Yesterday, a defense—or rather an excuse—for PMsI filmed a video containing this. To be honest, I recently had the chance to meet several junior product planners in succession through mentoring coaching sessions. I was surprised first by their working environments, shocked by the scope of their work coverage, and astonished once again to learn that they were considering paying hundreds of thousands to millions of won for courses in the adult education market to upskill themselves. As I began writing this down, I got a bit emotional... Anyway, after sharing the video in a few group chats, some people asked questions. Really, why are salaries for product planners in Korea so low compared to other roles? If anyone knows the answer, please let me know. I genuinely don't get it.
📊 Korea vs. Overseas: What Makes Them So Different?
If you compare PM job descriptions from prominent global companies like Meta, Google, and OpenAI with PM job postings from Korean companies, you'll find some truly fascinating differences.
Hard Skills Comparison
Commonalities:
- Data Analysis
- Roadmap Development
- Market Research
Characteristics in Korea:
Things like measuring KPI performance or UX/UI design, requirements that seem to belong to the realm of a CEO or designer,are quite numerous. This gives the impression that far too much miscellaneous work is demanded of PMs.
Characteristics Overseas:
Focus is placed on user-centric product development and experience.
Soft Skills Comparison
While clear communication skills and leadership are common to both, Korea emphasizes 'balancing business and customer value,' whereas overseas roles tend to focus more on a 'user-centric mindset.'This is a noticeable trend.
Overseas, Product Managers focus on the product itself, while Product Owners hold ownership over business goals and the overall product. In Korea, on the other hand, Product Owners tend to be perceived as the head or superior of PMs.
In conclusion, there seems to be a culture in Korea where product planners are undervalued. It's common to hear descriptions portraying planners as always having it rough and handling an enormous amount of chore work outside their core duties.
💰 The Uncomfortable Truth About the Salary Gap
Based on San Francisco standards, a Product Manager's salary is at least around $170,000 (about 230 million KRW). Even considering that the cost of living there is 1.7 times higher than in Seoul, PM salaries in Korea tend to be set noticeably lower than those of developers or designers.
I believe people should be paid according to the work they do, and I feel PMs have been severely gaslighted. A culture that says "PM work is naturally tough" or "It's only natural to have lots of grunt work" really needs to change.
🎓 Multi-Million Won Courses? Are They Really Necessary?
Lately, I've seen many paid PM courses that cost several million won. Personally, I don't think these courses are necessary.
On Coursera, you can take PM courses taught by experts from world-leading companies like Microsoft and Google completely free of charge, with subtitles included. I really question why anyone needs to pay for such expensive courses.
More importantly, theoretical study alone cannot replace real-world experience.Even Ben Silbermann, the founder of Pinterest, met with customers in person to gather feedback and refine the product.
🚀 8 Realistic Pieces of Advice for Becoming a Real PM
So, how can one become a good PM? Drawing from my hands-on experience in the field, I've summarized only the truly essential points.
1. Shipping Is Everything
Ship a great product. Everything else you do is just a means to that end.
If you want to make users happy, keep your team employed, and earn a promotion, you need to ship right now. A PM is an 'arbiter of focus.' Help your team stay focused on shipping.
Sometimes you may have to ship a product that isn't perfect. That's okay. Improve it incrementally, and break releases down into smaller increments to minimize the impact of mistakes. Building a good product through actual iteration is far faster than trying to make a good product purely in your head.
In fact, on one CLI tool project, the entire process from planning to launch took less than three months. We were resolving critical issues until just a few hours before launch, and we sacrificed many features we wished we could have included. But we had to move quickly due to competition, and the outcome was a massive success.
2. Help people yearn for the vast and endless sea
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood, assign tasks, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
If shipping is the first most important thing, the second most important thing is inspiring people.Don't start with tactical things.
People who are inspired will work much faster, harder, and with far more focus than if you simply toss a PRD over the wall and tell them to implement a compliance checklist.
For example, show them a glorious future where the Ministry of Education lifts security regulations so your product can empower millions of underserved students nationwide. Sometimes you have to do the dirty work to achieve something beautiful!
3. Dogfood your product every day
I'm sorry, but I don't know any other way to succeed.
