How to get into tech as a behavioral scientist
As a Product Manager, I’m often asked how to get into a career without any defined entry point (unless you are a Stanford grad and hit a Big Tech Associate Product Manager program). My advice for Product Management is generally to follow one of four paths:
Find a junior PM role (this option is too late for many of us);
Transfer internally at your current company;
Work at a start-up that gives you the title (if not always a proper product role from Day 1); or
Start your own company.
These are well-trodden paths already written on well and in detail1. Having spent a chunk of my time working in applied behavioral science at the UK’s Nudge Unit I have also fielded a number of questions over the last few years about how to get into tech as a - albeit very amateur - behavioral scientist.
This is my attempt to share pathways into tech for those interested in the techniques and tools of behavioral science
First, you should make sure you want to work in tech and like building software. To do this, try to understand how good tech teams work and the history of the tech industry. I recommend Marty Cagan’s Empowered to understand product teams and The Intel Trinity, The Everything Store, and The Upstarts for a quick introduction to the history and making of modern tech.
Second, you need to decide what kind of work you want to do. This can be bucketed into 3 areas:
Qualitative: User interviews, observation and anthropology-type work
Quantitative: Data wrangling, running large-scale RCTs, and analysis
Product / Commercial: Understanding customers and picking the right area to win
Of course, each of these areas can be combined. But it is a good idea to have a sense of your strengths and what you want to work on in the long-term. On a pure basis, each is associated with a different role in tech: user research, data science / analysis, and product management.
Finally, there are typically 3 pathways into tech for experienced behavioral scientists trying to transition from industry or academia.
A. Join a big tech company as a quantitative or qualitative user researcher
This is the most common route I see colleagues make to transition into tech. They’ve often completed a research masters or PhD, worked at somewhere like the Nudge Unit for a few years and then joined Meta or a large tech company in user research. Given the size of data and user bases found in big tech, people who make this switch have used a large number of tools such as interviews, surveys, prototyping, and more. Whilst you can shift into a role straight from academia, some time at a behavioral consulting firm (e.g. Behavioral Insights Team, ideas42, Irrational Labs) can be useful especially as it exposes you to different approaches and projects.
When interviewing for these roles, you will likely be asked about collaboration with typical tech partners (product, engineering, design), how you share insights from your research, and how your research impacted individual users and, if you are lucky, business metrics. It’s important to make opportunities in your current work that give answers to these questions.
B. Remarket yourself as a data scientist or analyst
If as a behavioral scientist you ran large-scale randomized trials or wrangled large data sets, you can likely rebrand yourself (depending on your skills) as a data scientist or analyst. Depending on the company, this role can be embedded in tech teams or sit as a separate data or business analyst function. You’ll need good skills in data tools like R and Python and be able to generate insights from data.
Growth teams, who focus on rapid experimentation to increase engagement, retention, and revenue, are a good home for a quantitative behavioral scientist. Fintech and companies with large data sets and huge existing user bases will also be on the lookout for quantitative and experimentation skills. When interviewing, you should expect similar questions as to those asked of user research above as well as a quantitative work task.
C. Join a tech company (or found one) that views behavioral science as part of its IP
Some tech companies (e.g. Humu, Plum, Prolific) have behavioral science as a core part of their value proposition. Therefore, they may be more likely to hire you for general roles especially if they are still in their early stages. This is most likely the best route if you want to end up in product management.
I joined Humu, a start-up focused on using behavioral and data science to make work better, when it didn’t even have a product function. This meant I could work as a generalist across go-to-market and product. To make this transition, I went from managing a team to an individual contributor - but this was worth it to gain new skills and land in a good company. My time at the Nudge Unit running large scale randomized trials and user research combined with a commercial background as a management consultant meant it was then not a large leap into a Head of Growth role at a FinTech start-up. With that, the transition into product was largely complete. In a more direct way, I have also seen colleagues transition into roles at tech companies as a Head of Behavioral Science or similar role.
Of course, I was lucky in the route I took. But you will be luckier if you join a company where behavioral science is a valued skill set. Then, if you want to make it into product you should read the much better guides from Lenny Rachitsky and Steve Hind.
In the end, you can break the rules
These are just my observations (certainly not that of any of my employers!). Rules are broken all the time and, no doubt, you can take a very different route into tech as a behavioral scientist. If you do, let me know how you go and we can add more into this post!