Technical product manager reddit Two weeks ago, I signed an offer for my very first Product Manager role at a unicorn startup! 🦄 Here are some tips that helped my resume stand out: Keep the Design Simple. These are multi-million dollar products with complex certification and manufacturing processes. Product management is a cross functional role that revolves around deciding what kind of products or features designers and engineers should design and build. Ps, the Udemy course for the PMP test in taking has a huge section on agile and the test itself spends more time on that than on traditional waterfall. And this dude was already filling in for a short-staffed product management team, as well as performing scrum master duties. I come from a fairly non-technical background, so I'm concerned about how to handle the technical components of this interview, which is this coming Monday. of course what business you are in will matter the dude that owns a flagship product and moves up the chain vs the dude that owns a necessary but not primetime and does the same. Now for me it is: Amsterdam, the Netherlands High CoL Private pre-IPO scale up in software Group Product Manager 4 years as a PM, 4. You're not a developer or a designer. I'm a current student in Stern's Tech MBA program. Part marketer, part engineer, part sales, and part project manager, the product manager needs to understand the business, marketplace and customer to make sure they come together to form an amazing product. I always felt that CPG Brand Management and Tech Product Marketing were the two sweetest spots outside of some strategy LDP for a company like Corning. Also, I’d say MBAs are not needed as well if you have a technical background. But every product manager does project management. For example my background was in Customer Success where I would help organisations get the most value out of the product. end to end testing The truth that nobody wants to admit is you can learn to "crack" the interview online, for free. However, even openings which do not have "technical" product manager as a title, require knowledge of computer science and other language skills. Base salary is a few thousand dollars more than role 1, but there is a bi-annual bonus that is 20% of base salary and would push me over six-figures and be about $20k more than role 1. The amount of redtape to engage customers, influence strategy and the user experience forces you to function at pretty high level. Prior to this, I built a suite of analytical products to drive adoption of Foods & Refreshments products at consumer goods giant, Unilever. The UX researchers / product analytics do the heavy lifting of determining what features to design / add. About your question on knowing the technologies, it very much depends on the company's philosophy product management. This could mean they manage an internal platform or product, or it could mean they are specifically in charge of execution and delivery. They're different skills - Product Manager is a more recent, user centric take on Business Analyst IMO. I work as a Sr. My experience was mostly with large cloud implementations support massive customer facing projects which need both traditional product managers and I came from a non-technical background to Technical Product Manager for platform products. Since moving to product management, I'm getting glowing feedback and my technical skills make me better suited to the role (especially any analytics task). The product case category consists of the following types of questions: Guesstimate Product improvement Product design Metrics Execution How to use the four-week schedule. I have been complaining about the same, for the last 10 years. I don’t think any company would be looking for free PM consultancy from interviews (opinion’s are free plus the candidate doesn’t know enough about the situation to provide real value), so suspect it’s “looking for 150% fit”. , recruiting process, promotion experience (L6->L7), culture, etc. You primarily manage the customer's business value and how you create, define and deliver the story of value to the customer. What ended up happening was me leading a development team on a year long project. Lots of companies just have a "Product Manager" role, without having a PMO or different levels. I have an opportunity to interview for a “Technical Product Manager” as part of a whole team of Technical Product Managers. Bookstore clerk > Parking Attendant > Data Entry Analyst > Customer Service Rep > Jr. We will look at real examples and give you tips to highlight your skills, experience, and achievements in project leadership, cross-functional team coordination, and product lifecycle management. Actually, I remember the Corning recruiters pitching the fact that when you account how little they work and how cheap Corning, NY is compared to NYC, their equivalent hourly pay was like 2-3x I hear often that being technical is not necessary for becoming a product manager. I realize that (Technical) Program Manager, Product Manager, Project Manager, and Engineering Manager mean different things at different companies, though. As a new Product Manager, I'd say usually the learning curve takes between 4 to 6 month to get you up and running, however it depends on so many factors such as company, industry, product, and your ability to catch up quickly with all of that. Agreed, and most of these