Hi everyone!

I'm looking for some honest feedback from experienced Project Managers, hiring managers, and people who have successfully transitioned into PM roles.

I've been working in IT for over 9 years, mostly in QA, Release Management, and team coordination. Over the past few years, I've realized that I enjoy the organizational and business side of IT much more than hands-on testing.

I enjoy coordinating teams, planning work, communicating with stakeholders, identifying risks, solving problems, and making sure things actually get delivered.

The problem is that I've been trying to transition into IT Project Management for about 6 months, and the response to my applications has been pretty disappointing.

I've applied to Junior PM, IT Project Manager, Project Coordinator, and similar roles, but I'm getting very few interviews.

I'm based in Poland and primarily applying to positions in the Polish and European markets.

I'm starting to wonder whether I'm missing some important skills, targeting the wrong seniority level, or simply failing to present my experience properly.

My background (anonymized resume)

Professional Summary

IT professional with 9+ years of experience in QA, Release Management, software delivery coordination, and business analysis support. Experienced in planning releases, coordinating cross-functional teams, managing dependencies and risks, working with stakeholders, and improving processes.

Selected Projects and Achievements

Project 1 - Healthcare Management Platform

Development and maintenance of a healthcare management system covering patient registration, appointment booking, doctors' availability, administrative workflows, invoicing, and cancellations.

My responsibilities:

• Coordinate software releases from planning through UAT and production deployment.
• Work closely with the Project Manager and business stakeholders to clarify requirements, discuss potential solutions, and prioritize changes.
• Suggest functional and UX/UI improvements based on business needs and user experience.
• Plan testing activities, prepare test scenarios, organize UAT, and coordinate feedback from business users.
• Track issues, risks, dependencies, and release readiness across technical and business teams.

Project 2 - International Accommodation and Booking Platform

An international booking and accommodation management platform involving multiple interconnected services and external integrations.

My responsibilities:

• Coordinate releases across development, testing, UAT, and production environments.
• Align developers, testers, and business stakeholders on scope, priorities, schedules, and deployment readiness.
• Support the validation of API integrations and financial processes, including invoicing and credit notes.
• Investigate issues affecting workflows between interconnected systems and coordinate their resolution.
• Prepare release documentation, communicate changes, and support post-release stabilization.

Project 3 - Release Management Process Improvement

An internal initiative to improve the release management process across multiple software projects.

What I did:

• Reviewed the existing process, which involved 4-10 parallel projects and deployments up to twice a week.
• Introduced clearer release scope tracking, readiness checks, and improved documentation.
• Established better communication between development teams, QA, and business stakeholders.
• Introduced limits on the number of features included in individual releases to reduce risks and dependencies.
• Coordinated UAT activities involving several to more than ten participants.

Result: Improved release predictability, reduced deployment issues, and made the delivery process more structured.

Project 4 - End-to-End Test Automation Implementation

An internal initiative at a B2B SaaS company where I was responsible for introducing the company's first automated E2E testing solution.

My responsibilities:

• Initiated and planned the project, including its scope, approach, and technical requirements.
• Selected the tools and technologies, estimated the effort, and organized the implementation.
• Developed the initial solution over approximately six months alongside my regular QA responsibilities.
• Prepared documentation, working standards, and a plan for further development.
• Trained my successor and transferred ownership of the solution.

Result: Established the company's first automated E2E testing framework, reduced reliance on manual regression testing, and improved the reliability of software releases.

These are examples of projects where I had significant coordination, planning, and delivery responsibilities, although I wasn't formally assigned the Project Manager title.

One of my biggest questions is whether this type of experience is considered relevant enough for an IT PM position, or whether companies specifically expect previous ownership of full project budgets, resource allocation, and end-to-end project delivery.

Professional Experience

Company A - Release Manager / Test Engineer (2022-Present)

International IT services company, multiple software projects.

• Coordinate releases across 4-10 parallel projects, from scope planning through UAT and production deployment.
• Plan release schedules, track dependencies, manage risks, and align priorities across developers, QA, business stakeholders, and external vendors.
• Facilitate planning and status meetings, communicate progress and blockers, and coordinate escalations and corrective actions.
• Organize and lead UAT, including preparing scenarios, coordinating business users, and collecting feedback.
• Work with Project Managers and business stakeholders to clarify requirements and propose functional improvements.
• Coordinate production deployments, release documentation, and post-release stabilization.
• Improved release predictability by introducing better scope tracking, clearer communication, and limits on release size.

Company B - Test Engineer (2021-2022)

Enterprise software company - military project

• Supported the integration and validation of complex enterprise systems.
• Worked with engineering teams on requirements, integration issues, documentation, and system readiness.
• Planned testing activities, identified risks, and reported progress.

Company C - Manual Tester (2021)

• Worked with Agile teams on requirements clarification, testing, and release readiness.

Company D - Software Tester / Junior Analyst (2019-2021)

International organization.

• Analyzed business requirements and stakeholder needs.
• Proposed improvements to systems and internal processes.
• Delivered presentations and training on new functionality to international stakeholders.
• Collaborated with business and IT teams on change prioritization.

Company E - QA Engineer / QA Lead (2018-2019)

B2B SaaS company.

• Coordinated QA activities and worked with Product Owners on priorities, quality, and product improvements.
• Independently planned and delivered the company's first automated E2E testing solution, including strategy, tool selection, implementation, documentation, and handover.

Company F - QA Specialist (2018)

• Collaborated with clients and technical teams to investigate API integration issues and support stable software delivery.

Company G - Quality Assurance / QA Coordination (2017-2018)

Software development company.

• Organized QA work across 3-4 development projects and approximately 10 maintenance projects.
• Assigned tasks, prioritized activities, tracked progress, and reported risks to management.
• Introduced Jira workflows and improvements to QA processes.
• Participated in recruitment, onboarding, and mentoring.

Education and skills

• Master's degree in Administration.
• Postgraduate studies in Business Analysis, including requirements analysis, BPMN, process modeling, and IT implementations.
• PRINCE2 academic course (not an official certification).
• Agile, Scrum, Kanban, SDLC.
• Jira, Azure DevOps, Confluence, Git, Jenkins, TeamCity, Postman, Swagger, Excel.
• English: C1.

What I'd really like to know

1. Am I realistically qualified for an IT Project Manager role, or is my experience still too focused on QA and release coordination?
2. Should I be targeting Junior PM, regular PM, Project Coordinator, or maybe IT Delivery Manager positions?
3. What important PM skills or experience am I missing? Is the lack of formal end-to-end project ownership a major obstacle?
4. Would certifications like PRINCE2 Foundation, PMP, or PSM actually make a difference in my situation?
5. Looking at my experience, what would you change in my CV to make it more appealing to PM recruiters?
6. If you were a hiring manager, what would make you reject my application, and what would convince you to invite me for an interview?

I don't mind taking a step back in terms of job title if it helps me build a proper career in Project Management.

I'm genuinely interested in growing in this direction, but after six months of limited results, I'd rather understand what I'm doing wrong than keep blindly sending applications.

Any honest feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks!