– Too far removed from product
I had an amusing experience in a job interview not too long ago. It must have been stage 2 or 3, where my product background was evaluated, and eventually I got a no (official reason: the company was second-guessing their own role profile in general and wanted to reboot the hiring process), but as feedback I received a “you seemed slightly too far removed from product in your previous role”.
Reason being that I coached my product and engineering teams to the point where they ran almost completely autonomously without too much intervention from my side apart from strategic goalposts. So I had the capacity to focus on a lot of other topics surrounding the business, from funding to compliance risk – quite natural as a co-founder.
And here is silly me thinking that my team(s) are the actual product that I need to shape and improve, and that having them run like a well-oiled machine as an end goal just proves I am missing the mark.
I must say, I got a lot of fun feedback in the past decade, but this one will definitely enter the hall of fame.