books are focused on B2C. Program managers (technical or not) can be responsible for a variety of programs, like managing a team's launches and dependencies, managing supply chain (e. The other distinction that comes to mind is that architects at places I've worked at tended to be permanent staff, while for project managers some were perm, some were contractors, due to the Don't think there's such a thing. At that point I worked there for 6 months before getting a technical project manager role with a fintech company. I have worked with project managers in a particular feature/set of features of a product, but ultimately the product manager is the person managing the product lifecycle (ultimately making sure you build the right thing) . The amount things you end up doing just to be able to leverage insights and data. I’ll take my down d00ts accordingly. PM of an actual whole… private jet. I had bachelor's degree in Business and also had some experiences in marketing and customer experience so business-side things are quite natural for me as PM. probably just naming convention to draw more "technical background" PMs to the job req by the order of the hiring manager. Involve key stakeholders early and often in the product development process. Project management is many things. In a technical companies that sell software to devs/devops teams, you need deep knowledge of systems, interactions between systems, technical limitations etc e. Additionally, now when I find issues I have the ear of VPs instead of middle management. Stakeholder Management (in all directions - especially in terms of managing expectations. So, there is some risk that the job you get placed in to is not what you imagined. Vietnam Private 4 yoe = 3 in customer success + 1 in PM Product Manager I BA in Management, Communication Studies (double major) $21,000 base, $1,700 annual bonus Reply reply cocaineguru Hard skills in product management refer to the technical and analytical skills that are required to perform the duties of a product manager. The effective product manager bridges gaps between these areas, ensuring that product decisions align with business strategy while meeting user needs and being technically feasible. Technical Product Manager at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Jan 9, 2023 · Updated: January 24, 2024 - 4 min read This week’s Reddit AskMeAnything session featured Sushmitha Nannuru. The people I know just decided they didn't For product manager interview (not pmt) for both last year’s internship and full time interview this year, it was all behavioral and no pm casing. For more, suggest looking at the many online resources + the books "Cracking the Product Manager Interview" and "Decode and Conquer. When I hear the responsibilities, it sounds like an Internal Product Manager role. If you've got any specific questions, feel free to ask! 78 votes, 42 comments. It sucks. The way it's handled can be very different from company to company. Technical Product Owner: The person that works with devops, engineering, data science, etc. I recently had an interview with a company for a tpm role, but the way they understand the role is very different from my current company. Role 2: Technical Product Manager with very short commute. 5 years total experience Others are part of a strategy-execution pair where the PM does all of the business work and the PO does technical execution with the teams, manages dependencies, and so on. Which is why as I said, if you like those roles go do those. There is a book called the Product Manager Desk Reference by Steven Haines that defines Product Management as: “the business management of a products, product lines, product portfolio or portfolio holistically throughout its lifecycle” This is my first time conducting an AMA on Reddit. to build the backend for things like search on a shopping website or chat infrastructure. Data platform PMs should understand the difference between streaming and batch. Set up a Tdarr server to convert your old video files to x265 format. I was just offered an interview at Amazon for their Sr Techical Product Manager role. To me, a Product Manager is someone that's playing ambassador between a customer, tech/design, and the business to make sure you find the right problems, get buy in for those problems and solve those for the masses. I'd be happy to discuss any questions you have as they relate to Amazon - e. There are many avenues to learn the technical knowledge, my suggestion is to start with reading the book "System Design Interview" by Alex Xu. Like a general overview of technologies, programming languages, frameworks, etc. But that’s not a bad thing! I'm an entry-level Product Manager. The role used to be called "Program Manager" since the 1990s, and people in the role have been doing "modern product management" to varying extents since that time as well. If you have a technical background, want to work on technical products (e. Some companies treat PMs more like product owners, and others treat PMs like marketing managers. A buddy of mine PM’s performance/technical soft goods for the outdoor industry, and I am pretty envious of his job. I also worked with 3 other game PMs on the same project. Scrolling my LinkedIn jobs feed, a lot of PM roles I'm seeing are in established B2B companies where they don't do high frequency customer discovery (as Teresa Torres suggest - every