From QA to Product Leadership: My 10-Year Journey

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# From QA to Product Leadership: My 10-Year Journey

I started my career as a Test Engineer at Infosys. Today, I'm Associate Director of Product at Melento (formerly SignDesk). The path between these two points wasn't linear, but every step taught me something essential about building products.

Starting in QA: The Foundation

Fresh out of engineering college, I joined Infosys as a Test Engineer. At the time, I saw QA as a stepping stone — a way to get into the software industry. I couldn't have been more wrong about its value.

What QA taught me:

Systems thinking: Testing requires understanding how all parts of a system interact. This holistic view became invaluable in product management.

Edge case obsession: QA engineers think about what could go wrong. As a PM, I naturally consider the unhappy paths that others overlook.

Quality standards: Understanding what "good" looks like from a quality perspective shapes how I define product success criteria.

The Transition Point

At SignDesk, I joined as QA Lead — part of the founding team building a digital signature platform from scratch. Being in an early-stage startup meant wearing multiple hats.

I found myself increasingly involved in:

Defining what we should build, not just testing what we built

Talking to customers about their pain points

Debating feature priorities with the founders One day I realized: I cared more about what we were building than testing it. That's when I asked to transition to product management.

Making the Shift

The transition wasn't instant. Here's how it happened:

Year 1: Started taking on product-adjacent tasks while still leading QA. Wrote requirements, joined customer calls, participated in roadmap discussions.

Year 2: Formally moved to Product Manager role. Steep learning curve on market research, competitive analysis, and business metrics.

Year 3+: Grew into Senior PM, then Associate Director. Each level brought new challenges around strategy, stakeholder management, and team leadership.

What QA Professionals Bring to PM

If you're in QA considering product management, know that your background is an asset:

User empathy through testing: You've lived in the user's shoes, finding problems they'll encounter. That's customer empathy in action.

Technical credibility: You can have meaningful conversations with engineering. You understand constraints, dependencies, and trade-offs.

Process discipline: QA requires systematic thinking. Product management needs the same rigor applied to discovery and delivery.

Risk awareness: You've spent your career thinking about what could go wrong. In product, this helps you plan for contingencies.

Advice for the Transition

For QA professionals considering product management:

Start acting like a PM in your current role. Volunteer for requirements discussions. Ask "why" more often than "how."

Build business acumen. QA is often technical; PM requires understanding markets, competitors, and business models.

Find a transition environment. Startups and smaller companies offer more flexibility to shift roles. That's how I did it.

Don't abandon your QA identity. Your quality mindset is a superpower. Bring it to product, don't leave it behind. The path from QA to product leadership is unconventional but increasingly common. The skills transfer more than people realize.

Growing as a Founding Team Member: Lessons from 6+ Years at SignDesk

Vinaya skipped presentations and built real AI products.

Vinaya Totagi was part of the January 2025 cohort at Curious PM, alongside 13 other talented participants.