---
id: ins_pavithra-krishnaswamy-sisyphean-pmm-journey
title: 'Nobody chose product marketing — it chooses you'
operator: Pavithra Krishnaswamy
operator_role: Product Marketing Leader | Musician | ex-Zoho / Mad Street Den / Skit.ai / Sprinklr
source_url: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/product-marketing-role-chooses-you-pavithra-krishnaswamy-sm74c
source_type: thread
source_title: 'Product Marketing: The role that chooses you — Pavithra Krishnaswamy'
source_date: 2026-04-10
captured_date: 2026-05-04
domain: [pmm]
lifecycle: []
maturity: applied
artifact_class: framework
score: { originality: 3, specificity: 3, evidence: 2, transferability: 3, source: 3 }
tier: B
related: []
raw_ref: raw/linkedin/reactions/linkedin-reactions-2026-04-10.md
---

# Nobody chose product marketing, it chooses you

## Claim

After a decade in PMM and conversations with solo PMMs, fractional PMMs, consultants, and leaders across career stages, the universal pattern is that nobody planned to be in product marketing, every single one stumbled into it or had been doing PMM work without it being called that. The role attracts people who can fly without enough data and still stick the landing, which is the job description in disguise.

## Mechanism

PMM sits at an intersection (product, sales, marketing, customer) that no formal training program prepares anyone for. People who can navigate ambiguity get pulled into the gaps, then build careers in them. The role's identity confusion ('what does a PMM actually do?') is downstream of this, it can't be defined cleanly because the gaps are different in every company.

## Conditions

Holds for B2B SaaS PMM roles. May not hold for PMM roles in mature consumer brands with formal CPG-style marketing pipelines.