week), have different growth capability structures (there's just one PM and you don't get promoted to group etc. Dear u/Technical_Constant_2!. " Not every project manager does product management. end to end testing It sucks. Or a chat app. This proved out my product management skills, and I am now a technical product manager at my company. Prior to this I did my undergrad in Computer engineering, where I luckily Product Manager may want agile/devops/scrum/etc while Project Manager wants PMP etc). It was about $750 at the time. When I first thought about going into product management I had a very skewed idea of what the job actually was (and it is different at every company). work. Capital one Product Manager and Google Product manager recruit (still interviewing) here. I would advise starting off with independent learning and communicating your aspirations to your employer. If you feel you'll be more in your element as a PM, definitely give it a shot. I think certifications are not needed at all. Just something I wanted to consider when thinking about PM for the long run. In the schedule, the white boxes refer to steps required to prepare for behavioural questions, and the blue boxes refer to preparation for product questions. That said, changing teams within Amazon is quite common and I know plenty of other MBA hires that easily moved to a different team in under 12 months in the role. I do hear pmt interviews involve light pm casing thou but haven’t done the interview personally. With a focus on clarity and relevance, we provide you with the tools to create a resume that speaks to employers in the I got advice that I should include a "skills" section on my resume, but don't really know what should be included there. Hello, Tl;dr- Need help/resources to upgrade my technical/development knowledge Been a Product Manager for more than 4 years now. Most product managers would benefit from reviewing That’s a good point. g. Where I work, "Product Manager" is a high-powered role (owns defining the business side of the product). Sometimes, you won’t even be able to write reasonable stories without at least a moderate understanding of how everything works; Even if you could run everything by the engineers beforehand, the story review sessions would go much faster if I took a product management course through the Stanford Extension and found it valuable. ) MBAs. Hi all, I’m starting an Associate PM internship at a FAANG company soon and was wondering what the work/life balance is as a PM. When your product is highly technical, sometimes a good understanding of the how can’t be a luxury. Check out r/PMcareers for career related posts. However, if you are looking to get into an executive role from a product management position there are generally two tracks, one for individual contributor product management (PM, Senior PM, Principal PM, Senior Principal PM) and one for the management of product management Depends on the reason for layoffs, typically it's easier to offshore engineering roles and even onshore technical knowledge is out there ready to hire and fire as you need it whereas a good product manager has in depth business knowledge that takes a long time to build. Good luck my friend. That was cool but would categorize that more as program. At one org I've worked for, we defined Technical Product Manager as a Product Manager with specific technical skills that are usually developer-oriented (and as a practical matter justify paying someone more than the going rate for "normal" PMs. I got hired at $165k + $22k annual bonus + $15k sign on bonus at the senior manager level. The designers do the heavy lifting of crafting good UX experiences and drafting good products. This “tech” vs “non-tech” division is a misnomer. Technical is a characteristic of the work but its all about how provide value to users and so as a leader. Fire TV), and want to be a product manager, you want to apply for a Product Manager Technical (PMT) role. ) Poorly-titled Program Manager -- Many companies use "Technical Product Manager" in place of the "Technical Program Manager" title. Technical Program Manager role could pay about ~30 to ~40K more. Hey all, I’m product manager at Microsoft, working on the Microsoft Teams application Platform. Web Project Manager > Project Manager > Business Analyst > Product Manager > Sr. I had 2-3 years of product and 5 years of technical program/project management experience. ) and how they interact with Yo I've done both You miss a huge amount of the essential PM tech company experience in a consulting digital practice, from hard skills (scaling from an MVP to a fully featured, metric'd, CI/CD'd operational product or service pillar, as you're never on long enough engagements to actually own something and are almost always just making prototypes) to soft skills (making, defending and owning Testing communication skills (I put this into your format above :) ) Q: A key part of being an effective product manager is high quality communication across multiple stakeholders, up, down and across. Hello and thanks for posting! Please read the posting guidelines on the sub’s etiquette page before you ask for help:. Evidence of thinking like a PM - Any opportunities to build something yourself, or if you work in another function, showing how you would think like a product manager. Hey all, I'm about to start recruiting for a pretty technical