Talked to 7 Indians who switched from engineering, consulting, design, and sales into PM roles. Here is the actual pattern — not the LinkedIn version.

Of seven Indian professionals who successfully switched into product roles in the past 2 years, all but one followed a similar pattern: they got the PM role at their current company first, then job-hopped externally 18 months later. The cold-switch path almost never works in India — recruiters discount candidates without product titles. The shortest path: build a side project that requires product thinking (not just coding), publish breakdowns on LinkedIn, propose a product initiative at your current job, then take a lateral move into an APM or PM-1 role. Total time: 9-15 months. The overrated path: PM bootcamps. Most charge Rs 80,000-2 lakh for content available free. The 1% that's worth it is the cohort + mentor network — but you can build that yourself via meetups and Indian PM Slack groups.