Netflix rejected me. I didn’t have this PM Skill.

Spoiler: They were right not to hire me. Find out which critical product manager skill I was lacking.

I’m not crying about it now, but I was then. This is the story all about how… I got rejected by Netflix. Spoiler alert: They were right not to hire me because I lacked a critical product manager skill. 

It was 2016, and I had just landed an interview for a dream job, an opening on Netflix’s Product team. There were a lot of reasons why I badly wanted this job. I loved their shows (I was binging Jessica Jones at the time). They had a company bus (which would ease my crazy commute home to Santa Cruz, California). They paid better than other tech companies (I could pay off my student loans). But more than anything, I was a data nerd, and I imagined Netflix would be my data nerd mecca. 

I had just spent the last four years at Upwork as a growth product manager before “growth product manager” was even a thing. During those four years, I ran hundreds of A/B tests, led conversion rate optimization on the homepage, and led a growth task force. I was 24/7 all about the numbers. Netflix was known for having a data-driven culture, so I thought my data fluency would be a strength in the interview. I was wrong. 

I had a full day, many, many hours of interviews at Netflix HQ. I loved the team and their energy and thought I nailed it. But a few days later, the hiring manager called me with bad news. I didn’t get the job.

Side note: It was huge that he called to deliver the news himself. Even though the news was terrible, his constructive feedback on that call was a tremendous gift. It had a significant impact on my career. 

But back to the story. What was the reason? Why did they decide to pass on me? 

They thought I was too data-driven.

Huh?!? Ok, let me explain.  

The position I applied for was on a team that focused on the company’s B2B partnerships, not on its millions of consumer customers. This team had far less data to work with than the consumer-facing teams. They worried that I was too dependent on data, that I leaned on it like a crutch and wouldn’t be able to trust my own instincts when data was limited.

Dealing with ambiguity was very important for this role, and I failed that test with flying colors. (Psst, you can read why it’s a top PM skill here).

I thought back to the interview questions and cringed when I remembered answering almost every question with, “Oh, yeah, I’d A/B test that.” Even when the interviewers hinted that A/B testing might not be an option, I struggled to describe other ways to make decisions.

As a growth product manager, I mistakenly thought that A/B testing was the solution to everything and was the best and only way to make product decisions. Big mistake. 

Honestly, I was just scared to make decisions on my own. I loved A/B testing because it always gave me the “correct” answer. I celebrated whenever I saw “p<.05” on my test results because it meant the test had led me to the “correct” answer, or at least an answer I could state with pretty high confidence. 

There is nothing wrong with A/B testing. It was my job, and I worked on a product area that was ideal for testing. But the job I interviewed for at Netflix was very different, and I failed to adjust my product management approach to account for that big difference.

I learned that day that product decisions often need to be made with imperfect data. So product managers must be able to deal with ambiguity and make good decisions in the midst of uncertainty. 

Early in my product career, my data fluency was my superpower, and my kryptonite. I was good at data and rewarded for being good at it, which led me to slowly grow dependent on data, and on A/B testing in particular. 

The team at Netflix was right. I needed to learn how to deal with ambiguity.

Lucky for me, my very next job forced me to get good at it. I was the Director of Growth at a tiny startup, a mobile app for gas delivery to your car. We had an enthusiastic but small user base of early adopters. We never had enough data. It was impossible to run A/B tests. I had to find other ways to get more information to reduce uncertainty. I started using a lot more qualitative data. I had conversations with our customers, read industry reports and customer support tickets, and did more usability testing. 

I learned to acknowledge the unknowns, reduce uncertainty, and confidently make decisions despite limited data. For a product manager, there’s a sweet spot between being highly analytical & data-driven and being able to navigate uncertainty. 

Junior PMs are often sheltered from dealing with ambiguity. Your manager and more senior colleagues will help you make tough decisions, and if you’re working on an established product with lots of data, you may have the luxury of getting most of your answers out of your metrics and A/B test results. Data fluency is a critical skill, and you’ll be rewarded for it, but don’t use it as a crutch for decision-making like I did.

Great product managers know exactly how to deal with ambiguity. Even at a data-driven company, you’ll be expected to know this skill, and it will become increasingly important as you climb the ladder to more senior PM roles. You’ll have to make tougher decisions with more uncertainty and less help from your mentors. So start practicing early. 

You can learn the exact steps I used to become comfortable with the unknown and reduce uncertainty in my last Substack post (plus video). It’s not easy. It takes practice. But I hope my story and practice tips help you avoid this pitfall.

You got this!