Product Management as a Career
Description of the Job
A Product Manager recognizes a customer's need and compiles a group of individuals to create a product to fulfill this need. Then, they will supervise their team as they develop their product. A successful Product Manager should collaborate with professionals from many different backgrounds, such as engineers, designers, and investors. Product Managers must also be highly receptive to user’s feedback and must utilize this information to guide the improvement of their product.
Fast Facts
- Number of hours per weekGenerally 45-50, but can be 60-80+ during peaks
- Average starting pay$81k nationally, $108k in Bay Area
- Amount of travel requiredMay be required, depends on project or company
Roles & Responsibilities
- Establish the product’s vision, as well as the strategy and roadmap
- Communicate with the target market and articulate timely feedback.
- Maintain close collaboration with engineering, sales, marketing, and support teams and make adjustments to reach proper standards.
- Take on a leadership role within the team
- Organize “beta test” or “pilot programs” and relay user feedback to the team.
- Analyze strategies and progress and utilizes these to improve the product
Skills Needed
- Strong Leadership Skills: Product managers are responsible for guiding and observing their team members. Therefore, it is crucial that they have strong leadership skills and can adequately direct their workers.
- Moderate Business Knowledge: To ensure that the company’s product is profitable, a Product manager should have some business knowledge.
- Strong Networking Skills: Building a team of professionals can only be done through thorough networking skills.
- Strong Communication Skills: Product Managers must be able to communicate their needs, as well as any issues accurately.
- Moderate Operational Knowledge: Product Managers may often have to direct members of their company to do a job in a specific way, or they may have to do it themselves. Understanding essential software such as Excel or Microsoft Word is advantageous to a Product Manager.
- Mastery of a Specific Domain: A Product Manager should understand the product area. Therefore, having expertise in the business and the target market of the product is an invaluable skill.
Steps to Enter The Field
- A bachelor’s degree is often required to be a Product Manager. Larger companies may expect a more advanced degree.
- Generally, Product Managers either come from a technical or business background, because Product Managers work at the intersection of the two fields.
- Technical degrees (computer science, data analytics, etc.) probably give people the highest chances of landing PM roles.
- Business degrees are also good options for PM roles, but they should gain some technical knowledge either through classes or online resources.
- Product Manager roles typically require multiple years of experience, but many companies offer Associate Product Manager positions that new graduates can get (although they’re highly competitive)
- Some universities have Product Management clubs to build the required skills and gain experience
- Product Management interviews are intense and require a lot of preparation, so interested people must practice heavily (resources below)
- Personal projects can be another excellent way to stand out in an application process. Creating a website from scratch, managing a team, or developing an app can show problem-solving and other product-management-related skills.
Landscape of the Field & Companies in the Field
- Practically every corporate company has Product Managers.
- Product Manager roles at tech companies are generally the most prestigious, especially at large tech giants, such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, PayPal, Microsoft, Uber, Adobe, and others.
- When considering which company to work for as a PM, one should consider which industry or product interests them the most
- Startups also typically have Product Managers, which are highly coveted. Product Managers at startups will face different challenges than those at a larger company and may need different skill sets.
External Resources to Learn More & Develop Skills
- Product Buds: An organization that helps aspiring product managers gain skills to land PM roles. They offer various services, such as workshops, networking events, protothons (pitch a new product idea to a panel of industry leaders), and much more. There are currently 5,500+ members in their Slack community
- Hubspot: This website contains a list of excellent online product management courses, alongside a description of each.
- Product Stack: A community of organizations for product managers to share their stories and answer questions that individuals might have. It includes webinars, videos, and other resources related to product management. While most of the advice may apply to any industry, discussions are mostly technology-based.
- Product School: Another community that aims to help product managers gain skills needed for their job. Examples of content include the latest UX trends, marketing strategies, and online events.
- Websites to help with interview preparation:
- Product School’s Ultimate List of Product Manager Interview Questions
- Overview of the PM interview process and resources/tips to prepare
- Free Product Manager Interview Preparation course
- PM Exercises’ Interview Prep Course
- Codecademy: an online interactive platform that offers coding classes in 12 different programming languages including Python, Java, SQL, C++, HTML, CSS, and more. They offer a free introductory course for each of these languages, but more advanced classes cost money.
- Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG): A blog founded by a product management veteran named Marty Cagan. It aims to share his experience and the lessons he learned along his journey as a product manager
Related Careers
- Product Marketing Manager, Software Engineer, UX Researcher, Product Lead, Project Management
Informational Interviews
Jack Bedard
Company Name: Cisco
Title: Product Management Specialist
Years of Experience: 1
Biography
Jack Bedard is a Product Management Specialist at Cisco. He graduated from Santa Clara University in 2020 with a Bachelor's degree in Economics and was on the Men's Rowing team. In college, Jack worked at Fireflies.ai in Business development, interned at Cisco as a Business Analyst, and was an Investment Analyst at OCA Ventures.