data product manager to help manage an internal product that's something like a data as a platform or at least a data integration platform that powers a lot of the customer facing products we are building. that would be useful for non-technical PMs and would help them communicate with development team more effectively. Tech PMs most commonly manage a tech part of a bigger product like some microservices or a product that is purely technical in itself. If a product manager is championing the product/customer, then I'm championing the engineering team. And even those non progressive IT companies have project managers. TPM can be technical product manager (Amazon and other non-tech/retail companies have roles like this), which is generally for a backend technical service (think AWS services). Retail employee, retail manager, assistant manager at the “company store” near our main HQ campus, retail ops role (corporate function on the main campus), associate product manager for the mobile point of sale app team (where his retail experience was useful to the PM role even though he had a lot to learn about being a PM), sr PM. It was all over the place from what I saw with blockchain and chatbot PM’s. I was wondering what people’s experience was with these different titles and how helpful is the experience in the technical role. Currently, she’s a Senior Technical Product Manager at AWS Backup, a fully-managed data protection service that enables AWS customers to centralize and automate the back up of data across AWS services in the cloud as well as on-premises using the AWS Storage Gateway. if you're a Product Manager for Anthos (Google's Kubernetes platform), then you will need to know the entire stack of Kubernetes (networking, storage, . Hey guys! Do you know any books or at least articles that cover fundamental principles of modern software development. This is likely one of the most well trod paths into Product Management: Product Manager (PM) internship programs - Schools have direct pipelines into Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, VMWare, etc. I’ve worked with ‘non technical’ technical managers and technical-technical and the technical managers with the tech background are always infinitely more effective and efficient in this role. To me, this is in two folds: 1) how PMs utilize AI to do their jobs better and 2) how PMs define AI products. There is no one source of truth obviously, but with YT, people's personal blogs, slack channels, etc. Severance was great, though. Personally I've kept up with coding regardless of what job I've done for personal projects and I'd be equal to an L6 swe. "Product Management is the art and science of building the right product for the right people. And to be honest, I'm not exactly experienced in Product Management. However, I want to continue on with the path of product management and further advance my career. And then do mock interviews to practice. It was helpful to walk through the fundamentals of being a product manager and required us to do a group project. Censor your personal information for your own safety, Technical knowledge (if any) - Showcase your technical knowledge (coding languages, projects/portfolio, etc. " These all share many real question examples from interviews. caveat: product managers are not project managers. Product demos for customers, POC’s, answering tons of internal questions, supporting customers, working on product deals, product roadmaps, slide decks for the product, guiding vision for product, etc. There are a couple things on the skills that can be trimmed. Also got laid off in under 18 months when they did a massive re-org and eliminated my 1,200 person division. At least that's what I've encountered. But to some degree I think the difficulty of executive leadership is a self-perpetuating thing. However, if you are looking to get into an executive role from a product management position there are generally two tracks, one for individual contributor product management (PM, Senior PM, Principal PM, Senior Principal PM) and one for the management of product management Hey Product managers, What has been your top learning on the topic of product management in 2022? Please include specific links where possible (links to tweets/threads, podcast episodes, YT videos, books, newsletter edition, articles) When a less technical Product person works best is when they are basically the customer for the tech team. A few appear to be line managers who do line management activities in addition to product management ones. Hello. I have been in a “Product Manager” role for just under a year. Those guys worked crazy hours. ) or skillsets required (E. However, I have zero technical knowledge which makes me so overwhelmed when it comes to technical solutions. you can stitch together a nice curriculum that doesn't require 500 bucks per year and a private coach at $100/hr. What’s the best way to get into Project Management / Product Owner / Technical Program Management, with little experience in all - while also not being able to make a lateral move due to being unemployed? (I know those three are all different and that I should pick one but I’m interested in all three. I can see how a technical product manager could be useful. These skills are often specific to the product or industry and require a certain level of technical expertise. Product manager here. Think