How to Become a Product Manager in 2022

Join online communities, attend local or virtual meet-ups and events, and connect with fellow aspiring product managers on your course. In addition to honing essential soft skills and picking up some product-specific knowledge, start to formalize your learning with a course. There are plenty of free courses available online, allowing you to dip your toe in and brush up on the basics before committing to a more comprehensive program. It doesn’t matter what jobs you’ve done before or what you may have studied previously. As long as you focus on learning the right skills—and transferring the skills you already have—you can make it as a product manager. We spoke with three product managers about their careers and how to get started in the field.

• Some people think of Steve Jobs and other tech luminaries as lone geniuses.
• For me, the really great product managers are one in a million.
• The soft skills that set the most successful Product Managers above their peers can take longer to hone – but fortunately, these can be developed while working in a wide range of fields.
• Product management sits at the intersection of business, user experience , and technology.
• They’re the people who can do all of the above and set incredible product visions.

If there’s an existing product management department, speak to your manager to discuss potential opportunities for an internal role change. This is a great way to get started in product management as you’ve already proven yourself in the company and are familiar with the product.

step 1Learn Product Management Fundamentals

Generally, salaries are quite competitive — particularly in technical fields. Further, product managers must develop a deep analytical knowledge of their business and the market. They must be tuned into consumer needs and desires to create a product that will stand out in a crowded market. Without this valuable insight, product teams may lose touch with market trends, inadvertently develop obsolete or otherwise dated products, and ultimately fall behind their competitors. At a high level, product managers oversee the creation and distribution of new products; facilitating their full life cycle and keeping internal development processes focused and efficient.

The product manager and the politician both get an allotted amount of resources. Each role requires the practitioner to make the best use of those resources to achieve a larger goal, knowing that he or she will never be able to satisfy everyone’s needs. On the flip side, product managers at smaller organizations spend less time getting everyone to agree, but more time doing the hands-on work that comes with defining a vision and seeing it through. The confusion about what a product manager is likely stems from the recency of the role. Where practitioners of more established crafts, like design and engineering, have been able to segment themselves by their specialization, product managers are still defining what the role should be.

Product Manager

That said, having a basic technical understanding of what is under the hood and mastery of thetools that PMs useis definitely important for the role, anywhere it is. Colin Lernell has more to say about these necessary skillshere. Good news, product management positions have only increased in demand in the last decade.

Which often leaves them open to consider the next move in their career. For this entry-level product role, hiring managers are looking for candidates who understand what product management is. Candidates must also have a clear interest in and passion for the customer. This post will look at six typical roles a product manager might find themselves in throughout their product management career. Get a clear picture of the product manager’s role and responsibilities, tips to rocking the job, and more. After gaining an education in the field, new product managers should strive to hone their freshly acquired skills, and a great way to achieve this is to take on projects. Agile Manifesto — which has become the basis for software development — and the methods and frameworks used to make products using that principle.

How to Become a Product Manager (No Experience Needed)

The upside is that no two days are ever quite the same; there’s never a dull day at work. If you aspire toward product management, you better be ready to solve difficult problems, come up with ingenious strategies, and work with other teams to deliver the product. The upside is that product managers have access to strong career prospects and high salaries. In other words, at this point on the product manager career path, your product really becomes the product organization itself.

• If you can, ask to shadow a UX designer, web developer, or even a product manager within your organization—or to at least pick their brains for half an hour over coffee or on a Zoom call.
• On the flip side, product managers at smaller organizations spend less time getting everyone to agree, but more time doing the hands-on work that comes with defining a vision and seeing it through.
• The good news is that you’re aiming to become a Product Manager, the hard skills are rather straightforward to learn, though they will require dedicated study.
• We spoke with three product managers about their careers and how to get started in the field.
• But you’ll need to have had some professional experience that demonstrates particular skills.
• Think of ways to frame your strengths as a narrative, walking employers through your process to demonstrate how you approach your work.