If you don't use your product every day, you'll miss critical issues and areas for improvement. Someone else is competing with you, they're using their own product every single day, and they will win. One team set a principle: "We only ship what we use and love." The launch criterion was literally: "Do we use and love it?"
In fact, this is something I learned from Ipariback when I was at Nexon. They always said that if you don't play the game you're building yourself, it's hard to understand from a user's perspective how precious this enhancement is or how rare this item or skill is. Truth be told, when working on game QA or development, people often just play briefly in admin mode just to check features; when you do that, you lose interest and end up not playing it at all. That was personally a huge lesson for me.
Some people think user research can replace the hands-on experience of dogfooding every day. Research is important, but it's not everything. Get your hands dirty and do it yourself. That's the only way to build far more intuition.
4. Be a good friend
The most important lesson no one taught me about long-term success is that you must make friends along the way. If you're not making friends, you're doing something wrong.
I hate the word 'networking.' It sounds forced, like building fake friendships. Instead, be friendly and genuine, and make friends who will support you throughout your career.
Introverts can make friends too. Just be helpful, friendly, and reliable. Over time, friendships will form naturally.
5. Give more than you take
Part of being a good friend is always giving more than you take. When someone asks for help, help them.
I end almost every 1:1 meeting with the same question: "What can I do to make your life better?"
When someone comes to you, choose to be collaborative. Be constructive in discussions. Remember the improv rule of "Yes, and." Look for the good in what people say at work, and see what you can add to it.
In life, the optimal strategy is cooperation. Sometimes people will steal your ideas and give you no credit. But as one senior engineer put it, "I love it when people steal my ideas. It means I've helped the world."
6. Pull the right levers
When you need to get something done, you have to find the exact mechanism to make it happen. Is it a bug? Is it documentation? Specifically, who needs to approve it, and what will get them to approve it? Taking meeting notes isn't everything. As I mentioned in the earlier video, almost any decent AI service has started writing meeting notes for you now.
Everyone has an opinion in life. Some of them are good. But shipped is the best kind of good. When you need approval, find the right person. Those people don't always hold a high level or the proper title.
7. Only go where you add value
Be like water and fill every gap. Seek out every crack and fill it. But you're not needed in every situation. Connect the right people and remove the middleman (you). If you're involved in everything, naturally you can't help but be busy. Sometimes you need to help your teammates know what to focus on. Most of the time, you have to do the work that nobody wants to do.
- Being the only person reading user feedback for years
- Writing all the initial documentation
- Providing ground-truth data for the research team
Conversely, you shouldn't go where you add no value. If a meeting doesn't add value, don't attend. If you're on a team that doesn't appreciate you, leave. Time is your most precious asset.
8. Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan
When a product launch is successful, everyone takes credit. When it fails? It's your fault. It's not fair, but that's reality.
When building a product, you must always be hyper-vigilant that you're doing the right thing.
- What is success?
- What is the right product that will succeed?
- Who are the users?
- What will they do with it?
You don't have to solve every problem yourself, but you must lift up the people who have the solutions and ensure the right ideas win.
🌊 Real Experience Makes Who You Are
Experiencing traffic on the scale of millions or hundreds of millions at big tech companies or high-traffic startups like Naver, Kakao, LINE, Coupang, Baedal Minjok, Danggeun Market, and Toss is invaluable. This provides hands-on experience, such as funnel analysis, not only for developers but also for PMs.
Simply joining a company because it is famous has no meaning. You must choose a place where you can genuinely experience 'dynamic and meaningful traffic.' This kind of experience can significantly transform your career and is far more beneficial than taking useless courses.
🙏 Heartfelt Encouragement for PMs
I wholeheartedly support all planners (PMs).
The key takeaways are twofold:
- Planners should not be treated poorly
- Planners themselves do not need to feel intimidated or try to be all-around perfectionists
I believe buzzwords like 'top performer' and 'all-rounder talent' end up making people sick. Anxiety → Obsession → Depression → AnxietyDo not get trapped in this vicious cycle.
I believe some companies in the adult education market fuel this kind of anxiety. I hope our society can grow together without stressing each other out.
Being a PM is a complex and difficult job. But it is just as meaningful and valuable.
You are doing great work.
If this post was helpful, instead of looking for expensive courses, start by actually using products and talking to users. That is the most important first step.