Good Product Manager’s help generate revenue by creating features and products that solve problems that people are willing to pay for
Conventional wisdom, and most job descriptions for product managers, say that candidates should have a “BA/BS in Computer Science or related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.” The latter usually means a side project you can point to and say “I built that.” There are notable exceptions to the rule, but being technical is still more of a must-have than a nice-to-have.
Recently, companies have started to reframe this requirement as “Product managers should be technical enough.”
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Product management is as much art as it is science, psychology as it is statistics, big picture as it is the smallest of details. The day-to-day responsibilities, and technical bar, varies widely depending on the industry and size of the company, as well as the part of the product you work on. At the same time, the qualities that make someone a universally respected PM rarely have to do with technical expertise
tl;dr summary
- Start from a place of curiosity
- Appreciate the creativity inherent in engineering
- Set aside time early on to pick an engineer’s brain
- Synthesize what you’ve learned into a shareable format
- Use feedback and bug reports to pattern match different issues
- Focus on core concepts
- Develop a thick skin
- Build credibility by figuring out how you can add immediate value
- Dig into the data
- Do the blocking and tackling work that keeps trains moving
- Lean into your experiences and strengths
- Provide a shared framework for decision-making
- Take the time to give your team broader context