Switched from banking to product management at 32 — what nobody tells you

Five years at a commercial bank, jumped to a Nepali fintech as a junior PM. Took a 40% pay cut. 18 months later, fully recovered + then some.

What helped:
– Internal MBA-style PM short-courses on Coursera, paid out of pocket.
– Ruthless honesty about what I didn’t know.
– One mentor who was a PM in Bengaluru and answered DMs.

What hurt: assuming my banking domain knowledge was enough. It wasn’t. Domain helps; PM craft is its own thing.