leadership, failure, success, innovation, overcoming challenges personal stories) technical -- who knows how in depth they will go but I bet it's not much. There are certainly scenarios where having technical skills can be beneficial, but PM is a discipline that covers a wide array of sub-disciplines; technical product management is only one of them and it is not the "right way" to do PM. I am confused between the NOC codes : 20012 (Computer & Information Systems Managers), and 21221 (Business Systems Specialists) for my PR application. We had a few non tech ones, and they were not much use, other than helping with Jira and scrum bureaucracies and generic team activities. , in hardware or data centers), or coordinating cross-company initiatives like "every team needs to implement X compliance feature" or remediation work. Keep it high level: as a product manager, you aren't expected to how your endpoints are secured, but you are expected to be able to describe the major architectural components of a system and how is processed. The best Technical Product Managers have several years of experience in a software and/or devops role, 1-2 years experience in some kind of customer-facing role, and some experience in business admin (cost ops, P&L, margin management, etc. I am a software product manager (Designation : Technical Product Manager). I don't think it ever really makes sense to have a non technical person in a management role in an organization that makes a technical product. Part marketer, part engineer, part sales, and part project manager, the product manager needs to understand the business, Abstract questions about architecture and describing how you would go about building something to solve a specific problem they give you. I got promoted to product manager because the company went through a 'reorg' and I ended up having a new role. Now within Product you could split it up by people who focus on growth, people who focus on core features or people who focus on “behind the scenes” / no direct UX touch point “platforms”. Giving them a quick overview of if something is feasible or not from a technical point of view, etc. No, I do not believe it is essential to be in product management to get to an executive position (in any company). I have had the opportunity to work at Amazon (Marketplace) and AWS as a product manager. I come a swe background and I've held engineering manager, solutions architect and technical product manager roles. Additionally, it appears that finding a position as a Product Owner may be more straightforward in my case. Get the Reddit app Scan this QR code to download the app now Product Management Members Online • iamazondeliver. Surprise surprise, what ended up happening was a wholesale transfer of my manager's duties to me. I moved into product management and my peers now think about second and third order effects. Potential topics include breaking into Product Management, PMing at Amazon, building launching, and scaling technical products, pitching product ideas, or anything that takes your fancy. I now understand why he left. Some places lump this work If you want to become more technical, do something technical. Some of the hard skills that are important for product managers include: Yeah - my SO works at a large manufacturer of HVAC equipment and works with product managers, but I sense they really do project management but focus a lot on the cost aspects in addition to timeline. Maybe a course on Reforge or other program about Strategy can help you. I worked in it for 6 months before moving to another role as a product manager. Learning For example, the tech bar for software design for a Sr Technical Program Manager (TPM) is similar to some software engineers. ADMIN MOD Technical Product Managers . Product marketing is a more of a straightforward marketing strategy role. Project managers essentially set timelines and meetings and assign tasks. Director of Product Management > CEO Note: Upon further preparation, I realize that as this role more specifically deals with technical product management (TPM). Almost everyone I know has too. But, that's not universal. But there are two things you should be doing that I think don't get enough focus: You're not a technical product manager. You are not alone. I've been a pm for 3 years so can include tools that I've used (ex jira), some technical skills (ex html), and data related things (ex sql, tableau, amplitude), but this doesn't actually represent the skills I have as a pm. Could be a work culture thing but my understanding of solutions engineer is more towards the architecture of those solutions you In many cases a product manager would not be included in 2018 SOC occupation 13-1082 Project Management Specialists. Four rounds for both. Mar 9, 2024 · Here are some strategies that can help address the challenges of product management: Stakeholder management and alignment: Establish a clear product vision and strategy that aligns with business goals. Maybe expand some of the acronyms out, leaving one or two of the most obvious ones. Look Coursera, the program from University of Virginia about Product Management, it's a good course and good university. 