I found out about the Product Marketing Alliance (PMA) community in a roundabout way. I reached out to a former colleague (technically, my predecessor at a previous company, which made it a little awkward) just to hear about his experience. He mentioned he’d joined this community called Product Marketing Alliance, and that was it. Word of mouth, pure and simple.
Looking back, I almost can’t believe it took me that long to find it. I’ve been in product marketing since around 2018, and I only joined recently. That’s nearly eight years of navigating one of the most misunderstood roles in the industry, largely alone.
The Slack community changed everything
The first thing that genuinely surprised me was the Slack community. I come from companies that use Slack heavily, so I wasn’t intimidated by it, but the depth of what’s available there still caught me off guard.
There are always interesting conversations to dig into, jobs being posted, people willing to chat, and people offering to mentor. I could easily spend hours in there.
What really became a game-changer for me, though, was the knock-on effect of the connections I made there. I connected with a couple of community members on LinkedIn who are incredibly active. They ‘Like’ job postings constantly.
Suddenly, I wasn’t just finding roles through my usual LinkedIn searches; I was finding opportunities I never would have stumbled across on my own. My rule when job hunting is a minimum of 10 applications a day, 100 a week. Through those connections, the number of opportunities I was seeing multiplied more than tenfold.
I genuinely believe that’s why I found my current role in just two weeks. Previously, I’d spent months searching. Two weeks felt almost unreal.
Navigating the noise
I know Slack can feel overwhelming if you’re not used to it. My advice: create a structure. Star the channels that matter most to you right now and mute everything else; you don’t have to leave a channel to stop it from cluttering your view.
At the time I was job hunting, my starred channels were entirely focused on job opportunities. Everything else I’d catch through Slack’s recap feature and move on.
Think of it like building buckets: job search, tools and learning, events, and conversations. Once you have that structure, it goes from noisy to genuinely useful very quickly.
Product marketing can be a lonely place
One thing I want to say to anyone considering joining: product marketing is already such a unique, often misunderstood role. At several points in my career, I’ve been the only product marketer at a company, hired onto what I call Product Marketing Island. You’re part of the marketing team, but you spend most of your time working with the product team. It’s an in-between space that can feel really isolating.
Having thousands of people who understand exactly that experience is invaluable. The Women in PMM sessions were particularly meaningful for me. There were moments where those conversations gave me the clarity to recognise that what I was dealing with wasn’t normal, and the confidence to take the next step.
What I wish I’d had sooner
Every time I look back on periods of career transition, I think: if I’d had this community, I would have found my footing so much faster. The coffee chats, the mentoring sessions, the people just willing to talk… it’s all there. Someone is always willing to show up for you.
I’m only a couple of months into my current role, so I’m still mostly in learning mode. But I already know that when a project comes along where I need to find a new tool, explore a new strategy, or just think something through, the PMA community will be my first stop.
And I’m really hoping this is the year I finally make it to an in-person event!
