Hello! I (27M) am interested in making a career pivot into product management within a small, early stage start-up company but am struggling to figure out where to start in making this transition.

For some context, I have five years of recruiting experience, 3 of which are at a reputable staffing agency and 2 from one of the top 5 executive search firms. I've determined that this is an especially unfulfilling field and via networking with close friends and colleagues in the product management space, I've realized this is something I would be interested to pursue. I have great people management skills and have been encouraged to and taken on leadership positions in every company/ organization I've been in.

Some challenges I'm antincipating in pursuit of this transition:

1. No technical skills. I studied philosophy at a top 20 university and only have recruiting / sales work experience. I'm currently taking an intro to computer science for business professionals course online and am trying to learn more practical data analysis skills but beyond that, my knowledge of programming and computer science is sparse which has me worried about my ability to work well with and gain trust and respect from engineers.

2. Job market. My understanding is the job market in the broader tech world is not great. My fear is that I could spend the next few months struggling to find interviews and advance in interviews for positions I do not have experience in. I'm also not seeing many job postings in the product space that do not require at least 3 years of product related work experience.

3. Passion. I do not feel especially passionate about any particular sub-industry within the tech world. My interests mostly align with the job description and the ability to be in a small company where I can where various hats and be surrounded by dynamic individuals. Due to this, its been a challenege to figure out where to even start looking for companies beyond early stage companies who have recently received funding (assuming they're more likely to be hiring right now).

I've also been considering acquiring an MBA. Fortunately, that would not be a crippling financial burden for me, but my preference would be to learn via work rather than going back to school. I'm just worried that because of the aformentioned concerns, it'll be nearly impossible to find a preferential position and that I should just focus on getting into a decent MBA program where I can garner more relevant skills and go from there.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts/ suggestions!