5 years at current company Title: Technical Product Manager Education: PhD, MA, and BA in the humanities Comp: $110,000 + 5-15% bonus + no equity Comp should be getting a slight bump next month. On the other hand, the path of product management caught my eye, where starting as a Product Owner seems to be a viable first step towards advancing in this domain over time. Classification principles 1 and 2 for Reference: The SOC covers all occupations in which work is performed for pay or profit, including work performed in family-operated enterprises by family members who are not directly compensated. Only in our industry, we allow Software Engineering Teams to be led by people coming from completely different areas, that have absolutely zero technical skills, to understand the scope and development time required to execute the business requirements they are asking the Team with. You'll see that resume looks quite simple with its one-page, one-column layout. A lot of tech companies actually call this role program management or technical program management (TPM). Knowing system design and architecture 100% helps, coding itself not so much. I’m a technical product manager, specifically in mobile game development. Location: Remote (based out of Texas) Type of Company: Private YOE: 5 total, ~4 as a PM, 1. Understanding the system architecture goes a long way in product management. In conclusion, the roles & responsibilities of a Product Manager will forever be needed in organizations no matter how 'self-organizing' the Especially in startups, especially working for people, including in product roles, who lack proper technical & managerial training. To all the technical product managers out there, what are some of the technical skills you utilise in your daily job and what do you use them for? For example, writing SQL queries. I've been at organizations that ask for an associate product manager but lack strong product culture. But, the people management side of things would not be me. My daily proceedings involve dealing with Tech/Design/Growth teams to get things done. They were mostly focused on delivering reports and estimations to upper management. I am excited to share my knowledge in the Product space that I have gained over the course of 10 years with the product school reddit community Feel free to ask me anything from interviewing to vision led product management and everything in between. Sorry that application didn’t work out, best of luck on the next one. If your product concerns a technical task, you need to be a technical PM to understand what the heck the user is trying to do. Could be a work culture thing but my understanding of solutions engineer is more towards the architecture of those solutions you Vietnam Private 4 yoe = 3 in customer success + 1 in PM Product Manager I BA in Management, Communication Studies (double major) $21,000 base, $1,700 annual bonus Reply reply cocaineguru Hard skills in product management refer to the technical and analytical skills that are required to perform the duties of a product manager. Happy to share my learnings and experiences. I’ve spent the past 7 years working with a backend team on multiple massive ETLs and a complete server re-architecture. PMPs are also for project management and not needed for Product. So, in that case, you don't need much (or at all) design/business/marketing knowledge, but you need to know more on the technical aspects. I'm basically gonna try to make my mandate clear and priorities or else I'll leave since I'm not a magician. I know some (maybe all) of the FAANGs have Product Management Office, and levels of Product Managers starting with Associate and going up. Even if you transition back it'll be a good thing to experience. Over the past year, I've had a lot of success gradually moving our EPD org from siloed teams built around tech stack (Design, Front End, API-layer, Data, etc) into mission-focused, end-to-end teams led by a PM+TechLead+Designer. So I just got a Product Manager Intern position at Amazon (in London). I'm not sure how different handling this will be compared to a "general" product manager internship interview. Product management sits at the nexus of business, user experience, and technology. I enjoy working on challenging enterprise problems at AWS. Technical product manager vs product manager I am currently hired as a "technical product manager" - or at least that's the name of the position on my contract. Very much. true. When I started as Product Owner and next position as Product Manager, the program helped so much. the obvious one is going from product manager to product leader (Group PM, Director, VP etc) like others said switching to the b2b relationships side (sales, pre-sales, customer success) or the marketing side (product marketing, growth) could also be a good bet I agree with what you said wholeheartedly. Working with them to plan what dev is going to work on what, and when. Product Manager: Owns a product like, say, the consumer experience on a shopping website. As an ex-PM at Amazon, a tech PM tends to be more focused on technical / development nuances of the product per se you are expected to know more technical lingo and risk assessment or mitigation (be it from a programming or software design/ development per se standpoint) a non Tech PM tends to be more strategy focused and more “traditional As a product manager I had a similar wage but I did soon after made the jump to senior PM. Product Manager > PMO Manager > Director of Product Management > Sr. However, the position is part of the engineering team, not product management. I give this