You have been in the industry for 17 years already, became a product director. You lead large teams, teach, and launch products across multiple sectors. How can your professional growth look now?
There are many possible answers. An MBA, however, is unlikely to be the first one that comes to mind.
Postgraduate degrees are most often (40%) pursued for advancement: higher salary, senior titles, broader managerial responsibility. Far fewer (7%) people choose them to deepen their expertise while remaining in the same role or organization.
By that measure, my decision sits outside the norm.
After years of leading products for both partners and Railsware itself, as well as gaining experience in mentoring and teaching, such as at the UCU Business School (Lviv Business School) and Prometheus, developing educational programs for MBAs, business analysts, and consultants, I chose to undertake (and have now completed) an MBA. For me, it wasn’t as a step up, but rather a step deeper: a way to sharpen my understanding of business and return that learning to the team I work with.
This won’t be a purely positive review. I faced frustrations, gaps, and moments of doubt. However, there were also personal surprises, valuable insights, and conclusions that genuinely reshaped how I think about product and business.
So if you’re also a professional with decades of experience, someone who isn’t driven solely by promotions or titles, but is considering growth at both an academic and practical level, read further.
Why you may need an MBA
For someone already deep in the industry, I’ve singled out three key reasons why pursuing an MBA can be worth it. Below, I’ll walk through each, sharing my experience and reflecting on whether it met my expectations.
Goal #1: Give structure to experience
I had spent years running products in a flat, autonomous environment at Railsware, covering engineering, product, marketing, sales, and monetization. Before that, over ten years were spent automating processes across global companies.
I knew the work, I knew what succeeded, but I didn’t have a structured way to connect it all. It felt like having puzzle pieces without a picture on the box.
What the MBA gave me:
- A global perspective, showing that different business cultures and approaches can solve the same problem effectively.
As professors came from institutions across Europe and beyond: St. Gallen in Switzerland, Krakow University of Economics, and others in Italy, France, and the U.S, each introduced frameworks shaped by their local business cultures.
For someone whose prior experience was mainly in Ukraine and Poland, this exposure was eye-opening. I saw that different approaches can effectively solve the same problem.
We also explored traditional business frameworks for uncertainty management, problem-solving, project management, and accounting. However, more importantly, we examined real-world cases showing where these frameworks succeeded, failed, and why. That foundation gives you a starting point whenever things feel unclear.
Goal #2: Improve and practise a bird’s-eye view
Strategic thinking, which means seeing the system as a whole, is vital for product managers. Yet, in practice, it’s hard to train. Most people develop it only by running their own product and learning from mistakes.
That’s why as a mentor, I often struggled to help others build this skill. How can you guide someone to become a strategic thinker if they haven’t reached that level yet? I didn’t have a clear answer until I experienced an MBA program myself.
The MBA gave me the chance to practice strategy building on real-world examples with talented, diverse teams. In a regular product management role, it would take years to accumulate the same experiences and even then, you rarely get the opportunity to step back and see the broader strategic picture.
What the MBA gave me:
We tackled two types of cases: our own companies/teams and peer cases.
In the first type, I focused on three cases: Railsware, one of Railsware’s products Coupler.io and our tech partner TradeZella. I had to set a three-year strategy, including deciding whether to focus solely on revenue or also on market share, and many other factors. Presenting my plan to classmates and professors sparked thoughtful questions I wouldn’t have considered on my own. Discussing real business problems alongside smart, experienced leaders from other industries sharpened my decision-making in ways I couldn’t have achieved on my own.
At the same time, creative exercises forced us to expand our perspective. One standout: exploring 35 different ways to monetize a coffee shop. Most teams stick to the obvious, such as subscriptions, flat fees, pay-as-you-go, etc. Yet, this pushed us to think broadly. The lesson: quantity breeds quality. Generating many options shifts the mindset from “How do I force a subscription?” to “How can this product create and capture value in every possible way?”
Goal #3: Connect with like-minded people
Networking alone wasn’t enough. I wanted access to peers who could genuinely challenge my thinking, question my assumptions, and help me refine strategy.
What the MBA gave me:
My cohort included C-level executives, founders, and senior leaders from a wide range of industries. Their feedback was immediate, incisive, and practical. Presenting an idea often sparked questions I would never have considered on my own. That level of insight is hard to find anywhere else.
I applied this directly to my work. Much of my coursework focused on three real businesses I oversee at Railsware. I also collaborated closely with a startup founded by a classmate, helping shape their pitch deck, strategy, and positioning. That startup has already raised investment, and I had a chance to join them at Web Summit. Getting this kind of hands-on exposure is rare outside an MBA environment.
Where MBA still misses the mark
Although I’ve found MBAs really valuable, some gaps stick out, especially for people in fast-moving tech or product roles.
A lot of the content assumes slow, predictable change and rigid hierarchies.
That works fine for big corporations, but not so much for startups or modern product teams. Even small things feel outdated: in time-management classes, we’re told to “get a secretary” to manage email overload.
Meanwhile, in real life, we’re juggling Slack, AI tools, and automated inbox agents. This mindset shows up everywhere: in leadership, communication, and organizational design, making the lessons feel more bureaucratic than practical.
Adapting course materials to new technologies is often underestimated and requires more time than expected. As an MBA-level lecturer, I can tell.
Change is happening incredibly fast, especially with AI transforming how we work. MBAs touch on these topics in conferences or optional courses, but rarely in the core curriculum. It’s understandable; they rely on proven frameworks, but it can feel behind the curve.
When it comes to people management, the MBA mostly validated what I already knew.
After leading teams sometimes as big as 70 people, for 17 years, I didn’t discover any fundamentally new approaches. But what I really wish had been covered is leading neurodiverse teams.
In tech, this matters more than ever. So many brilliant engineers are neurodivergent, and it’s only recently that discussions around ADHD, autism, and other differences have become open.
Yet, MBAs don’t teach how to set goals differently, adapt feedback loops, or rethink performance management for neurodiverse talent. Honestly, this is something I’d love to explore in depth one day, either while pursuing a PhD or, in other terms.
Connecting product, strategy, and growth in one vision
Looking back, the value of the MBA goes far beyond frameworks, tools, or credentials. It gave me perspective, structure, and a way to connect product, business, and strategy into a single narrative. With that lens, I can now evaluate decisions in context, anticipate what moves make sense at each stage, and align day-to-day actions with long-term growth.
Of course, there is still room to grow, and one of the great things about the MBA experience is that it encourages reflection on the current state of education. By analyzing what works and what can be improved, we have the opportunity to give back, share knowledge, support others, and help improve the system for the next generation of professionals.
If you’d like to explore other materials I’ve crafted over the past several months, please check the links below. And if you’re considering an MBA to grow as a specialist, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on the goals you want to achieve and the gaps you hope to close.
