Product management, I choose you!
Multiple paths, one destination
Product management lies in the intersection between business, engineering, and design. As a result, there’s no standard career path. Most people start from one circle, never in the middle, so there’s a lot of gaps to fill in.
The purpose of this article is to help students identify areas they can improve in and compile a list of resources to help them grow.
(Translation: I spent hours scouring Reddit comments, Quora answers, and Product Management books so you don’t have to!)
Business
Related Degrees: Business, Economics, Marketing, MBAs
A huge part of product management is making sure your product finds market fit and delivers value to your company. People from this background are comfortable talking business metrics and making data-driven decisions.
However, you may struggle talking to engineers. Things like “grooming the backlog” or “tech debt” are foreign. Maybe you clash with designers because spending resources on re-designing the landing page is something your users want but does not satisfy a business objective.
Fear not! Here’s a couple articles and books about the software development life cycle and Agile:
- Background and different Agile frameworks: https://www.atlassian.com/agile
- Useful if interested in startups and see some practical examples: The Lean Product Playbook, The Lean Startup
And here’s a couple articles and books about the value of being user-obsessed:
- All about user engagement: Hooked
- The UXD principles to keep in mind: https://www.cognitiveclouds.com/insights/key-principles-of-user-centered-design/
Finally, the age old question “do PMs need to code?”. No, but some companies prioritize having technical product managers (TPMs) because of their products (ML/AI/Cloud/SaaS) so becoming familiar with concepts lets you have meaningful conversations with your engineers.
If you are completely new to coding, I recommend starting with Python. Sites like Codeacademy, Coursera, and Learn Python have interactive modules. Remember, the goal is to learn enough to make decisions based on what your engineers tell you, not to write production-ready code.
Final nugget of wisdom: if you are more interested in selling a product rather than shipping one, check out the product marketing manager role!
Engineering
Related Degrees: Computer Science, Data Science, Mathematics, Engineering
You’re comfortable talking to your engineering team and have experience coding. This is important when solving problems that require complex solutions, but you may have difficulty communicating said solution and the business value to other stakeholders.
If you are more interested in coordinating engineers instead of collaborating with different teams, check out technical product manager roles!
Articles to help you become a better communicator:
- Learning to become a compelling storyteller: Unleash the Power of Storytelling
- Building empathy: https://managementhelp.org/interpersonal/empathy-skills.htm
Learn why user experience is so integral to your product’s success:
- A book on why successful products aren’t always the most technically complex: The Design of Everyday Things
If you, like me, have no business background and need to learn important business terms:
- OKRs (Objective and Key Results): Measure What Matters
Design
Related Degrees: Human-Computer Interaction, Graphic Design, Psychology, Cognitive Science
You have experience listening to users and conveying their needs to your team. You have the ability to see the bigger picture and evolve your product to solve changing problems.
However, you’re no longer just working with users. You have to manage executives, sales, engineers, designers — and sometimes, you’ll have to scrap that user delight feature because it’s simply not profitable.
Great designers are flexible, but as a PM, you have to get comfortable saying “no”:
- PM’s don’t directly manage people, but they must learn to influence them: How To Win Friends and Influence People
- As a PM, you’re no longer just advocating for users but multiple stakeholders: https://www.productplan.com/stakeholder-types-product-managers/
Like people who come from a business, it’s important to learn technical terms to talk with your engineers (refer back to that section in the beginning). A programming language is important, but so are analytics and becoming data-driven.
I find that most design-leaning people are intuitive and not as data-driven as their counterparts, but it’s important to have numbers backing up your decisions.
- Most people will suggest learning SQL for data analysis, but you can get away with learning Excel at some companies (in fact, I think most companies live and breathe Excel sheets).
- Get very comfortable with statistics: Naked Statistics
Closing notes
I’m not telling you that you need to master every single concept discussed here to become a product manager. That’s as annoying as applying to entry-level jobs that require 5+ years of professional work experience.
But, you should familiarize yourself with all three areas if you are passionate about pursuing product management. It’s going to come up one way or another in your interviews and subsequent career.
One last thing to note is that big companies have established product cultures that favor certain skillsets over others. For example, Tesla takes in people with MBAs, but Google likes hiring people with strong technical foundations. If you have a dream company in mind that you want to eventually work for, research their product teams and refine the skills they prioritize.
