experience.
- In a new podcast episode, Nika urged future product managers to “be a crab” and move laterally into roles adjacent to their current experience.
- Product managers make an average of $128,244 per year in the U.S., according to Indeed estimates.
Marily Nika, A Google AI product manager (PM), offers an unusual but practical piece of career advice for aspiring PMs who want to have her job one day: “Be a crab.”
Nika delivered the advice on an episode of The Growth Podcast by Aakash Gupta published earlier this week. She says that instead of trying to leap straight into a dream PM role, the fastest, most realistic path is often to move sideways, like a crab, into roles adjacent to one’s current experience, using prior experience as a competitive edge.
Nika, who has over a decade of experience in product management, described an aspiring PM who worked in the hearing-aid industry and felt locked out of tech. When he took her advice and looked for adjacent roles, he found an opening at Apple, a PM job in the AirPods unit, where deep hearing expertise could be a clear asset.
“We need to be open-minded,” Nika said on the podcast. “We really need to bring in the previous experience we have because that’s going to set us apart.”
In another case, Nika encouraged a sports journalist to look for PM roles in sports. Nika told him to stop worrying about not having a “traditional” PM resume and to lean into his experience instead. He had an extensive knowledge of sports users that he could showcase in his next PM role. Nika said that you can teach product skills, but it is harder to develop a deeper know-how of industries.
For people trying to break into PM roles, Nika’s overall advice is to start by identifying adjacent jobs. Ideally, your current experience should give you an edge. Then, make your domain expertise the centerpiece of your story. Additionally, gain proficiency in AI tools and treat them as extensions of your craft.
It pays well to break into product management. The average PM salary in the U.S. is $128,244 per year, according to Indeed. Product managers at Google make salaries of up to $280,000, per recent federal filings.
Nika’s approach reframes non-linear backgrounds as strengths. She notes that companies want PMs who deeply understand their users’ problems. A hearing‑aid specialist can quickly grasp audio‑related user needs, just as a sports journalist already understands sports audiences.
Alongside domain expertise, Nika says today’s PMs must become “AI literate.” They should understand what AI can and cannot realistically do and the implications for user experience.
“Understand the unique intricacies that AI brings; understand how dependent we are on data,” Nika said on the podcast.
When it comes to her own AI use, Nika taps into six tools: Google AI Studio for rapidly creating chatbots and integrating AI into apps, Google Opal to develop mini apps, Google Notebook LM for learning, Perplexity for user research, ChatGPT for product requirements document support and Fireflies for meeting note-taking.
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Key Takeaways
- Marily Nika is a Google AI product manager with over a decade of experience.
- In a new podcast episode, Nika urged future product managers to “be a crab” and move laterally into roles adjacent to their current experience.
- Product managers make an average of $128,244 per year in the U.S., according to Indeed estimates.
Marily Nika, A Google AI product manager (PM), offers an unusual but practical piece of career advice for aspiring PMs who want to have her job one day: “Be a crab.”
Nika delivered the advice on an episode of The Growth Podcast by Aakash Gupta published earlier this week. She says that instead of trying to leap straight into a dream PM role, the fastest, most realistic path is often to move sideways, like a crab, into roles adjacent to one’s current experience, using prior experience as a competitive edge.
