I am having fun but everyday is tiring. VERY.
I had lunches and dinners with different people for the past 2 weeks, both work and non work related.
Those are the perks of my job. You get to eat lunch and dinner with the bosses and get to know them more.
As a product marketing engineer, you get to meet clients, business partners and other important people in the industry. Hence, you gotta be charming, flexible and versatile. You must know a lot of things not just the techie stuff. You must know facts about the countries where your clients and partners come from, so you'll be able to talk about anything under the sun.
You must talk to them even if they're mabaho or not, even if they speak good English or not, you have to drink with them if they ask you too.
It's not easy doing all the stuff I do for the company. Believe me. It's not as other people would think. I may get to travel often and see beautiful places, take good pictures, meet wonderful people, but at par to that, THERE ARE NUMEROUS TASKS TO BE DONE.
I hate it when other people underestimate my job. It's not as boring as programming you know. It is so dynamic that you will love every minute of it.
Good pay (yay), fab travel perks, plus you get to VOICE OUT your opinions without being looked down by higher officials.
You don't do the same things everyday. You don't do that. That'd be so boring. That'd be boring like programming. No offence to programmers. That's really not my thing. :)
I hate it when I explain to people everytime they ask me why didn't I become a software engineer or whatsoever.
My job is an infusion of marketing + engineering + etc etc. I do understand the technical parts because I have to know my products very well. I must know what T=0 protocol means when it comes to smart card support and stuff like that. I must know how fast the baud rate is for reading and writing cards, plus i must know where the market of a certain device is, how much is the competitor's product plus which picture looks best for the newsletter or which keypad is more functional.
I decide those things. I think about those things. I do materials for those things. I do the presentations for clients. and the list goes on.
So if someone would ask me what I really do, I actually don't know how to answer all of these in 10 minutes. Aside from the things mentioned, I do technical support, I exchange emails with partners and haunt for the best chip for a new upcoming device. I study the market and
compare our prices with the others. I read press releases, I write them, I proofread them etc. So I dunno if my pay compensates all of these. The travels do actually.
It is product management at its finest.
So the next time people ask me about my job. I will just tell them, "Product Management" so no further questions will be asked. It sounds arrogant but I just hate explaining and justifying my job.
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