feedback to upper management pretty much anytime I've had an institutional meeting over the last 20 years. The personalities and type of people in those roles —often either non-doers and those without scientific based thinking (for lack of a better term) — seem to be a source of the unproductive politics and risk aversion. This is also comparable to my reports, no difference between men and women. I believe the technical details are best left to others. Started a couple of months ago on a B2C product that has been built with internal business needs in mind instead of user focus. General rule of thumb is it about doubles each management level up m4 should be about 1. Product management sucks because you're constantly asking other job functions to do. Either have a delivery manager (takes care of tech discovery, day-to-day project execution, cross-team technical stakeholder management) on each x-func product team or one / two technical program managers for key cross-team initiatives working across the teams. It encompasses understanding what to build, why to build it, and how to position it. the three main things are this: I'm a fairly technical person, but even I'm getting a bit of acronym overload here. While these roles have similar titles they are actually quite different (though I suppose it depends on the company and team you're on). I’ve been at Microsoft for a few years and while here have worked on a few products including Windows, Azure and Microsoft teams. Create a website in Wix and use a bunch of dynamic pages. Product management is a cross-functional role requiring strategy, technical, and design chops. Also, lots of MBAs are put on teams without a core product and your role is more program management. We would also see situations where existing roles absorb the role & responsibility of a Product manager for example how the Product Manager role has basically absorbed the Project Manager role. If you've got any specific questions, feel free to ask! Depends on the reason for layoffs, typically it's easier to offshore engineering roles and even onshore technical knowledge is out there ready to hire and fire as you need it whereas a good product manager has in depth business knowledge that takes a long time to build. This is a safe and open environment dedicated to the promotion of project management methodologies, with the purpose of fostering and promoting free discussion about all things project management. Do you think one can get the experience of an Amazon product manager without "technical" skill set? I’m a technical PM but would recommend focusing on what makes any product successful as the principles apply to both technical and non technical roles. Commercial Awareness (know your vertical, competitors, market, customers, product use cases, etc down pat). Tell me about a recent feature you delivered and how you went about communicating the plan and enablement for success. . You’re either a PM or you’re not. When a less technical Product person works best is when they are basically the customer for the tech team. It has huge technical debt and stakeholders want to keep piling shit to it. 6 etc. ). ) I think AI is definitely going to change the landscape of product management drastically in the coming years. Day to day varies greatly based on the lifecycle point of the aircraft. You frequently see people who are promoted to "VP of Product Management. Product is Product is Product. Still no coding, but domain expertise may be relevant, and your users (who you need to understand) may be developers. They try to use the software and they say, "I need to be able to reticulate these splines!" and then the tech team sorts out the details and comes back to the Product person who says, "It takes too many clicks to reticulate splines. I’m a product designer with 7 years of experience and pivoted to product management 1 week ago and maybe it’s too soon to say much but I really like to be involved in the business and user side of things too. I did a small stint organizing a cyber program across a conglomerate. Product design is a typical category of interview questions, along with behavioral, execution, etc. Start a blog on your experiences as a product manager. To give a quick background about me, I've interned at hedge funds, family offices, recently just finished an internship at a VC fund and aside from that just worked on a couple semi-successful startups. product sense (product design, product improvement) execution /analytical questions (metrics, A/B testing, estimation) behavioral (tell me about a time you _____. This is common in nonsense frameworks like SAFe. 8 and m5 should be 3. May 10, 2025 · In this guide, discover how to shape your resume as a technical product manager. For point 1, I wouldn't necessarily view it as a promotion from SWE to Product Manager, it's more a sideways move I'm sure this varies a lot depending on the engineering culture of a company though. They shifted the language to better reflect that the name is an industry standard, though. Ask me anything about product management. you ultimately lead by influencing the people you work with or who have vested interests in what you’re working on). Not many leaders realise that to get proper product results it's absolutely not enough to hire a product manager. I took the role of half product half development. brvtrjuarqbnaotimnmjxgczambskdhjfyqyzigtexmxpvbhjy