How to break into product management
A primer on how to break into product management
The oft repeated question on multiple forums has been “how do I break into product”. I created a non-profit called advancing women in product around the topic. I break down product transitions for entry level professionals and experienced professionals.
I have two degrees in computer science and I started my career as a software engineer. After working in retail, edu tech, and finally an IoT engineer deploying proof of concepts for multiple verticals, two things happened — I gained deep insights about multiple domains, which in turn helped me build great user empathy, identify new products and improvements which led me into this new role then (in 2007) called product management.
What is product management?
Product Management is the art of getting your product built from inception to launch that helps achieve a certain goal. Good product managing is an art that mixes influence, business skills, researching skills, marketing, sales, engineering and design. Being a master at least 3 of those skills would make you a good product manager. Being a master of 5 of those skills makes you a great product manager.
What kind of people become product managers?
The product management function falls into two categories — improving an existing product, or coming up with a brand new product. Product managers that are successful in understanding an existing product, identifying customer pain points, listening to customer demands, conducting market research, analyzing gaps, looking at future trends and recommending new improvements succeed in building one to one hundred products. Product managers that do out of the box thinking, are more strategic, stay abreast of new product trends, borrow ideas from adjacent fields and are able to scale a product from zero to one succeed in building new products. In both cases, the art of building customer empathy, great design insights, good domain knowledge and good communication skills are important. Great products are built through diverse product managers, some of the best product managers are non-technical and can come from a variety of backgrounds.
I am a mid-career professional. How do I transition into product management?
A lot of engineers, designers, sales and product marketing people have the desire late (5–6 years) in their careers to want to become product managers.
There are two types of product manager entry points —
1. Demonstrate that you can already do the job well.
2. Demonstrate that you have either the skill of product management down or you have deep insights of the domain you are looking into transition in.
I outline a few best ways to transition into product management for a mid-career professional:
Transition into a product role within your existing company — I find that it's much easier for someone in your company to take a chance on your background when you have already proved your mettle to them in one capacity. Building trust in your ability to deliver on results is often a first step and that may make it easier for someone to offer your first product management break. I got my first break by covering for someone on their sabbatical. I was already an engineer developing the product. When the PM of a nearby team left on a 3 month sabbatical, the manager let me cover part time for the role. I did a stellar job in the first 90 days, and when the PM returned, they created and offered me a PM role.
Transition into a non-product role within your company — The roles that are similar to product, but are not quite product management are program management, product design and engineering. As you interface more and more with product managers, you develop a sense of trust, you start to understand what qualities are needed to be a good pm whether it is writing a good requirements doc, or running a sprint and you can slowly transition from there into product management.
Start a company or a side project — With tools like shopify, webflow, mix panel, it's easy to create or start your own side project and company. By forcing yourself to become the CEO, you can build demonstrated experience in your domain of choice without having to wait for someone to give you a chance, and show that experience in your resume to parlay it into a desirable role in a company.
Get an MBA — I found that there was varying advice on how to transition into product management and a lot of conflicting advice on whether an MBA was actually a necessity to become a product manager. An MBA offers you a theoretical foundation in business fundamentals - understanding market dynamics, pricing, marketing, sales and leadership. All skills that make a good product manager but are not required. Companies like Amazon and Google have programs specifically to let MBA students without product backgrounds to get their first breaks as Senior PMs. Again, it isn’t absolutely necessary to get an MBA, but it's important to understand that it can strengthen your foundation in becoming a good PM.
Become a product fanboy/girl - This goes back to my first point about demonstrating your depth and insights. If you love using a particular product, even for your own hobbies or side projects, and identify pain points that the current product does not solve and impacts a large subset of users. Consider reaching out to the founders or the product folks in the company with your ideas and solutions. When hiring next, hiring managers are looking for a deep passion for the product and chances are that may be the springboard you are looking for.
It all boils down to answering the question — can you hit the ground running? Very rarely do PMs have the time to mentor other PMs through best practices, so the more you can demonstrate that you can get the job done with no help, the higher your chances are of transitioning into a PM role.
I am a college student thinking about graduating soon. I would love to be a PM. What should I do?
College students with courses in product design, sociology, computer science have a higher chance of succeeding in product management. If you are still a college student, considering taking a few of the technical courses in engineering, design and business.
Do side projects and internships while you are still in school at top companies and get the title of product management intern on your resume.
Start a company with your friends. It doesn’t have to become a multi-million dollar enterprise, but starting a company as a serious business, will help you hone in on the soft skills of influencing people, understanding customers, and developing prioritization skills. Hiring managers or recruiters will be impressed with your initiative and entrepreneurial skills.
Join an RPM or APM program — Google, Facebook and many other companies hire junior PMs and these are great entry points to first try out the role of becoming a PM.
Read a lot — There are a zillion podcasts, newsletters, medium articles, youtube videos on product management. While the theory of product management is great, it's important to put those skills into practice. Pair up with an engineer and a designer, and build a product. Even the exercise of a product that already exists will get your started.
Become an expert in your favorite industry. Having intimate knowledge in one industry, understanding the landscape, competition and having deep insights will all make you desirable when you go to seek a PM job in that industry.
As always, please write to me at yrdeepika at gmail dot com. If you found this useful, please subscribe for the next item on this series.